Nissan’s £100 million production plant in St. Petersburg, due to open next year, is to drive production up to 50,000 vehicles per year, optimised using simulation software.
The company is to use Lanner factory planning and visualisation software, following its success at the Sunderland car plant, widely recognised as the largest in the UK and the most productive in Europe.
Currently, Nissan Motor Rus (NMR) is the group’s Russian distributor, but with sales rising from 9,470 units in 2003 to over 50,000 in 2006, and a Russian car market predicted to be worth £50 billion by 2011, Nissan is going into production.
The plant will employ around 750 people producing a variety of vehicles for the Russian market, including the X-Trail 4x4 and Teana saloons.
NMR says it is using Nissan Manufacturing UK’s (NMUK) experience with Lanner’s Witness simulation suite.
NMUK has already produced a model of the St Petersburg paintshop, using CAD and performance data, to demonstrate to the Russian team and paintshop developer Durr, how simulation technology could drive production at the new site.
NMUK engineer Anthony Timmiss, who designed the Witness model for the St. Petersburg paintshop, says: “It is vital that cars are put in and taken out of the oven at the correct time, otherwise the quality of finish is compromised, and that can be very costly.
“This leaves paintshop operatives with a huge headache as they are tasked with producing a considerable amount of vehicles, but are also required to make sure mistakes in production are minimal when doing so.”
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