WD credits staff for turnaround after floods

"WD Thailand’s staff have changed their level of thinking. The recovery has proved WD employees have exceptional passion and perseverance. We did everything to make the plant equal or better than the pre-flood condition," Sampan Silapanad, vice president for magnetic head operations, said recently.

WD’s core values are passion, action, productivity, perseverance, innovation, integrity and 2.0 (teamwork).

WD Thailand was one of thousands of factories drowned in the flood waters that came last October, which caused a shortage of about 30 per cent of hard disk drives (HDDs) in the global market. About 60-70 per cent of the HDD supply chain was located in the flooded areas.

At a seminar on "The Roles of Leadership in Managing Unexpected Situations", Sampan said several lessons were learned by WD Thailand in the three to four months following the floods.

At the beginning of the flooding crisis on October 15, WD’s team decided to give up protecting the plant from the high-level floods. A blackout hit the plant the same day.

After discussing with the US headquarters at night, WD Thailand decided to start its recovery activities at the flooded plant the next day.

Meetings were held and hundreds of hours were spent on discussions.

"We found our strong intention to protect customers as the key for the plant recovery. The key leading indicators were not only availability, but also comparable or even better quality and reliability," Sampan said.

WD Thailand’s key objectives were established then. First, time was of the essence for recovery. Initially, the picture on the time required for recovery was vague. However, as the recovery progressed, the picture became clearer.

Second, WD Thailand kept every employee on the payroll and paid 75 per cent of salaries to all 38,000 staff during the recovery. Third, it utilised its facilities at other locations to make up the lost volume.

Trust was important in the critical situation.

"We trust all of our staff. Many of their homes were flooded, but they commuted to work during the recovery," he said.

Western Digital said production at one of its Thai facilities restarted on November 30, 46 days after the catastrophic floods hit the plant.

"Many people fired questions at us," Sampan said. Will WD move its manufacturing base away from Thailand? Will WD fight on? Most importantly, how did WD’s headquarters look at this catastrophic event?

"As far as I’m concerned, I give the Thailand team a 101-per-cent score on the recovery effort," he said.

About 2,500 WD Presidential Awards, which are given out globally every year, all came to Thailand for fiscal 2011.

"One of the lessons is that we trust every employee and take good care of them. And, this is the result," he said.

"We hope that Thais will learn from this experience and prepare to deal with any unexpected challenge," he added.