Nissan Cogent vehicle features and specifications

Nissan's COGENT

Overview of Nissan Company

Nissan has been around for almost 90 years now, making it one of the oldest and leading manufacturers of vehicles in Japan. It was initially based in Japan alone but with passage of time, it went on and expanded itself to become a powerful worldwide company. Nissan Motor Company Ltd. gave the world Datsun as its first brand of cars which was highly successful making Nissan the third largest automobile company in Japan and 5th largest in the world. Nissan joined hands with French company Renault SA in 1999 to become an even bigger and more powerful force in the automobile industry. More production centers were created in the U.S., UK, Mexico and Spain.

Situation analysis

Nissan started a comprehensive supplier training program that is called NX96 and while this program was hailed for being the first of its kind, it has not always been very welcome by the supplier. There are some issues with suppliers who are working with this program as they are not sure what is expected of them and how the information provided during the training needs to be utilized. Suppliers are not exactly being as cooperative with the acceptance of this program as Nissan had hoped leading to some trust issues which Nissan wants to resolve. The poor performance of suppliers because of their attitude towards the program and Nissan itself is a threat to productivity which Nissan views as a serious concern. In order to tackle these problems, Nissan then started the NEXT21 which effectively replaced NX96. This program focused on giving suppliers tools to give 100% to Nissan while it permitted then a fault rate of 10 ppm. But this program has again failed to meet Nissan's expectations. Nissan had hoped that 1st tier suppliers would use this program and later help trickle it down to other tiers of suppliers but this did not happen as even the 1st tier did not fully accept the program and didn't exactly become as cooperative as Nissan would have anticipated.

Purpose of Nissan's COGENT

Later in 1995, Nissan came up with the idea of COGENT which is another good program that takes into account the supply chain. It was developed with the efforts of Nissan European Technology Center, Suppliers, and Canfield University. For this program funds were provided by DTI and Innovative Manufacturing Initiative (IMI) (the ENGINEER 2000). The COGENT was started after Nissan's NEXT21 program had failed to produce desired results. The most important objectives of this program include communication and understanding between suppliers and Nissan (Southey 2010). Company believes that it can use this program to effectively lower costs and improve efficiency which would help Nissan stay ahead of the competition. In order to survive and prosper the company needs this program to work. The main idea or concepts behind the development of COGENT include:

1. Early Supplier Involvement

This refers to the communication and involvement of suppliers at the first stage of manufacturing. This is an important step because if suppliers can offer input at the beginning stage of design, many problems can later be avoided in terms of what can be supplied and how much. This early supplier involvement is one of the main components of COGENT. Before actual designing or implementation starts, suppliers are asked to participate so that some production and product development mistakes can be avoided and also suppliers can tell which parts are available and which need to be developed. (Monczka and Trent 1995: 42)

2. Establishing long-term relationships

The second important part of the COGENT program is the creation of long-term relationships. With the idea of Nissan developing good relations with suppliers, it is possible to build lasting connections which are based on loyalty and respect. This way the company can avoid later trust issues with suppliers that could lead to problems. Such long association also helps in overall performance and productivity. (Kalwani, 1995)

3. Fast Track

One of the main ideas behind COGENT is the incorporation of fast track system which helps in facilitating supplier involvement in initial stages of production. This system provides effective communication with both the suppliers and customers so once the customer needs are identified, supplier participation becomes easier. For minimization of defects, this system was seen as a good idea as it improved communication.

Performance measure

The success of a program is dependent on the results it can produce. The desired results can only be determined with good performance measurement methods. COGENT is a program that needs a good performance measurement system which checks for improvement in productivity and performance based on the performance produced by COGENT supplier and comparing them with performance of non-cogent suppliers.

Nissan needs to check the effectiveness of COGENT program with a good tool that would measure, manage and improve supplier performance. These tools will collect and provide information on supplier performance along with a rating scale that would rate the performance of suppliers based on various indicators. Nissan has been working hard to help suppliers reach QCDDM commitments. Quality, Cost, Delivery & Management commitments need to be met in order to successfully outdo non-cogent suppliers and this is what the program aims at.

Case Analysis

Success

According to the measurement results, it was found that COGENT worked well with 1st tier suppliers as 89 firms and 900 people participated in the program. Nissan's COGENT program has help in achieving cost efficiency and time management including reduction in the time it takes to get suppliers to deliver.

Failure

It appears that COGENT program is only good for 1st tier supplier while it doesn't provide much support to 2nd and 3rd tier suppliers. These suppliers are unable to get required support from 1st tier supplier about design and development capacities which makes the program a partially failure. The trust issue then remains unresolved as one group of suppliers doesn't support or cooperate with other group of suppliers then creating problems.

Risk

The risk from bad supply chain is that it can affect performance and competition. While the program is a success in some areas, it is not a complete success which might create problems for Nissan in its competition with other companies. The company needs to build bridges between suppliers and company by building trust and cooperation.