PLANS by Japan's Nissan motor company to set new standards in the quality of both its workforce and the vehicles it makes are the aim of two new centres being established in the United Kingdom.
Nissan is already a major force in the UK auto industry, heading the list of car producers in 2006 with an output of more than 300,000 vehicles. Now, it is to use UK expertise to train production workers from other countries and also play a leading role in the marque's product quality improvement.
The company's massive assembly plant at Sunderland in north-east England - the product of investments totalling 2.38 billion pounds and now the most productive car plant in Europe - has been chosen by the Nissan parent company in Japan to be one of only two global training centres for manufacturing excellence, the other is in Oppama, Japan.
Production supervisors from Nissan plants across Europe, India, the Middle East and South Africa are to travel to Sunderland to learn how to become "master trainers" of all aspects of car production. They will return home and pass their knowledge to the rest of the workforce.
A spokesman said: "In this way, the new UK training centre will standardise training and education across the globe, ensure best practice is shared among all Nissan plants, and raise standards in basic and advanced manufacturing skills."
Part of the Sunderland complex is being converted to house the new training facility that will feature a replica production line dedicated to each area of manufacturing, along with a suite of training rooms. It will be staffed by the plant's training department together with hand-picked manufacturing supervisors who recently spent seven weeks in Japan preparing for their new role.
The first group of trainees arriving later this year will be made up of managers and supervisors from the Nissan plant due to start production in 2009 in St Petersburg, Russia.
Kevin Fitzpatrick, deputy managing director of Sunderland car making, commented: "It is a significant honour for our plant to have been chosen to train staff from other Nissan facilities spanning four continents. It shows a huge amount of confidence in our ability which I feel has been well earned over the last 20 years.
"We have been rigorously applying Nissan's efficient manufacturing system since 1986 when production started. Now, through the Global Training Centre, we will be able to pass on our knowledge to other Nissan facilities, to the benefit of the whole company."
Ian Green, a senior controller in the Sunderland training department, added: "We are working closely with the Oppama centre to ensure we deliver a truly global standard, using the best of Japanese and European know-how."
As well as basing a four-continents skills development effort in the UK, Nissan has also announced the official opening of a major product quality improvement centre at its European technical centre located in Cranfield, southern England.
The three million pounds facility is the fourth in a chain of what Nissan describes as field quality centres (FQCs) and will work closely with another FQC just commissioned in Kanagawa prefecture in Japan as well as two similar centres in the United States.
The Nissan spokesman said of the UK centre: "It will play a leading role for product quality improvement in Europe, and also centralise responsibilities previously handled by several functions dispersed throughout the continent."
The general manager responsible for Nissan quality in Europe, Russell Crossan, commented: "Establishing the FQC at Cranfield enhances our ability to work cross-functionally and quickly develop countermeasures to vehicle quality issues in Europe."
The Cranfield FQC is to have a staff of 46 and also accommodate guest engineers from supplier companies who will work with the centre to improve the quality of individual parts used in Nissan's range of cars.
The plan is that the FQC will serve as a central collection base for faulty parts returned by dealers to allow teams with specialist knowledge in development or manufacturing to investigate the problem and subject the part to detailed analysis.
FQCs are equipped with state-of-the-art testing equipment and measuring instruments that can simulate actual operating conditions and allow engineers to study the effects of noise, vibration and harshness on the durability of each vehicle component.
In this way, engineers can identify the root cause of component or system failures and then use their findings to develop what Nissan describes as "right-first-time countermeasures".
Completing the quality improvement cycle, the findings of the FQC teams are also fed to Nissan technical centres where future-generation vehicles are being developed.
The UK-based European technical centre figured heavily in the development of the new Qashqai compact cross-over hatchback that has been described as a semi-4x4. A 2.4m pounds investment has recently been made in the Sunderland plant to increase Qashqai production by 20 per cent to keep pace with customer demand for what is the first all-new Nissan to be wholly designed, engineered and built in the UK.
More than 60,000 of the cars have already rolled off the UK production line with another 60,000 in the European order book. Qashqai, which recently scored a maximum five stars in the European new car assessment programme (Euro NCAP) adult occupant safety test, is also proving a big hit in Japan where it has been renamed Dualis and sales started in June this year.
Although Japanese sales were initially targeted at 2,000 cars a month, it attracted more than 5,000 orders in its first week on the market. Sunderland plant's Kevin Fitzpatrick said: "Qashqai is proving extremely popular and will help us achieve a record production year in 2007."
Another star product of the 17 companies building vehicles in the UK is Nissan's baby Micra car-cum-convertible that last year (2006) was one of the top-five most popular models with nearly 130,000 produced.
Top government organisation UK Trade & Investment says that the UK has a diverse, vibrant and world-class automotive industry. It is one of the five major automotive manufacturing countries in Europe, with more than 5,000 companies active in the sector.
UK companies supply a comprehensive range of components to the global automotive industry. Of the 20 leading component manufacturers in the world, 17 have established production facilities in the UK.
The UK has the strongest independent aftermarket in Europe, with many small operators doing business alongside the big household names. Another key UK strength is specialist design engineering. Total automotive exports exceed 20bn pounds annually.
UK Trade & Investment (www.uktradeinvest.gov.uk) is the government organisation that supports companies in the UK doing business internationally and overseas enterprises seeking to set up or expand in the UK.
London Press Service
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