Waterco recovers from Malaysian fire

Waterco has recovered quickly from a fire at the Far East warehouse at Sungei Buloh. The warehouse was damaged by a fire on the night of 24th August, 2007.

 

The product area was largely unharmed, but finished goods and raw materials in the warehouse were affected by the fire, smoke and water from the fire fighters. The machinery for filament winding was unaffected, but some other machinery was damaged by water.

 

Luckily, the Waterco Far East office was untouched and was running within three working days, with emergency power supplied by generators. Fortunately for Waterco, there was an empty factory across the road with nearly 9000m2 of floor-space, which they immediately rented. Production of a number of lines is expected to be disrupted until the factory can be rebuilt. However, Waterco immediately put in place a number of arrangements to get things back on track as quickly as possible, including the outsourcing of some production to Chinese and Australian facilities and outsourcing the injection moulds to plastic injection contractors.

 

Waterco has adequate Australian stock to meet current demand, while any immediate shortages have been covered by stock from Waterco USA and Waterco UK. In addition, Waterco Rydalmere has increased its manufacturing work force to meet local and overseas demand.

 

Waterco says that the building, inventory and disruption to business is insured, and they don’t expect cash flow or profitability to be materially affected at this stage. The company has informed its customers and will continue to provide accurate and timely information. In the meantime, customers can contact Waterco if they have specific queries or want the latest information. At the time of writing, the cause of the fire was still unclear.