Communications and Cars

Photo by Marsha Dawes

Professors Radhika Parameswaran (left) and Jim Bright (right) pose with the the group in Yokohama’s China Town.

Tuesday’s main event was a visit to the world headquarters of Nissan in Ginza and a production plant in Oppama.

In the morning, the group met with Simon Sproule, the corporate vice president of global communications and investor relations. Mr. Sproule knew Professor Jim Bright from their work in automotive communications.

He talked about Nissan’s public relations work and cultural differences in communications, especially in Japan and China. Students saw a PowerPoint show about Nissan’s global communications structure within the company.

The group took a local train for about an hour to the Oppama plant. Nissan’s Yoshie Yamasaki, executive assistant, global communications, served as the escort. The company provided lunch for the group.

The group took a company bus to the nearby Oppama Wharf to see where Nissan products are shipped abroad and to Japanese cities. Then they visited the factories, including a walking tour of the automobile production, with robotic welding of panels and an assembly line for interior parts and the final inspection. The new cars included both Nissan and Infiniti models.

Photo by Ashley Thursby

The Nissan assembly line.

After the day at Nissan, some of the students stopped at Yokohama, Japan’s second largest city (Osaka is third). Yokohama is a short train ride from Tokyo and includes a major port and one of the world’s largest Chinatowns. The students ate dinner in Chinatown before returning to the hotel for the evening.
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