Nissan pushes quality initiatives for 'flawless' Murano launch

CANTON, Miss. -- Nissan threw the switch last week to begin building its prestige vehicle in the United States for the first time, moving the Murano's global export base from Japan to its plant here.

The project has been about far more than assembly-line tooling.

Nissan has implemented new quality programs at Canton to make sure the Murano is glitch-free. It spent $100 million to establish a supplier park nearby to bring 12 to 14 critical Murano suppliers close to the assembly line. It also created a series of off-line loops through the factory to allow the Murano to be pulled out of the normal production flow for additional workmanship when necessary.

"This is our image car," beamed John Martin, the Irishman who runs Nissan North America's manufacturing and supply chain operations. "We wanted to make sure that this launch was flawless."

The eyes of the global company have been on Martin and his U.S. team for the past year. In the coming months, the Mississippi plant will begin shipping Muranos to 118 export markets. Last week, Martin said he is awaiting final approval from company inspectors in Japan to make sure it passes muster there.

"And don't forget the demanding customers of Australia," he added. "With the demise of the Australian domestic auto industry, they've become completely reliant on imports, mostly from Japan and Korea, and they're very choosy about what they get."

U.S. dealers are already jockeying for inventories of the redesigned 2015 cross-over, which features a swervy new body design, a leather-stitched steering wheel, an oversized moonroof and ergonomic rear seats.

The Murano goes on sale in the U.S. the second week of December. Its pricing has not been revealed. But Nissan has more upscale dreams for the vehicle.

"The Murano is near-luxury," the manufacturing chief said. "We're going to tempt customers out of their BMWs and Lexuses. Those customers have different values and expectations."

A 2015 Lexus RX 350 starts at $43,105. The 2014 Murano started at $29,390. Both prices include shipping.

Martin and a small number of manufacturing and quality executives were dispatched from Nissan Europe after a number of letter-perfect new-model launches there, including the Qashqai crossover. Counting on the higher-end Murano to help burnish Nissan's brand image, Martin's team executed a list of quality initiatives last year.

They put a fleet of new-generation Muranos on the road to log 1.2 million hours of drive time to debug the car.

Martin installed a group of Nissan design engineers at the Mississippi assembly line to make instant design enhancements whenever production workers pointed out issues with parts or assembly.

Earlier this year, Martin invited quality consultants from J.D. Power and Associates to critique a pre-production model to warn Nissan of potential problems.

When one Power consultant expressed displeasure with the location of a cellphone plug-in port, the automaker had it moved immediately.

Martin also ordered what he calls "all-in-one" electronic testing, in which every possible electronic feature of the car was used simultaneously and in different combinations to uncover potential software or operating glitches. The procedure flushed out 35 errors.

Moving suppliers close to the plant was critical to making Mississippi a competitive export operation by trimming suppliers' logistics costs.

Affordability will be a key issue as Canton takes the export reins from Japan. Nissan decided to move the Murano out of Japan in late 2012 to get relief from Japan's currency -- which fell from about 130 yen to the dollar to 111 in the year leading up to the decision.

The dollar now is inching back up in global strength, thanks to restored economic activity at home. It has risen in value against the yen, the Australian dollar and the euro, compared with its value at the January 2013 Murano project start. That makes a U.S.-built car more expensive to export.

"We will still have a small amount of Japanese content on the new Murano, which will help us when it exports to Japan," Martin said. "But our larger mission is to localize production where we sell. We're not chasing currency opportunities. We're trying to balance out our global currency exposures."

How many Muranos ultimately get sent overseas remains to be seen. The new assembly operation also must supply U.S. retailers at a time when Nissan brand sales are booming. In October, the brand posted its 13th consecutive month of record sales.

"Our orders are to produce 94,000 of them" annually, Martin said. "But our American dealers are asking for every last one we can make."