The FINANCIAL — Nissan Motor on 27 February, celebrated the 30th anniversary of its main R&D center in Japan, the Nissan Technical Center, located in Atsugi, Kanagawa prefecture.
A ceremony to commemorate the center's milestone was attended by distinguished guests, Nissan R&D executives and employees.
According to Nissan, before moving to the current location in Atsugi, Nissan operated two separate R&D facilities: Tsurumi in Yokohama, Kanagawa, and Ogikubo in Suginami, Tokyo. These facilities were combined to create the Nissan Technical Center when it was established at its present location in Atsugi, in November 1981, with a mandate to strengthen and enhance the company's comprehensive R&D functions, including engineering and product development.
Additional testing facilities such as the wind tunnel, and vehicle body safety and driving simulator laboratories, were added later on. Some of the most recent facilities added were the Field Quality Center in July 2007, Nissan's global hub of quality improvement, and the Engineering Center that opened in October 2007.
Starting off with 3,400 employees when it began operations, the Technical Center staff has now has grown to roughly 9,500 employees. The center, initially starting as an engineering and product development facility, has now evolved into a Monozukuri hub that also encompasses product engineering, quality assurance and purchasing functions.
Nissan currently operates 12 R&D centers globally which deploy high-quality Monozukuri activities – what Nissan considers the culmination of its production skills, technologies and spirit of innovation – and this technical center also plays the role of a mother facility that supports the company's R&D facilities outside of Japan.
In addition, the Renault-Nissan Alliance is one of the foundations of Nissan's growth and the Nissan Technical Center serves as Nissan's platform for various exchanges with Renault's technical center. In this respect, the Atsugi technical center significantly contributes to generating Alliance synergies in the areas of powertrain and vehicle engineering.
Guided by the vision of "Enriching People's Lives," Nissan focuses not only on technology development for near-term product applications, but also on basic research over the long-term for future products. Nissan plans to introduce 51 new models over the course of its mid-term business plan, Nissan Power 88, to offer more attractive and competitive products to potential customers all over the world.
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