ZAMA (Sept. 26, 2005) -- As part of its ongoing commitment to world-class quality, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., said today it would establish a 5.1 billion yen global production engineering center in Zama City, Kanagawa Prefecture. Construction on the facility will begin this October, with operations expected to start in March 2007.
The 30,000-square-meter facility will be built in Area 2 of Nissan's Zama Operations Center, consolidating Nissan's global production engineering function in one place. Currently, Nissan's vehicle-assembly plants around the world conduct their own trial production and quality analysis of the vehicle body process.
"The new global production engineering center will focus on drastically improving the quality of new vehicles through the concentrated trial production and quality analysis of new vehicles in all stages of production, from press shop to trim and chassis," said Sadao Sekiyama, senior vice president, vehicle engineering production at Nissan. "This should further enhance vehicle quality levels at Nissan's plants in Japan and overseas."
The new facility will create 350 new jobs, raising the number of employees involved in production engineering at the Zama Operations Center to 1,280.
A pilot plant for testing equipment for overseas plants, as well as a warehouse for historic vehicles and other facilities located in Area 1 will be transferred to Area 2.
Following the transfer of these operations to Area 2, about half of the land at the 21,000-square-meter Area 1 will be sold to Vantec Corporation. Vantec distributes parts for vehicle production in Area 2.
The new global production engineering facility is being built as Nissan executes a record 70 production launches around the world under its new mid-term business plan, Nissan Value-Up, which began in April. As previously announced, Nissan plans to release 28 all-new models during Value-Up, boosting global sales to 4.2 million units in fiscal year 2008.
Nissan's Zama Operations Center, which covers a total area of 770,000 square meters, was a major Nissan vehicle-assembly plant from 1965 to 1995, producing a total of 11.24 million passenger cars and light trucks during that time. Since 1995, the center has mainly been involved in production engineering. In December 1998, Nissan established Carest Zama, a large-scale auto mall and an auction site for used cars in Area 1.
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