Business / Auto China

Xiangyang facility retooled and refined for premium quality

By Hao Nan (China Daily) Updated: 2014-11-19 11:07

The Xiangyang plant in Hubei province shoulders the production mission for the Q50L, Infiniti's first China-made long-wheelbase sports luxury sedan.

With commencement of Infiniti local production at the Xiangyang plant, China has become the third country for Infiniti's global manufacturing footprint in addition to Japan and the United States. It has five workshops covering a combined 130,000 square meters, including 33,000 square meters for Infiniti production designed to produce 60,000 Infiniti cars annually.

Since Infiniti signed the deal to begin local production in 2012, about 600 million yuan ($98 million) has been spent to upgrade hardware and production facilities to fulfill Infiniti's commitment that the localized Q50L has the same quality as the imported version.

Hundreds of processes were added for Infiniti models. And more than 60 sets of production and examination equipment were also put into use, including an auto-frame laser measuring instrument and China's first Quality Gate and Quality Traceability Expansion System.

Due to the efforts, the plant is now at the same level as the Q50 production center at the Tochigi plant in Japan. It has 2,500 engineers and workers on the initial production lines with rich experience and awareness of high quality. Most were trained in Japan.

The local plant provided 24 master-level production workers who accepted longterm training at the Japanese plant and have at least 10 years of production management experience, enabling them to make suggestions to maintain the vehicle's premium quality.

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