NISSAN OPENS NEW GENERATION GLOBAL TRAINING CENTER

TOKYO (Nov. 29, 2006)--Nissan Motor Co., today opened the Nissan Global Training Center (GTC) located at its Oppama Plant in Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture. The 300 million yen state-of-the-art facility been established to train Nissan’s global manufacturing employees to become experts in the Nissan Production Way (NPW).

Spanning 6,500 square meters, the new training facility is open to employees from Nissan’s manufacturing facilities worldwide. As part of an ongoing program to ensure a consistently high level of quality in all its global operations, Nissan has implemented the Nissan Production Way across all of its manufacturing facilities worldwide, and continues to train, develop and educate its employees worldwide through the Master Trainer Program (i.e. train the trainer program).

At the newly completed GTC, trainees are exposed to classroom-style instruction as well as actual hands-on training on real-world production lines integrated into the Oppama plant. The GTC offers a wide training curriculum including vehicle manufacturing (bodies, assembly, paint, etc.), power-train manufacturing, logistics, quality assurance and plant management and maintenance.

The NPW training module has been calibrated and standardized to apply to all Nissan facilities worldwide. Technological-competence is an important focus of the training, thus special attention is paid to visualization teaching techniques incorporating graphic manuals that are easily accessible on-line via a computer during training. Currently, standard training manuals available in six languages are used at the GTC and other regional training centers.

Trainees will receive certification as Master Trainers upon completion of the training course that qualify them to take on the role as “trainer” when they return to their respective manufacturing bases. These certified trainers are then assigned with new or added responsibilities to train their local employees using a globally standardized curriculum and training equipments.

The Master Trainer Program has been extremely successful in deploying the NPW worldwide. As of November 29, a total of 138 Master Trainers had been certified and are engaged in personnel training and technology education across Nissan’s 14 regional training centers around the world.

Under the Nissan Value-Up business plan, the company plans to execute 70 production launches worldwide, stemming from 28 all-new products. Consequently, the role of the GTC in the training and development of its global employees is a key part of the company’s ability to launch each product successfully.

In addition to the GTC, Nissan’s various other training programs include the Global Production Engineering Center in Zama City, Kanagawa Prefecture and the Global Launch Expert program, where a dedicated Launch Expert is deployed to the regions to ensure the flawless production launch of a new product.

Nissan has also been working to globally disseminate its core expertise in engine, transmission and driveline manufacturing technology through the establishment of the Powertrain Training Center at its Yokohama Plant last January.

The Oppama Plant is one of Nissan’s largest domestic plants and produces about 330,000 vehicles a year, mainly compact cars including the Note, Cube and Tiida.

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