How Toyota spent R236 million to prevent another flood of its South African factory

Toyota’s South African factory in Prospecton, Durban suffered devastating floods in April 2022 which took out millions of rands of machinery and wrote off 88% of the vehicles on site at the time.

It took over three months and collaborative efforts from the automaker’s domestic subsidiary and the head office in Japan to get the facility back into working order and it recommenced production in August of the same year.

Since then, Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) has spent in the region of R236 million to prevent the future reoccurrence of such a catastrophe, working closely with local government to achieve this goal.

At the company’s recent State of the Motoring Industry address, it detailed the measures it took to safeguard its Durban plant from another flood.

TSAM Prospecton plant April 2022 floods

Three lines of defence

Toyota’s flood mitigation interventions were classified into “three lines of defence” – the first of which focused on city infrastructure, the second on the peripherals of TSAM’s facility, and the third on the buildings.

For the first line, TSAM collaborated with the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) authorities to reinstate the road to the plant and move the overhead cables underground, as both were completely washed away during the 2022 floods following a breach of the Umlazi river bank.

As soon as it was safe to do so, the KZN municipality started work on these projects, and by 5 September 2023, the cables were relocated and the road construction was completed, but it was still covered with sand.

Three days later, the tarmac was fully laid, and on the 9th, the Ethekiwini mayor held the official opening ceremony of the road.

Regarding the second line of defence, TSAM invested R108 million to establish “proactive monitoring and maintenance systems” to prevent water ingress into the factory grounds.

This included installing an early-warning weather monitoring system, building canals around the perimeters, and upgrading the stormwater network.

For the last line of defence, a total of R128 million was spent on implementing 835 key interventions inside the facility which would be able to keep water out when, in the worst-case scenario, the canals and stormwater infrastructure failed.

This included constructing bund walls around the most important buildings and raising their entry doors further off the ground.

Should water still make its way past, TSAM also lifted vital equipment and machinery by 200mm off the surface so that the liquid wouldn’t damage them.

In recent weeks KZN was hit with another spate of torrential rains, and while large parts of the province experienced flooding to the point of being declared disaster areas, TSAM’s plant remained safe, dry, and importantly, operational.

“KZN is experiencing continued intense and disruptive rain, however, the measures that TSAM have implemented since 2022 have thus far been proving successful in mitigating the impact to its Durban operations,” said the company.