UK – Costing £800,000 ($1.2m), the 100,000 sq.ft warehouse at Doxford International Technology Park brings the part manufacturer’s total floorspace in the city to over 500,000 sq.ft.
“The opening of our warehousing building is an important move for us… it means that we are in-sourcing warehousing for the first time,” said John Barnett, operations director at Calsonic Kansei Sunderland. “We are now carrying out all aspects of Calsonic Kansei activities in the Sunderland area, from manufacturing to distribution, cutting time and improving efficiency.”
Calsonic Kansei invested £4.5m in the Sunderland area in 2014, including an extension to its plant in Washington which attracted £660,000 from the Let’s Grow regional development fund. This year, the Washington plant will export 25% of its exhaust products to Nissan Renault locations across Europe. Having won new business for Infiniti vehicles, the plant was refurbished and new equipment installed in 2014.
While Washington handles exhaust systems, a second Sunderland site makes plastic components and a Calsonic facility within the Nissan plant itself manufactures cockpit modules. Across these three locations, the company employs 1,400 personnel, the total workforce having grown by 800% since 2004.
Calsonic has supplied every exhaust fitted to Nissan Sunderland vehicles since the plant opened in 1986.