Nissan’s plant in Decherd – which manufactures every engine for Nissan and Infiniti vehicles in the U-S – celebrated its 10th anniversary (today/yesterday).
The plant kicked off production with a dozen employees in 1997 and now employs roughly 12-hundred with the capacity to crank out a million engines per year.
Governor Phil Bredesen says Nissan has led Tennessee to its position as the fourth largest automotive producing state in the country with 125-thousand jobs. Even as profits have seen a decline, Bredesen says it’s a stable sector that brings more jobs than simply on the plant floor.
“For every job in an assembly plant, there’s another six to eight jobs out there in the supplier community. So it really is a case of everyone winning, and we’re going to keep pushing this sector of our economy because it’s important.”
That supply chain is the topic on the table at the Automotive News Manufacturing Conference held in Nashville this week.
To further economic development not only in Tennessee but throughout the Southeast, a research alliance was unveiled (today/yesterday) at that automotive conference.
Dana Christensen is an engineering lab director at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He says the University of Tennessee along with the six other schools involved can produce higher quality research if they work together.
“The goal is of course to link our capabilities so that we aren’t necessarily duplicating and we aren’t necessarily competing. We can actually leverage and build on each other’s capabilities, strengthen that capability for the south and see this resurgence broadly across all the states and the university system.”
Industry leaders and state officials say the simple location choice for the conference shows Tennessee is making a name for itself in auto manufacturing. Representatives from GM, Chrysler and Nissan will speak at the event.
Christine Buttorff contributed to this report.
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