Serious damages to enterprises as well as residences and infrastructure resulted from the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. Important factories of the automobile, information technology, chemical, and other industries were located in the affected area. The nature of the damage was that there was significant damages to the building of enterprises located near the fault that caused the strong Earthquake. The geographical scope of damage to the enterprises was not very wide.The authors performed continuous research on the public announcements posted on the websites of the affected enterprises for several months, following up with news reports on damaged enterprises and on-site interviews. We found that a considerable number of enterprises supplied their products to their important customers from substitute sites to achieve their business continuity. On the other hand, many enterprises attained early on-the-spot recovery, which might be explained partly by the fact that recovery of essential utilities, particularly electricity and telecommunications, was relatively quick.The authors found many examples of effective utilization of the lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE). For example, some enterprises adopted the substitution strategy of business continuity management (BCM) that fulfills the responsibility to maintain supplies to the customers. Other enterprises that had experienced the GEJE avoided serious direct damage by having installed adequate earthquake countermeasures to their buildings and facilities.
Construction restrictions implemented in some coastal areas of Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture, after the Great East Japan Earthquake were necessary for reconstructing residences and town buildings; however, they were criticized for delaying the recovery and reconstruction of the fish processing industry that was affected by the disaster. In areas that were affected by the construction restrictions, a foundation development for the Cluster Zone (CZ) of fish processing industry facilities was implemented, and companies were only allowed to rebuild their plants more than three years later when the project was completed. In areas that became designated for a land readjustment project (LRP) several years after the disaster, plants that had been repaired were forced to relocate. The present study targeted the fish processing industry of Kesennuma City and conducted a questionnaire on companies that had their offices in the areas that were likely impacted by such policies and projects. We conducted an interview to understand the specific impact of such policies and projects on company management. Based on the above survey, we reached the following conclusions. First, many companies that had plants in the scheduled CZ, which was determined after the disaster, relocated their plants. Many companies felt that construction restrictions and the foundation development project (FDP) for the CZ delayed the recovery of plants. Second, companies that were impacted by the FDP of the CZ, LRP, etc. experienced delays in the recovery of sales channels and hiring, the dispersion of plants, increased costs due to the move, and the abandonment of some manufacturing. Third, as measures to alleviate the impact on companies of the government preparing industrial lands after large-scale disasters, we discuss measures to speed up project implementation, support for the use of production bases, and other important aspects.
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