Cameron launches attack on Labour over Nissan job losses

Jan 10 2009 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

Grasped by all and sundry

WHEN Margaret Thatcher officially opened the sprawling site in 1986, it not only set up tens of thousands of add-on, spin-off and direct-supply jobs, but it also launched blue overalls, kaizen and just-in-time management to the North East.

Every mechanic and factory worker in the region – and beyond – now rolls up their blue-overalled sleeves.

Kaizen, the Japanese principle of continuous improvement, has long been the basis of a business coach’s manual, and the JIT method of working – encouraging the minimum amount of space, time, materials and workforce necessary to add value to a product – has been grasped eagerly by all and sundry.

Production at Nissan is split into logical areas; Body Assembly, Paint and Final Assembly, with subdivisions of each into clearly-defined functions. One Man, Three Jobs; Three Men, One Job sounded Orwellian at one time and a cue for resistance, but in any continuous production facility it makes perfect sense to train at least three people to do each job to cover absence and to allow for rotation should boredom set in.

So, for all Nissan’s fine working methods, why is it making cars nobody wants to buy? Well the recession is the main factor, of course, but even at this time last year it had a backlog of 60,000 unsold ‘units’ – which prompts the question: Are Nissans just too reliable?

A website of trouble-free bangers rates the Nissan Primera (built 1996-2007) with five stars out of five. “Millions of taxi drivers can’t be wrong,” it reads. “Anonymous is good when it comes to running a reliable car and taxi drivers positively insist on it.”

Alastair Gilmour