TOKYO (November 13, 2006)--Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., today held a ceremony to inaugurate the completion of its second engine facility at Iwaki Plant (Izumi-cho, Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture).
The second engine facility covers an area of 14,700m2 and is adjacent to the existing casting facility at Iwaki Plant. Construction begun in January 2005 with an investment of approximately 10 billion yen, and the facility was completed in December 2005.
The new production line for engine components was completed in July this year followed by production operations shortly after. The new production line employs state-of-the-art Nissan Integrated Manufacturing System (NIMS)*, which ensures operational efficiency, product quality, and flexible manufacturing to better respond to the production requirements for a variety of components.
The completion of the second engine facility will increase annual production capacity at the Iwaki Plant to 560,000 units annually from the initial 396,000 units at the start of operations. The improved efficiencies with the additional second facility have also resulted in quicker response times.
The Iwaki Plant encompasses a total land area of 201,500m2, which includes 81,800m2 of building space (including the new facility), and currently employs 600 employees. The Iwaki Plant is one of the major engine plants in the country, on par with the Yokohama Plant, Nissans other plant dedicated to engine production.
Since start of production in 1994, the Iwaki Plant has built a total of 4.45 million units (as of October 2006).
The second engine facility will be responsible for cylinder block production for Nissans VQ-HR series of its new-generation V6 engines that were announced in August this year.
The VQ-HR series engine powers the all-new Infiniti G35 sedan, first launched in Korea in October, and to be introduced globally. It will also power the new model Skyline to be introduced to the Japanese market this November.
The Iwaki Plant was originally built in 1992 as a dedicated plant for the sole production of the newly developed VQ series V6 engine. It was designed under the concept of an intelligent factory seeking co-existence with the environment, people and automobiles.
The VQ engine produced at the plant first made its debut in the Maxima sedan introduced to the North American market in May 1994. The VQ series has a wide variety of variants, varying from 2.0 to 3.5 liter. It is one of Nissans flagship engines, fitted on 11 vehicle models, including the Fuga, Fairlady Z, Elgrand, Teana, Murano and Skyline (known as the Infiniti G35 in the US).
The engine has gained widespread global recognition, being the only engine in the world to have made Wards 10-best engines list for the past 12 consecutive years.
* Nissan Integrated Manufacturing System (NIMS): NIMS was developed as an evolution of the Nissan Standard Line, with the goal to introduce high quality new products at the global level in a shorter time frame.
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