Introduction on Nissan Motor Company and the Supply Chain for Nissan Company - Research Paper Example

Introduction on Nissan Motor Company Research Paper Introduction on Nissan Motor Company History of the Nissan Company Widely recognised by numerous names, this large Asian company has been manufacturing automobiles since 1914. At present, Nissan is the third biggest carmaker in Japan. Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. is a Japanese automobile company that makes cars, buses and trucks with the labels Nissan and Datsun (Hoover, 2011). Nissan also creates designs for and manufactures other equipment and devices such as machinery and communication satellites. The company’s head office is in Tokyo, Japan. Nissan came from two previous corporations—Kwaishinsha Co., which was founded in 1911 to manufacture Dat automobiles, and Jitsuyo Jidosha Co., which was established in 1919. In 1925, these two companies merged to create Dat Jidosha Seizo Co. (Magee, 2003). Eight years later, the company’s assets were taken over by other shareholders, who created Jidosha Seizo Co., Ltd., granting it its current name the subsequent year. The newly organised company was focused on the manufacture and sale of automobiles and components under a newly created label—Datsun (Hoover, 2011). In 1935, the first Datsun passenger car rolled off the assembly line and immediately thereafter, Nissan began shipping automobiles to Australia. The Datsun Type 15 turns into the first automobile to be mass produced in Japan in 1937, which also takes the form of a delivery van and mini-pickup (Ghosn, 2007). Throughout the war period, from the late 1930s, the company shifted completely to the manufacturing of military automobiles and trucks. The Allied Powers took hold of the central Nissan facilities in 1945; although permitting the manufacture of Nissan and Datsun automobiles to continue at a single facility, they did not bring back the rest of the facilities to the company until the mid-1950s (Ghosn, 2007). Afterwards, particularly in the 1960s when Nissan moved into the global market, manufacture and sales increased impressively while the company built assembly factories abroad. Yet, by the second half of the 1990s, Nissan had been facing some major problems, and in 1999 it started a partnership with Renault, a French car manufacturer (Ando, 2005). The Functional Department There are companies, even leaders in their own industries, where the logistics and supply chain functions are considered as rather second-rate or less important to other sectors of the business such as marketing, sales or manufacturing. Such companies are also those which grumble about the trouble of employing competent individuals for the management of their supply chain. Nissan embraces an entirely different perspective (Daft, 2008). The supply chain in the company is viewed as one of the major features of the company. It is a major facilitator for the business and has a quite high reputation and value inside the organisation. The career prospects in the supply chain are as valuable and promising as in the other functions in the company, and there are a large number of individuals who have climbed the corporate ladder through the supply chain function (Ghosn, 2007). The hugely complicated procedures in manufacturing a new automobile are most accurately portrayed as a ‘ballet’, in which a huge number of components converge on an assembly line. Within several minutes, these components are attached together and then finally a new automobile drives off to be transported to a seller or dealer (Lloyd et al., 1994). Nissan is a perfect illustration of how the processes of planning and implementation converge productively. Every year, the millions of square-foot Nissan plants are able to manufacture thousands of new Infiniti standard sport utility automobiles, Crew Cab trucks, Pathfinders, Quest minivans, new Altima sedans, and others (Klier & Rubenstein, 2013). Thousands of employees are employed at these factories, where new individuals, new products, and suppliers merge to create distinct products in their respective factory. During the automobile design stage, the body artists and chassis designer should work together with production operator at the factory. Components and subassemblies should be polished in design and form for them to be ‘buildable’ and assembly mechanics to piece them together in a well-organized, competent way. If not, the process will be very costly or sluggish and the product’s cost will go beyond budgets (Ghosn, 2007). As a result, automobiles are engineered to be modular or flexible. The 2,000-3,000 distinct components of a new automobile are integrated into controlled subassemblies to be combined along the line. Whole dash assemblies holding all tools—wiring and controls, steering column, sound systems, HVAC—are fitted in within several minutes by specialists operating quite wholly outside the automobile (i.e. crawling underneath a dash to link the wires and controls consumes time and effort and brings about exhaustion and muscular injury to the specialist (Magee, 2003). Hence, thoroughness is performed in designing all-out ease, comfort, and security to line workers. The most inappropriate or unfavorable site to solve problems with component, assembly, or design is at the plant level. This is the reason why the process of designing vehicles nowadays relies greatly on prototyping and computer simulation in order that the objective of merely requiring a single ‘hard part’ test is attained (Daft, 2008). During the production process every vital component obtains sampling, regular assessments, and diagnostic reviews, every one of which guarantee product quality. Normally, drivetrains have all the steering parts, accessories and other related tools. On front-wheel-drive autos, the whole powertrain can be mounted as one component into the body. SUVs, trucks, and other frame-based autos demand different assembly procedures due to the fact that suspensions are installed into the frame components (Ghosn, 2007). The factory is constructed in ‘workforce zones’ that are made up of a leader or a qualified technician who has extensive knowledge of the process, a manager, and the needed number of employees. Working with these people are backstage workers who make the owners’ manuals, service handbooks, and a horde of other documentation experts (Klier & Rubenstein, 2013). Consequently, these are in consistent communication with dealership service management to deal with warranty matters and examine potential failure workings in different units, so that needed modifications can be integrated immediately into the assembly line with no disruption (Ghosn, 2007). At the plant level, on-site suppliers are used. Several original equipment manufacturer (OEM) suppliers work with the production team. This enables effective immediate communication with every aspect of the manufacturing process and guarantee that the correct components are supplied on the dot (Klier & Rubenstein, 2013). Other suppliers are based in areas near the factory. Frames, plastics, seats and other parts are made and inventoried near to the production site. This process helps greatly in the current just-in-time (JIT) inventory business scheme. On the other hand, off-site suppliers rely on the rail and truck system to deliver all the parts to the factory on the dot (Ghosn, 2007). The final product, through this process, is quite remarkable and high quality. Nissan’s strategy is quite cross-functional, and it guarantees that the TDC of the component fixed to the automobile is enhanced instead of raising the component price or increasing the logistics costs. The company has a quite stable technique in using major competitive companies, and it only uses these companies if there is competitive value (Klier & Rubenstein, 2013). Smart logistics, according to Nissan, is truly the solution, and operating upstream with the other domains to make sure that quality and TDC are enhanced on the product is basically what the goal must be. The company believes that it does not essentially result in excessive logistics (Klier & Rubenstein, 2013). As stated by Ando (2005), there will be several instances where the optimised cost originates from other domains, but Nissan makes sure that the risk management in the assembly line of that piece is enhanced. References Ando, K. (2005). Japanese multinationals in Europe: A Comparison of the automobile and pharmaceutical industries. UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Daft, R. (2008). The new era of management. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning EMEA. Ghosn, C. (2007). Shift: Inside Nissan’s historic revival. New York: Crown Publishing Group. Hoover, W. (2011). Historical dictionary of postwar Japan. New York: Scarecrow Press. Klier, T., & Rubenstein, J. (2013). Restructuring of the U.S. auto industry in the 2008–2009 recession. Economic Development Quarterly, 27(2), 144–159. Lloyd, A. et al. (1994). A study of Nissan motor manufacturing (UK) supplier development team activities. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D. Journal of Automobile Engineering, 208(1), 63–68. Magee, D. (2003). Turnaround: How Carlos Ghosn rescued Nissan. New York: Harper Collins. Read More