Nissan Americas is leveraging digital supply chain intelligence, AI-driven risk sensing and end-to-end supplier visibility to strengthen resilience across its operations, with its people and leadership at the forefront, according to Gerardo de la Torre Garcia, regional senior director of supply chain management at Nissan Americas.
Speaking during the headline keynote at ALSC Digital Strategies North America 2026, de la Torre Garcia outlined how a multi-year digital transformation programme has evolved from a compliance-focused initiative into a strategic capability supporting manufacturing realignment, cyber risk management, tariff mitigation and logistics optimisation.
"We started this journey more than three and a half years ago, and that journey has given us some of the necessary capabilities or skills to advance with what we call our resilience," he said, describing resilience as a core enabler of Nissan's broader 'Re:Nissan' mid-term plan.
Re:Nissan's core pillars:
Market and product strategy redefinition: Portfolio readjusted for competitiveness and market requirements.
Partnership reinforcement: Strong belief in selecting the right strategic supply chain management partners for synergy and resilience.
Digital foundations support manufacturing transformation
The digital strategy has been deployed alongside significant changes to Nissan's manufacturing footprint across the Americas. Over the past year, the company has closed operations in Argentina, shut manufacturing lines in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and consolidated production into other facilities, including expanding pickup truck manufacturing capabilities at its Aguascalientes plant.
Alongside this, the OEM increased production in North America, significantly so in its Smyrna, Tennessee, and Canton, Mississippi, plants. The company achieved more than 20% uplift in total volume, enabling tariff-free delivery of products, and launched the new QX65 in the Smyrna plant. And in Latin America, Nissan secured capacity in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, launched production of a second vehicle, the Kait, and enabled the export of vehicles from Rio de Janeiro to more than 24 countries in Latin America for the first time, supported by IT and digital solutions.
According to de la Torre Garcia, digital tools played a critical role in helping Nissan transfer manufacturing equipment, supplier networks and production planning processes between sites within a compressed timeframe. At the centre of Nissan's resilience strategy is a digital supply chain mapping platform that provides visibility across multiple supplier tiers.
While this transformation has taken place over the past few years, the evolution of Nissan's risk sensing is what stands out.
Originally developed to support human rights compliance and regulatory due diligence requirements, the platform now serves as a broader risk management tool. Nissan has mapped supplier relationships across its extended network, allowing teams to identify where parts originate, how materials flow and which suppliers are connected throughout the supply chain.
The platform enables Nissan to trace supplier relationships beyond tier one providers and identify impacts from incidents affecting tier-two, tier-three or even deeper-tier suppliers.
Combined with external risk intelligence partners, the company can merge internal operational data with external alerts to improve response times when disruption occurs.
"This is where the AI based strategic partners have helped us to identify immediate threats, immediate alerts, immediate concerns that are happening as we speak, in such a way that as soon as we have data from our internal operations and digital solutions, plus data from the external partners, then we are being able to proactively react and secure the resiliency that we expect to gain in our operations," he said. "There are people here, the leaders from Nissan, that have taken this pillar to the significant next level. Because we all have been exposed to cyber attacks or our suppliers or the supplier of our suppliers, it has created a significant strength."
AI-powered risk sensing and cyber resilience
Cybersecurity has become a particular focus area. According to de la Torre Garcia, Nissan experiences multiple cyber-related incidents across its extended supplier network every month.
"We started to learn that not only was [the digital tool] useful for compliance, but also useful to prevent against a tier one cyber attack and how to react, and also a Tier 2 or 3 or 4, in such a way that the configuration of our tools have enabled the immediate identification of the entire end to end supply chain," he said.
"On average, we have between four, five or six cyber attack events per month in our tier-N supply chain," he added.
The company has established preventative programmes, supplier assessments and response protocols designed to minimise operational impact. When an incident occurs, teams can rapidly identify affected suppliers, assess exposure and activate contingency plans before production is disrupted. Nissan is also part of the AIAG working team and works with Altana, Everstream and Kharon who he said have "complementary capabilities" that Nissan needs in order to advance within cybersecurity.
De la Torre Garcia said these efforts have helped Nissan avoid substantial production losses that might otherwise have resulted from supplier cyber incidents.
Responding faster to geopolitical disruption
The same visibility is helping Nissan react more quickly to geopolitical events and supply shocks. De la Torre Garcia cited the recent conflict in the Middle East as an example. Within hours of the situation escalating, Nissan's teams were able to assess potential impacts across critical commodities and identify exposure to materials such as aluminium.
Rather than waiting for shortages to emerge, supply chain teams could immediately evaluate affected vehicle programmes and engage suppliers to explore alternative sourcing options.
The company is also applying similar capabilities to semiconductor supply chain management. By connecting supplier mapping data with semiconductor sourcing information, Nissan can identify potential risks affecting lower-tier suppliers and gain greater visibility into chip dependencies across vehicle programmes.
"I wish I had this level of visibility in 2021 when the semiconductor crisis happened," de la Torre Garcia said. "We were like blind with no clear visibility on what was going on in the globe. Now we have a very immediate assessment."
Using supplier visibility to mitigate tariff costs
Another emerging application is tariff management. By tracing component origins throughout its multi-tier supplier network, Nissan has been able to identify US-sourced content embedded within components supplied to Mexican manufacturing operations.
This visibility allows the company to quantify the value of US-made content and potentially reduce tariff exposure through detailed documentation and compliance processes.
According to de la Torre Garcia, supplier collaboration combined with digital supply chain mapping enabled Nissan to complete complex content validation exercises in a matter of weeks.
The capability highlights how digital supply chain transparency is increasingly becoming a financial tool as well as an operational one.
Tariff Mitigation:
The TRN database identifies the US dollar value of content from Tier N suppliers (Tier 4, 3, 2) supplying Mexico Tier 1s.
Aims for a 25% tariff exemption for vehicles not built in the USA if US content can be proven.
The digital tool enables immediate identification, quantification, and documentation of US content.
Validation with suppliers and legal/customs teams was completed in less than six weeks for specific components like transmissions, gear links, and fuel tanks.
This initiative aims to achieve cost-effectiveness through tariff resiliency.
The next frontier: logistics optimisation
Looking ahead, Nissan sees opportunities to extend digital integration into transportation and logistics planning, and is exploring initiatives to integrate and connect transportation requirements for Nissan plants and Tier 1 suppliers using a unified database.
De la Torre Garcia described a future in which transportation management systems, bill-of-materials data and supplier planning systems become more closely connected, enabling collaborative freight planning across the network and optimising multiple routes while reducing inefficient transportation.
Such integration could improve truck utilisation, reduce empty capacity and create efficiencies across regional logistics operations.
"This could be a massive regional opportunity," he said.
Resilience as a competitive advantage
Nissan's digital transformation journey over the last three years has evolved past visibility and compliance and has become a strategic capability supporting faster decision-making, risk mitigation and operational flexibility.
As regulatory requirements increase, geopolitical uncertainty persists and supply networks become more complex, de la Torre Garcia believes resilience will remain a defining competitive differentiator.
The results are already visible. According to Nissan, the company's ability to maintain supply continuity, manage risk and support evolving manufacturing strategies has contributed to strong market performance across the region.
"We were able to supply the region with the right cars at the right time, with the right level of competitiveness, with the right level of resilience and supply risk prevention," he said.
