IT key to Nissan's efficiency
- Posted:
- 10:38 12 Jul 2001
- Topics:
- Enterprise Applications
Its IT infrastructure has enabled Nissan's UK plant to achieve an output of 101 cars per employee, just short of the European record of 105 it achieved in 1998, according to the recent World Market Research Report on automotive productivity.
IT systems that allow efficient access to up-to-the-minute business data were a key factor in efficiency benefits, said Ian Semens, IT manager for corporate information systems, Nissan UK.
"Every organisation must have good data that is easy to access and its communications must be slick and efficient," he said. "IT contributes significantly to this."
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Nissan's approach to enterprise software is a mix of in-house development and out-of-the-box products, together with some migration to enterprise resource planning software from SAP.
"Our MRP [material requirements planning], scheduling and procurement system requirements could not be satisfied by a packaged solution without significant customisation. We cannot afford the long lead-time associated with changes to packages or bespoke solutions," said Semens.
Simon Bragg, an analyst with ARC Consulting, said Nissan's approach provided a best-practice example for IT in manufacturing. "It is clear that the IT group understands Nissan business to a far greater extent than any system integrator.
"The implications are that users considering outsourcing their entire IT department to a system integrator should consider Nissan's mix of in-house skills and judicious purchasing of packaged solutions and consulting services," he said.
A close relationship between the IT and engineering departments has allowed Nissan to build cars to individual specification and cut production times. According to Semens, if the main shop-floor systems fail, car production line speeds are halved within two hours.
At the shop-floor level, component inventory and assembly quality is monitored continuously via machinery program logic controllers and transponder chips.
As the first component of the car - the engine compartment - starts along the line, its radio transponder transmits information to machine controllers for the particular specification of car.
Minimum parts inventory is maintained, with components being fed in the correct sequence to the production line for individual vehicles. Some parts - for instance car seats - are made and assembled to order in less than two hours and loaded on to a conveyor.
At the top-floor level efficiencies are reaped in design and production monitoring.
Shop-floor operations are monitored continuous to ensure full traceability and quality monitoring of vehicles and components, while machinery downtimes are recorded and analysed to allow preventative maintenance.
Computer aided design cuts development time for new models by 50% with measurement and quality data being sent to the shop floor to validate assembly processes.
Winning system
A partition on the Nissan European IBM mainframe
44 NT servers - 2,000 PCs of which 80% are networked and provide Office capability in addition to departmental specific requirements
Four DEC NT and two DEC VMS shop-floor process computers
European datacentre
36 NT servers - several of which provide the Nissan intranet and extranet capability, the rest providing European Web-based application processing.
