The Three holds kickoff rally for Mizushima Plant production

It has reached the final stage. The trial production will begin on the production line at last. For this memorial moment, all representatives from Nissan Motor, Mitsubishi Motors, and NMKV in addition to Nissan Automotive Technology (NAT) which is in charge of vehicle development, and Aichi Machine Industry in charge of the product development and procurement of components, came together at a grand rally to reconfirm their determination and enthusiasm toward the full-scale production phase. The kickoff rally of the Three was held in January 2018 at Mizushima Plant.

Nishiyama CPEO (Chief Production Engineering Officer) of NMKV proudly says that "because we together have overcome the difficulties in the digital phase, the assembled vehicle at stationary spot (the final assembly lot before line-assembled production) had surprisingly few problems. We should be proud of what we have achieved - to reach such a high degree of perfection at this point". In an unfamiliar environment to Mitsubishi where Nissan's product development and procurement processes were involved, many of their members were concerned with the role of Mizushima Plant whether it could fully demonstrate its capabilities or not. Amid such concerns, many members from the machine design departments helped to form a tag-team with the members of production, whose spirits brought about a more direct communication among everyone and demonstrated a strong leadership for the Project.

The challenge continues on. The Project is the first trial for both Nissan and Mitsubishi to assemble prototype models on the live assembly lines for mass-production. In comparison with a normal workflow of Nissan where a prototype phase vehicle is assembled at Global Production Engineering Center (Zama City, Kanagawa) and Mitsubishi at Prototype Department (Okazaki City, Aichi), the Project has omitted respective processes and the prototype model was to be assembled at Mizushima Plant – at the production base for mass produced vehicles. This is a huge yet worthwhile challenge for both Nissan and Mitsubishi. Any unknown event specific to the production phase should be resolved by following the basic rule of "find it fast, fix it fast" in addition to stubbornly sticking to the principles of so called "Three Realism Philosophy" (Sangen-Shugi), which means to value "visiting the real site", "clarifying the real facts", "making the real observation".

At the closing of kickoff rally, NMKV CEO Endo stood at the center surrounded by the participants from Nissan, Mitsubishi, and NMKV in addition to Nissan Automotive Technology and Aichi Machine Industry and prompted everyone to give three cheers of "we will do our best!", thereby ending the rally with a firm determination for the launch of full-scale production phase for mass production. After the rally, all directors and officers visited the site to check the actual model of the latest lot, carefully reviewing with their own eyes and hands to feel the vibe of the new model.