Nissan awards top North America logistics partners and calls to go ‘full speed ahead’ in supply chain recovery

Nissan has recognised top logistics providers across North America in an annual awards ceremony, covering categories including inbound parts, finished vehicle and aftersales logistics, as well as recognition for sustainability, digitalisation and supply chain management partners.

The carmaker’s supply chain management (SCM) and aftersales logistics leadership announced the winners during its annual Nissan Supply Chain Logistics Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, which followed the Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Digital Strategies North America event earlier in the same week.

Against a backdrop of wider financial challenges and tariffs, the carmaker sought to assure logistics providers about the importance and opportunities of its business in the Americas, including Nissan’s product offensive, volume forecasts and efforts to improve customer service. Nissan executives also emphasised critical objectives for logistics, including improving delivery performance, efficiency and speed to market.

“We want to work closely with all of you [logistics and supply chain providers] on gemba opportunities to make improvements and to continually optimise, and to see what we can implement faster,” said Chris Styles, regional vice-president of SCM at Nissan Group of the Americas. 

“Thank you for your support and for keeping the focus on improving delivery performance,” said Darrin Lucas, director of aftersales supply chain operations for the Americas. “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated every day. And we ship to every dealer in our network every day and we need perfection every day.”

The major influence of the Americas supply chain

Addressing key logistics providers and partners, Chris Styles highlighted Nissan’s efficiency and cost-saving plans, which includes “rightsizing” the carmaker’s global production footprint, reducing fixed costs and simplifying the supply chain. But he also stressed Nissan’s investment and growth plans in the Americas as part of its ‘Full Speed Ahead’ strategy, with its significant new product offensive across vehicle and powertrain types, as well as production and supplier localisation in key regions.

As part of global efforts to reduce costs, Nissan is looking carefully across its organisation, production and supply chain. For example, as part of its Re:Nissan business strategy, Nissan aims to consolidate vehicle platforms and reduce parts complexity and vehicle mix, which would drive greater efficiency across logistics and parts handling, too.

Nissan has also made significant progress in updating logistics systems and digitalising key processes under the leadership of regional senior director Gerardo de la Torre and his team, including updating transport and warehouse management systems, improving tier-N supplier visibility and increasing resilience.

Styles stressed the importance of partnering with logistics partners on projects and decisions that can add value in the supply chain, as well as working together to adapt quickly to production changes. For example, as part of efforts to reduce exposure to tariffs, Nissan has confirmed that it will shift some production of the Rogue SUV from Japan to Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee over the coming year, allowing the plant to maintain a second shift. The carmaker is also looking for opportunities to localise more suppliers in the US, according to Styles.

The carmaker is seeking optimisation across the wider Americas. Earlier this year, Nissan combined leadership for supply chain management and aftersales in South America with North America, allowing for greater efficiency in operations, process and systems. Nissan has confirmed that production of the Frontier/Navara pickup for Mexico and South America will be consolidated in Mexico, shifting production from Argentina. The carmaker is also expanding production significantly in Brazil, which is also expanding as an export hub.

As a result of such measures, as well as successful product launches across the region, Nissan expects US production to rise and for Mexico production volume to remain closely in line with forecasted annual volume in financial year 2025 compared 2024, with small increases across the entire Americas ahead of further growth in 2026.

“The Americas is a very important region for Nissan, and we have significant influence. That means that all the people and providers sitting in this room have a big influence and role to play in the success of the company,” said Styles.

Styles reiterated a “sense of urgency” in partnership and value-added activities across logistics providers and suppliers. “We need to reduce fixed variable costs, sharpen the product strategy and focus on making the things that people want at the right price point, and at the right speed,” he said. “That means increasing new model speed to market. We can’t take five years. We want to really shorten that and reinforce all of our partnerships.” 

Opportunities in customer retention for aftersales logistics

For aftersales logistics, Darrin Lucas emphasised work with logistics providers to match logistics operations to the right size and capacity of Nissan’s aftersales distribution, including route optimisation on dedicated dealer services, and network engineering for aftersales logistics. For example, Nissan has been able to shift more suppliers from shipping via the carmaker’s national parts centre for consolidation, to shipping directly to regional parts distribution centres across the US, saving handling and logistics costs. 

Lucas equally stressed the carmaker’s goals of improving dealer delivery and customer satisfaction scores, performance for which can drive customer retention, market share and improved profits. Nissan also has a target to increase its share of wholesale parts sales across collision shops – a “massive opportunity”, according to Lucas – which will require targeted delivery and service.

Lucas called for even more focus on innovation and optimisation with logistics partners. “We’re looking for any ideas you can bring to the table and which we can bring forward in areas of optimisation, operations and logistics,” said Lucas.

“Our goals this year is to sell more parts, increase market share and take care of our customers. And if we do that, we’ll take care of the business and we’ll take care of you.”