Siemens and Nissan collaborate to digitalise production lines

Siemens is cooperating with Nissan to build production lines for the new all-electric crossover Nissan Ariya at the company’s plant in Tochigi, Japan.

Both companies build on their long-standing cooperation. Nissan had already been using the Siemens Digital Industries software portfolio to optimise design and production. End-to-end digital threads enable Nissan to connect a wide variety of sources of information across product lifecycle management (PLM) platforms.

“The successful launch of the new production lines is a milestone in the collaboration of the two companies,” says Cedrik Neike, member of the managing board of Siemens and CEO of Siemens Digital Industries. “Climate change and stringent environmental regulations are powerful drivers for the development of electrified powertrains. We will bring in all of our cutting-edge technologies to this collaboration to enable a highly flexible, efficient and sustainable automotive production.”

Teiji Hirata, corporate vice president for vehicle production engineering and development at Nissan Motor Co, says: “At our Nissan Intelligent Factory in Tochigi, we are building the future of mobility. It enables us to not only improve the work environment but also to realize a zero-emission production system. To digitalise our new electric vehicle production line, we chose to work with Siemens, our innovation partner and one of the leading companies in industrial automation and digitalisation, because they have the necessary expertise in this area.”

The system architecture of Nissan’s newly developed electric powertrain aims to standardise the processing and assembly of the powertrain. It includes Siemens’ safety PLC Simatic S7-1500, ET200SP distributed I/O module as Siemens One Single Solution (OSS). Profinet creates end-to-end communication from the field to the management level, and the engineering framework TIA Portal has also fully integrated all automation devices. This enables complete access to the entire digitalised automation process, from digital planning to integrated engineering and transparent operation.

More intelligent automobiles require more and high-performing Electronic Control Units (ECUs) in the vehicle – as is the case in the new Nissan Ariya. The Siemens diagnostic commissioning system Sidis Pro, which has already been deployed in many automobile companies around the world, is implemented at Nissan’s new production line for data writing into ECU and verifying automotive electric components.

Sidis Pro is the advanced vehicle diagnosis and inspection data management system that provides optimal support for inspection processes to enable quality of car production. Sidis Pro manages a wide range of data with server functions, contributing to the digitisation of production lines. It enables maximum flexibility in automotive production as it is easily modifiable depends on the production plan, and the changes can be adapted quickly. The same software can be used for different applications, enabling system standardisation and ensuring that fewer resources perform for more tasks even at other production sites.

Siemens continues to support Nissan in digitalising and electrifying the production facilities and contribute to the realisation of Nissan Intelligent Factory vision.