More production suspension announced, including at Western Digital

 The flooding is causing problems with the region's infrastructure, including transportation and utilities, and has resulted in the inundation of some supplier facilities and employee homes. The company is gratified to report that its approximately 37,000 Thailandbased employees are deemed safe at this time, it said in a statement.
 The company is working with its suppliers to maximise throughput and availability of parts in order to best meet the needs of its customers.
 In the quarter ending July 1, Western Digital shipped approximately 54 million hard drives from its facilities in Thailand and Malaysia, with approximately 60 percent coming from its Thailand sites. The company's Thailand operations source much of its supply of components from local suppliers. 
 Production has been suspended on a temporary basis to protect its employees and its facilities, which are still operational, and equipment against water ingress.
 The company indicated that conditions associated with the continued flooding are evolving quickly and the extent of the impact on its operations in Thailand cannot yet be fully determined. The company will provide further updates on the situation, including on its investment community conference call on Wednesday, Oct 19.
 Floods are affecting the facilities of several foreign companies in Thailand, as Ayutthaya is the home to automotive and electronics parts manufacturing. Other companies affected include two Ajinomoto units, Sony’s digitalcamera plant, a Mitsubishi Motors Corp auto plant, Hitachi’s refrigeratorcompressor factory, Toshiba’s two plants making microchips and hard disks, Nippon Meat Packers’ two units, Pioneer’s two autoelectronics facilities, and Hoya’s lens plant.
Others are KCE Technology and Stars Microelectronics (Thailand), Stars Microelectronics (Thailand) and ON Semiconductor.