Nissan team checks quality in Thai-made March cars

[September 09, 2010]  YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) -- Thai-made Nissan March subcompact cars -- the first major model from a Japanese automaker being mass produced abroad for sale in Japan -- are getting extra scrutiny from a team of quality experts to meet choosey consumer standards, a senior executive said Thursday.

The team of about 50 people called "neniri," which means "thorough" in Japanese, is double-checking quality in addition to regular checks, said Toru Hasegawa, president of Nissan Motor Co.'s Thai operations.

Demand for the March in Japan -- also known as the Micra in some markets -- has been strong since it went on sale in July, with orders topping 20,000 so far.

Nissan is thinking about making other models in Thailand for export, Hasegawa said, as a surging yen, high labor costs and stagnating domestic demand make production in Japan less lucrative for automakers.

March production in Thailand began in March. Production is set to start in May in India, August in China, November in Indonesia and next year in Mexico.

Hasegawa said the main problems with Thai-made vehicles are looks such as uneven paint jobs and parts not fitting perfectly.

"You know how picky Japanese customers can get," he told reporters at Nissan's Yokohama headquarters. "We were really thorough in fixing problems for the March."

Nissan is sending in about 20 workers a month to Thailand from its Japanese plant to train workers in quality production.

Nissan is also beefing up quality checks at suppliers in Thailand, which produce parts for Nissan plants in 15 nations, including Great Britain, Spain, South Africa, Mexico, China and Japan.

Nissan's decision to sell Thai-made March cars in Japan is helping raise its reputation for quality in Thailand, according to Hasegawa.

Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp., recently beset with quality lapse problems, mostly in North America, controls about 40 percent of the Thai car market.

Nissan Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga is carefully watching the quality woes at Toyota, including the possibility raised by Toyota President Akio Toyoda that it had grown too fast and not kept up with monitoring quality.

"We are taking this seriously," Shiga told The Associated Press at a recent event. "We must be able to respond quickly to customers."

Nissan, which controlled about 5 percent of the Thai market in fiscal 2008, is hoping to raise that to more than 10 percent by fiscal 2012.

The economies of Southeast Asian nations like Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are thriving, and car ownership is expected to grow over the next few years.

The region is drawing investments from other automakers, including Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co.

"We hope to be able to deliver the same standard for Nissan quality everywhere," Hasegawa said.

[Associated Press; By YURI KAGEYAMA]

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