text: “By following the Nissan Production Way and the 
  
  principle of*doukiseisan*—meaning synchronization 
  
  with the customer—manufacturing at Nissan remains 
  
  flexible and integrated, and keeps lead times short. 
  
  The Nissan Production Way incorporates integration at 
  
  the supplier, global and logistic levels. That is why we 
  
  remain the most productive manufacturer in the world. 
  Incidentally, the factories in China opened with no 
  
  We’ve also become much more efficient, as our 
  significant quality issues. This highlights one of our ‘never- 
  
  utilization rates show. In Japan, we were operating at 
  ending’ quests at Nissan, which is to identify problems and 
  
  54 percent of capacity in 1999. In fiscal 2004 that 
  rapidly get solutions for them in place. 
  
  figure increased to 86 percent, which is just about the 
  We do not rely solely on external quality evaluations. 
  
  maximum possible. During NISSAN Value-Up, we will 
  In cooperation with Renault, we created AVES, the Alliance 
  
  increase our global utilization rate from approximately 
  Vehicle Evaluation System. AVES is a sophisticated 
  
  74 percent to over 80 percent. We will not achieve that 
  process involving two people taking four to five hours to 