Quality
http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/case_study.php?cID=64&csID=124
Overview: a case study on Nissan highlighting many of the issues of lean production.
Learning Objectives to analyse the reasons behind Nissan’s high levels of productivity to understand the meaning of Total Quality Management to understand the importance of Kaizen to analyse the benefits of just-in-time.
Planning for quality and productivity
Introduction: (9 minutes)
Overview of the lesson: to look at Nissan and examine the reasons for its high levels of productivity. You will look at the way it works with its employees and its use of lean production techniques. You may want to take longer over the activities and spread this over two lessons.
Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK Limited (NMUL) is UK’s largest car manufacturing plant which is located near Sunderland. It has been Europe’s most productive car plant for the past seven years, cars produced include the Almera, Micra and Primera. Over 70% of output is exported to 55 markets worldwide.
Student task: read section 1 and answer the following questions: what models of car are made by Nissan and how many of each are made? (Almera 86,491; Micra 190,690; Primera 54473) how many cars in total did Nissan make in 2003? (331,924) explain how the models produced cater for different segments of the market.
What is quality and why is quality at the heart of the Nissan success story?
Production and production process( 10 minutes)
Nissan’s capacity is now over 500,000 vehicles a years. Student task: working in pairs, students to explain the factors that might determine a firm’s capacity. (e.g. machinery, technology, training).
Students to read section 4 and summarise: the difference between job and flow production (e.g. scale, flexibility, unit costs, volume, capital intensity) the key elements of the Nissan production process.
How do continuous flow methods of production help to reduce costs?
Employees (15 minutes)
The Sunderland plant is