Nissan Motor is adding a third shift at its Canton, Mississippi, plant to assemble the Altima, the automaker’s best-selling model in the United States.
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US sales of the Altima increased 43.7% in May, to 34,428, the Detroit Free Press noted.
“With flexibility built into our systems, we’re able to quickly adapt to the changing landscape of the marketplace,” Bill Krueger, Nissan’s senior vice president of North American manufacturing, purchasing, supply chain management and customer satisfaction, said in a statement cited by the paper.
Nissan said employees working at the plant’s truck operations would move to the new afternoon shift for the Altima. Employment is expected to remain around 3,000.
According to the Detroit Free Press, the company said the transition would start on 23 June with full production scheduled to begin in September. Nissan also said it would cut back its truck production to one shift.
The report said Canton also produces the Titan full-size pickup truck, the Quest minivan, the Armada full-size SUV and its Infiniti QX56 full-size luxury SUV spin-off.
These products are all doomed eventually under plans Nissan announced recently. It will use Canton to build new LCVs for itself from 2010 while Chrysler will build a Titan replacement (in return for a car model from Nissan) and the luxury SUV replacements are sourced from Japan.
