A Behind-the-scenes at Nissan production in Japan video

For those who haven't seen documentaries or detailed videos on auto production...

I stumbled across the Japanese version on YouTube and fortunately, a few minutes later, I found they uploaded a version w/English subtitles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El5vpA8wdAs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Published on Jan 22, 2013
Take a behind-the-scenes tour of Nissan Motor Kyushu Co in Fukuoka, Japan, where Nissan cars including the Note, X-Trail, Rogue and Serena are made.

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It seems they skipped over a lot of the stuff that normally goes on in final assembly like installing a lot of the interior components (e.g. seat belts, hooking up stuff to the wiring harnesses, etc.)

I also don't recall them talking about how they take the doors off after painting and then later reattach them.

This plant seems a bit more automated than some I've seen. I've usually seen seats being put in w/o robots but rather humans w/assistance from machinery.

Nice video of the general Nissan car-manufacturing process.

cwerdna said:

It seems they skipped over a lot of the stuff that normally goes on in final assembly like installing a lot of the interior components (e.g. seat belts, hooking up stuff to the wiring harnesses, etc.)

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At the Oppama Assembly plant, we saw the installation of the battery and integrated charger-inverter-controller in the LEAF, and a few other component installs. But we didn't see the front end process (stamping, painting, parts assembly, etc.) shown in the video clip.

linkim said:

cwerdna said:

It seems they skipped over a lot of the stuff that normally goes on in final assembly like installing a lot of the interior components (e.g. seat belts, hooking up stuff to the wiring harnesses, etc.)

Click to expand...

At the Oppama Assembly plant, we saw the installation of the battery and integrated charger-inverter-controller in the LEAF, and a few other component installs. But we didn't see the front end process (stamping, painting, parts assembly, etc.) shown in the video clip.

Click to expand...

FWIW, I've been on 5 auto plant tours: Toyota, Nissan (at Oppama), Mazda all in Japan along with NUNMI (when it was still NUMMI) and Ford Rouge. NUMMI did show stamping, from a distance, IIRC. On none of them did we get to see the paint shop.

I've seen plenty of documentaries on auto plants and assembly which do show the paint shop. From what I understand, having any sort of perfume, cologne and certain hair products will ruin the paint. And, it looks like people have to go through prep similar to a clean room and wear bunny suits. So, it's totally understandable they wouldn't want random visitors going into the paint shop. It'd be time consuming and if there are errant visitors wearing cologne or whatever == ruined paint.

If people are curious to see more videos or 1 hour long documentaries on modern auto assembly, I can post some links to them but they aren't of Nissan. Some aren't online and you'll have to rent or stream them from somewhere or set an auto-record wishlist on your PVR to catch them.

NissanNewsroom just posted this 2 hours ago.

The Dashboard - Inside Nissan's Oppama Factory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JlcYfkONJc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Published on Jan 24, 2013
January 25 - Oppama - The Nissan Global Media Center presents the Dashboard, our program on cars, people, technologies, motorsports and relationships that are changing the industry.

The Dashboard comes to you from Nissan's Oppama Plant, a pioneer in flexible manufacturing and the production site of the Nissan Juke, Sylphy, Cube and 100%-electric LEAF. We report on Oppama's 3-millionth visitor, a prestigious award for Nissan's Resonance concept crossover hybrid, and take a look at optical wireless technology for cars.

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Some of the middle of the video has the same content as "Nissan's Oppama Plant Welcomes 3 Millionth Visitor". There's a bunch of other content that has nothing to do Nissan.

If you just care about the plant, watch from 0 to 4:45, from 14:00 to the end and maybe 6:25 to 8:35.

Thanks - great videos!

I realize it's been a few years and that's likely a factor, but I've been in a number of GM plants in Michigan (assembly and Fisher Body parts manufacturing) where there were plenty of presses for both metal parts and headliners. They were a dark, dirty mess! The Nissan plant is a hospital operating room by comparison.

Amazing.

AndyH said:

Thanks - great videos!

I realize it's been a few years and that's likely a factor, but I've been in a number of GM plants in Michigan (assembly and Fisher Body parts manufacturing) where there were plenty of presses for both metal parts and headliners. They were a dark, dirty mess! The Nissan plant is a hospital operating room by comparison.

Amazing.

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Interesting... it might be just the Japanese auto industry's way of doing things vs. what you saw at GM back then. From http://books.google.com/books?id=CGEIqHF1ZVcC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=toyota+way+factories+so+clean+eat+off&source=bl&ots=9CvS_w40Fo&sig=5R19lwSqKY04OCWfE9cIFiQZwgU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NDcDUeO2G4_wigKZ3IGICA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=toyota%20way%20factories%20so%20clean%20eat%20off&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;,

When Americans were making pilgrimages to Japanese plants in the 1970s and ’80s, the first reaction was invariably “The factories were so clean you could eat off of the floor.” For the Japanese this was simply a matter of pride. Why would you want to live in a pigpen? But their efforts go beyond making the factory look clean and orderly.

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If the link doesn't work, Google for toyota way factories so clean eat off. I had listened to the audio book of "The Toyota Way" before.

From http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=11371" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, IIRC, GM finally learned and applied the lessons learned from NUMMI (GM/Toyota joint venture in Fremont, CA) to the rest of the company around the late 90s.