CBI: 50 YEARS OF BUSINESS INNOVATION | UK SPOTLIGHT
DRIVING EXCELLENCE ACROSS THE UK
NISSAN
www.nissan.co.uk
When Nissan opened its first UK plant three decades ago, it prompted a fair degree of scepticism. The British car industry was in the doldrums, riddled with inefficiency and poor labour relations, and few thought that a Japanese firm could change that. “UK plants then had the worst productivity,
the worst strike record, the worst quality and the highest costs,” says Sir Ian Gibson, who was appointed by Nissan to set up their UK operations. “But we knew there was no reason why this had to remain the case.” Since acquiring the disused RAF Usworth
base in Washington, Tyne & Wear, Nissan’s Sunderland plant has become a truly British success story. Production began in 1986 with the Nissan Bluebird and – after more than £3.5 billion of investment – has risen from 5,000 to 500,000 vehicles a year, eclipsing the output of any other plant in British carmaking history. With European sales reaching record levels,
Nissan has invested over £1 billion in the past four years alone in its UK operations. Developments have included a £200 million lithium-ion battery plant and a completely refreshed model line-up that includes the Qashqai, the Juke, the Note, the all-electric LEAF and now the Infiniti.
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NISSAN NATIONWIDE The Sunderland plant remains the jewel in the crown of Nissan’s European operations, but the UK is also an international base for Nissan’s design and development departments. Nissan Design Europe (NDE), based in Paddington, west London, is a state-of-the-art creative hub responsible for new model design right through to full-size clay modelling. Nissan Technical Centre Europe (NTCE),
based in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, is Nissan’s centre of excellence for the design and development of vehicles manufactured across its European plants, where highly skilled engineers and researchers transform vehicle concepts into production reality. Nissan now supports 39,000 UK jobs,
including more than 11,000 at these three sites and in its UK dealerships, and more than 27,000 in the UK supply chain. Nissan’s latest challenge is its luxury
Infiniti range. The Q30 will be Infiniti’s first global compact car, and the first Infiniti to be made in Europe. Preparations began at the end of 2012, when the car was first announced for Sunderland, and have involved two major extensions at the plant.
“Securing the Infiniti Q30 for production at Sunderland was a tremendous achievement by the workforce,” says Trevor Mann, Nissan’s Chief Performance Officer. “It reflects the quality levels that everyone at Sunderland has reached.”
A BRITISH TOUCH Mann, whose Nissan career began on Sunderland’s production line in 1986, is one of the many UK staff who have earned senior management positions in Nissan’s global business – a tribute to the efficiency of the firm’s UK operation. He returned to Sunderland to perform the ground-breaking ceremony for the extensions being built to accommodate Infiniti production. Development of the Infiniti Q30, which will be
exported around the world, is being supported by the Nissan teams in London and Cranfield ahead of its sales launch later this year. When production begins, Infiniti will become the first new car brand to be manufactured in the UK on this scale in 23 years.
“The existing Sunderland plant is already
the largest in UK automotive history,” says Mann. “This £250 million investment will move the plant even further up the value chain and reconfirm our commitment to its future.”
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