Nissan has officiated the grand opening of the Nissan Motor Asia Pacific (NMAP) R&D Test Centre in Thailand.
The new test centre will be the main R&D hub for ASEAN to better address customer needs in the region and to align more quickly to market requirements. The scope will be enlarged from the current quality assurance for product launches to the upstream product development phase of evaluation tests for trial prototypes.
NMAP R&D test centre will primarily service the five ASEAN countries of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. The facility also will provide testing for more than 90 countries around the world.
Thailand has been a strategic market for Nissan in the Asia Pacific region since the establishment of the R&D centre in 2003. NMAP today boasts an R&D centre with industry-first testing facilities in Thailand: the anechoic chamber, acoustic chamber and vibration simulator with environment chamber.
An additional investment of more than 1 billion Thai baht has been made to this 6,600 square meter facility. By the end of fiscal year 2016, a total of 330 staff will be employed, with local engineers trained in Japan to attain professional skillsets in order to operate the testing facilities.
Presiding over the official opening, Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Somkid said, “It is our great pleasure to hear that Nissan R&D Centre will help enhance Thai Human Resources Development in the areas of Automotive Technology and Innovation. Moreover, the investment on the R&D in Thailand will boost Thai economy growth with domestic and export demand of production from present to future.”
Kazutaka Nambu, President of Nissan Motor (Thailand) Co., Ltd., emphasized that the realization of this R&D centre is a tribute to the Kingdom’s skilled workforce, competitive location, strong supply chain and effective policy support from the Thai Government. “NMAP R&D Test Centre represents an important milestone not only for Nissan’s presence here in the Kingdom of Thailand but also in the overall development of Thailand’s dynamic automobile industry,” he said.
A total of 12 models will be tested at the test centre, including Nissan’s core model Navara, the bestselling eco car Almera and the X-Trail Hybrid.
