Word: nissan
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Doing flexible assembly well is a lot tougher and, initially, more expensive than it may sound. Of the $1.5 billion Nissan has invested in its new plant in Canton, Miss., just north of Jackson, about a third went into making the operation as flexible as possible. At full capacity, the Canton plant can produce 400,000 vehicles a year, including sedans, minivans, SUVs and pickups...
With advanced robotics and software, particularly to weld vehicle skeletons, Nissan can switch among models quickly. Major suppliers, some housed on site, receive orders 90 minutes before production time, cutting inventory costs for both parties. Nissan's suppliers also preassemble "modules," say, for a front-end or cockpit, and deliver them in the sequence in which they're needed on the line: a batch of leather-finished cockpits for SUVs, followed by plastic-finished versions and then different cockpits for pickup trucks. Nissan's paint shop was designed for high flexibility too, using robotic painters that are programmed to switch...
Since the early 1980s, the UAW has mounted campaigns to organize the transplants' hourly workers, but they have consistently voted against joining, in part because of strong community support for the manufacturers and a sense of mutual loyalty. "Nissan takes care of its employees, and if the union tries to organize us, I'll probably oppose it," says Murphy Wilson, 27, a newly hired technician in Canton. The UAW has tried four times to win over Nissan's Smyrna work force but was voted down 2 to 1 in its last try in 2001. "We have not given...
Japanese carmakers have forged stronger relationships with suppliers than have the Big Three, inspired in part by Japan's keiretsu system, in which suppliers bond with manufacturers for the long haul. By no means is the system perfect; Nissan nearly went bankrupt in the late 1990s because of cronyism and other inefficiencies in its keiretsu. But suppliers, in both the U.S. and Japan, have been more willing to invest in equipment to manufacture new technologies--such as hybrid electric-gasoline engines--out of confidence that Japanese automakers won't abandon them, or the technology, before they can recoup costs...
...stars. He has been made the superhero of a comic book--a coveted business honor. And in a poll of Japanese women, he was voted one of the top four men they would most want to father their children. Widely known as "Mr. Fix It," CEO Ghosn has lifted Nissan from near bankruptcy and in just four years has given it industry-leading profit margins, a debt-free balance sheet and a fleet of popular, critically acclaimed cars and trucks. He is leading the bold expansion by foreign carmakers eager to build more vehicles...