To add to the litany of woes following Japan's worst postwar natural disaster, midsize manufacturers of vital automobile and electronic parts are struggling to put their damaged factories back into operation.
To add to the litany of woes following Japan's worst postwar natural disaster, midsize manufacturers of vital automobile and electronic parts are struggling to put their damaged factories back into operation.
The companies, all highly competitive, used to boast high market shares. They supplied a wide range of parts for both domestic and overseas manufacturers. But their production capabilities have been severely disrupted by the March 11 mega-earthquake and tsunami.
Toyo Knife Co.'s Tagajo plant is located in the industrial zone along the Shiogama port in Sendai, which was engulfed by towering tsunami.
Containers and trucks carried by powerful waves smashed into the plant, destroying part of the factory.
As a result, the company is unable to start repairing its precision machine tools, numbering more than 100, in the factory.
Toshimitsu Sugawara, the factory chief, is desperate to resume output at the facility.
"We want to retrieve steel materials that are still usable and deliver them to our customers after machining them at another facility," he said.
The Tagajo factory is the company's flagship facility for the manufacture of wood-carving blades. It accounts for 30 percent of global supply.
If the plant remains idle for a protracted period, many wood-processing companies, including plywood makers in countries like Malaysia, will be affected.
Ishinomaki, one of the hardest-hit cities, is home to Horio Seisakusho Co., a maker of cast components, which controls 30 percent of the world market for parts used to manufacture optical pickups, vital components of Blu-ray Disc recorders.
The company's manufacturing plant escaped the raging tsunami, but returning its operations to pre-quake levels is proving to be difficult.
Although it is a small factory, with only 52 workers, it also cranks out competitive components for car audio equipment. Horio sells its products mainly to parts suppliers for major automobile and electronics makers in and outside Japan.
Since the quake forced production to be halted, many makers of finished products have inquired when the company can start delivering products again.
However, it took 10 days after the quake just to restore electricity and other key infrastructure. The company's work force has also been affected by the disaster as some employees lost everything in the disaster.
After two weeks of hard work, the firm finally resumed partial production on Thursday.
Since some machine tools were damaged and are still not properly calibrated, the production of sophisticated metal molds, which requires accuracy to one-thousandth of a millimeter, has been halted.
The machine tools cannot be fixed without specialist engineers, but damaged roads and a severe gasoline shortage have combined to delay the arrival of such engineers at the facility.
Even though a 2003 earthquake off northern Miyagi Prefecture destroyed half of the factory, the company managed to resume production in just three days.
"This time, the damage to the factory was not as serious," said President Masahiko Horio. "But the area's infrastructure as a whole has been paralyzed."
This is apparently not a situation that the company can fix on its own.
The combined economic output of the three hard-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima constitutes only 4 percent of the nation's total.
But the damage suffered by the parts makers in the region is bound to have a major effect on the entire manufacturing sector because they supply many essential components of finished products.
The manufacturers of finished products are making an effort to help the battered suppliers recover from the damage.
For instance, Isuzu Motors Ltd., which has suspended domestic vehicle production since the quake, has dispatched a team of a dozen or so skilled engineers to TDF Corp., a maker of cast components based in Murata, a town in Miyagi Prefecture.
TDF's production was halted by a quake-caused fire that wreaked havoc with facilities and equipment central to the core heat treatment process.
The company controls over 60 percent of the domestic market for front wheel axles for large vehicles, its mainstay products. Isuzu, a major truck manufacturer, purchases most of its front wheel axles from TDF.
Unless TDF resumes production, "We cannot manufacture our vehicles," an Isuzu official said.
The supplies from about 50 of Isuzu's parts makers, including TDF, have been disrupted by the disaster, according to the company.
The situation is much the same with other carmakers. Toyota Motor Corp. has also dispatched its employees to affected suppliers to help them resume operations.
(This article was written by Daisuke Fukuma and Takashi Ebuchi.)