TRIUMPH THAILAND FACTORY VISIT
P96
opened up in Thailand, John went to the UK
workforce and said, 'I guarantee you, we will
make no redundancies as a result of this.' And
indeed, we've never done that, and in fact we
now employ over 600 people in the UK, where
the R&D side has grown significantly. Every
Triumph motorcycle begins its life in Hinckley,
where all of our design work, prototype con-
struction and engineering takes place."
An invitation to become the first journalist
ever to be allowed to visit Triumph's Thai op-
gave Triumph a head start over others who
have since followed him there in selecting an
ideal location with room for expansion, which
also has many key suppliers within a 10-min-
ute drive, including FCC clutches, Kayaba
and Ohlins suspension, NOK bearings,
BASF catalysts etc. Reflecting this, Honda's
Thai factory making its CB300 singles and
CB500 twins for global sale is literally 10
minutes away from Triumph, although Ducati's
236,000 square-foot assembly plant opened
eration resulted in an in-depth two-day behind-
closed-doors guided tour of its three separate
but neighboring plants collectively comprising
one million square feet of covered space. These
are located in Chonburi, 50 miles southeast of
downtown Bangkok amid the low-rise industrial
sprawl extending south from the Thai capital,
about halfway between it and the vacation
resort of Pattaya. Bloor's foresight in choosing
Thailand as his offshore manufacturing base
in 2011 and building most of its models, in-
cluding all Scramblers sold in North America
and Australasia, is an hour further south,
closer to Pattaya than the port of Bangkok.
Harley-Davidson's forthcoming Thai plant
will be at Rayong, half as far again beyond
Ducati.
John Bloor's inspired decision a decade
ago to establish a wholly owned Triumph
manufacturing operation in Thailand originally
IT'S REMARKABLE HOW FREQUENTLY 100 PERCENT OF COMPONENTS
ARE CHECKED FOR A MYRIAD OF POINTS, AS OPPOSED TO A RANDOM
CHECK ON ONE IN 10 OR ONE IN 20 COMPONENTS OR ASSEMBLIES.
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