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Marton Pettendy22 Apr 2015
NEWS

Nissan Oz expands manufacturing base

Japanese car-maker's local automotive casting plant now at near-capacity as Australia's three car-makers wind down

Nissan may have stopped building cars in Australia in 1992, but it will continue to produce automotive components well after Ford ceases local manufacturing next year and Holden and Toyota close the doors on the nation's final two car factories in 2017.

In stark contrast with Holden, which the same day announced it will bring forward the redundancies of 270 workers to next month following lack of demand for its Adelaide-made Commodore and Cruze models (production of which will reduce from 290 to 240 a day from the end of May), Nissan yesterday revealed lucrative new export contracts will keep its Melbourne casting plant at near-capacity beyond 2020.

While Ford claims its ongoing design and development work will make it Australia's largest automotive industry employer by 2018, Nissan Australia says its $65 million casting business will be expanded by a new multi-million dollar contract to export aluminium castings to the US, Japan, UK, Thailand, South Korea and Mexico.

Nissan Australia CEO Richard said the “quietly flourishing” casting plant made his company a fully integrated OEM that also sells, markets, finances, races and tests cars (in its capacity as one of just nine global Field Quality test centres globally), and will be the only remaining car-maker to do so post-2017.

“It’s often overlooked that Nissan is also a local automotive manufacturer,” he said. “Some people think auto manufacturing in Australia is dead. It’s alive and well here at Nissan Australia.”

Based near its local HQ in Dandenong, Nissan Casting Australia has been operating at about 80 per cent of capacity since about September last year, when it chose not to publicise its good fortune amid a climate of factory closure announcements.

Since then it has inked a number of contracts with its Japanese parent company, on top of the 49 components it already produces annually for 30 global vehicles including six in Australia -- the Nissan LEAF, QASHQAI, Pathfinder and new NP300 Navara, plus the Infiniti Q50 and Renault Koleos.

In all, the plant makes parts for 30 different Nissan, Infiniti, Renault and even Datsun models sold all over the world.

Details of the latest contracts remain confidential because they involve parts for driveline and propulsion systems in secret future models not yet revealed.

However, the new business will be in addition to the 2.3 million-plus parts and 25,000 accessories it makes annually, including some parts made exclusively in Australia (complete with a leaping kangaroo logo) such as the "jewel in the crown" – the battery water jacket, cover and inverter case for the LEAF and NV200 EVs.

First opened in 1982, the plant covers 94,000 square-metres of land, just 20,000 of which is covered by facilities that house molten aluminium, robots, machining booths and casting machines that produce highly complex cast components that appear machined, thanks in part to technology blockage prevention developed with the CSIRO, guaranteeing a tolerance of as little as 15 microns – less than the diameter of a human hair.

Apart from making 10 different accessories including tow bars, the parts factory specialises in the manufacture of high- and low-pressure aluminium die-casting, machining and component assembly, such as EV parts, transmission housings, final drive housings and oil pans.

It currently operating three shifts per day, seven days per week and its 160 staff will soon be complemented by another 30 workers in preparation for a 10 per cent increase in its current output of 10,000 tonnes.

The casting plant's tower melter furnace was installed in April 2013 at a cost of $2.1 million, $600,000 of which was from the federal government’s Green Car Innovation Program, and Nissan has applied for further funds from the Automotive Transformation Scheme as part of its upcoming expansion.

Nissan Casting Australia managing director Peter Jones said the declining value of the Australian dollar and relatively high labour costs had failed to slow growth at the plant, which continues to win global component contracts because of its consistently low costs and high quality.

"Part of the reason we've secured even more business from Nissan – some of it exclusive to Nissan Casting Australia – is quality.

"These developments will see Nissan Casting operating well beyond 2020. Manufacturing is far from dead in Australia and we're proof of that."

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