Christine Tierney / The Detroit News
Nissan Motor Co. is cutting back its North American design team, which is split between the company's studios in Farmington Hills and San Diego, and re-aligning the studios' responsibilities to increase efficiency and save money.
The Japanese automaker expects to eliminate close to a dozen out of about 100 jobs at Nissan Design America Inc. through voluntary buyout offers, with most of the cuts expected in the slightly larger San Diego studio, company officials said this week.
The reductions are the latest at Nissan North America, which has cut jobs at its manufacturing operations in Smyrna, Tenn., and lost many employees when it transferred its headquarters to Nashville in 2006 from Carson.
"Over the past two years, they have really focused on every penny they spend. This isn't just a designer thing," said Alexander Edwards, a partner at San Diego consulting firm Strategic Vision and head of its automotive division. "For every dollar they spend, they're getting a lot more out of it than they used to."
The strict cost controls have improved Nissan's financial performance. The automaker recently reiterated its forecast for a $4.5 billion profit for the fiscal year ending on March 31 after reporting a 27 percent jump in earnings for the October-December quarter.
But CEO Carlos Ghosn is pessimistic about the prospects for the U.S. auto market this year and has predicted that overall industry sales could drop to 15.5 million vehicles.
Nissan managers went over the budgets and activities of the U.S. studios recently as part of a global review of the design operations.
"The reason we're doing it, is that the process, from the beginning to the start of production, from the idea to the showroom, is becoming shorter," said Bruce Campbell, vice president at Nissan Design America.
The time it takes to develop a vehicle has been cut from around 48 months 10 years ago to half as long "and we've got projections to reduce that to maybe half again," he said in an interview.
That allows Nissan to bring vehicles to the market faster, but has reduced the need for staff. "We will continue to have the same output as before. Our target is to figure out how to do more with less," he said.
The buyout offer targets designers, color designers and perceived quality designers, a group numbering around 33 people. It was not extended to modelers and administrative staff at Nissan Design America.
"It's a voluntary severance plan at this moment," Campbell said. Designers have until the end of the month to consider the offers. "Fewer than 12 (job eliminations) for all of Nissan Design America is the estimate on our side," he said. "We anticipate the greatest effect will probably be felt in San Diego."
The U.S. studios have designed or contributed substantially to the design of models such as the Nissan Altima sedan and coupe, the new Nissan Rogue crossover, the Armada and Infiniti QX56 full-size SUVs and the sporty 350Z car.
The review of the design operations also will lead to a sharper division of labor between Nissan's U.S. studios. The San Diego studio, which employs 60 of the overall 100, will concentrate on designing future models and concepts and generating ideas, while the Farmington Hills studio, housed in the Nissan Technical Center North America, will take over projects as they near production. "They're on the same campus with the engineers. It makes sense," Campbell said. "It's a hallway down from production engineering."
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