Production of the redesigned 2021 Nissan Rogue – X-Trail elsewhere – is now officially under way at the Smyrna Vehicle Assembly Plant in Tennessee.
“Our US manufacturing team rallied together like never before to overcome unprecedented challenges that could have impacted this moment,” said Steve Marsh, head of manufacturing, supply chain management and purchasing for Nissan North America.
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Nissan is using enhanced applications of advanced manufacturing technology such as virtual reality and collaborative robots to build the vehicle.
It said it had deployed more collaborative car manufacturing robots with the new Rogue than it had with any other previous model launch. These support process factory automation, resulting in improved safety performance and less strain on workers. The technology is being used to assist with a number of jobs to ensure repetitive tasks are done the same way every time. This helps free up workers to perform more skilled tasks and produce higher quality vehicles.
Manufacturing engineers used virtual reality to troubleshoot issues before moving to the production floor. The technology not only helped to identify “manufacturability” concerns before the first steel was cut for production tools, but also shaped the design of process equipment through early, virtual feedback from production technicians, helping to prevent production delays.
The new Rogue is the first of six new Nissan models for the US which will be offered by the end of 2021 and followed updated Versa and Sentra.
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By GlobalDataNissan had, at one point, also planned to build this new Rogue, as X-Trail, at its UK plant but killed the idea due to Brexit uncertainty and a market switch away from diesel.
