Japan’s Isuzu factory impresses touring media team

A group of 15 journalists from the region recently toured the Isuzu factory in Fujisawa, Japan.
The trip was organized by Isuzu Motors International FZE, the regional distributor in the Middle East, Africa, Central and Southern West Asia for Isuzu Motors Limited.
The purpose of the six-day trip was to give an opportunity to members of the media to watch closely the manufacturing process of trucks using cutting-edge technologies for an eco-friendly and fuel-efficient performance and to further have a hands-on experience at Wacom, the testing ground for Isuzu vehicles located in Hokkaido.
The journalists said they were impressed by the rate of production at the factory, where it took only 68 seconds to assemble together a complete cabin and chassis.
Multiple inspections were performed by Isuzu engineers along the production lines in order to avoid defects before moving to the next step to guarantee the trucks’ quality and reliability.
Isuzu Motors is one of the oldest Japanese vehicle manufacturers founded in 1916. It is named after a popular river in Japan.
The Isuzu factory capacity is over 170,000 vehicles per year. Fifty percent of the production is processed by humans and the remainder by robots.
Isuzu Vice President for Middle East, Waleed Noubani, told Arab News that Isuzu supplied more than 50,000 vehicles to the Saudi market last year.
Some of these were partly imported from Japan and Thailand while others were assembled in the Dammam plant.
Noubani said the company holds a 65 percent Saudi market share in light-duty vehicles and about 50 percent in medium-sized vehicles among Japanese brands.
“We strictly maintain the Saudization policy of the government. We are above the required government quota and have reached the platinum level,” he said commenting on the Isuzu plant in Dammam.
“The company employs local youths in the Dammam plant and if necessary, we give training here and abroad to make them more skilled in the production line. The company has four distributors in major cities of the Kingdom,” he added.
The journalists also visited the Isuzu Plaza, a museum established to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Isuzu Motors Limited since its establishment in 1937.
They also had a chance to test-drive Isuzu trucks. Following the driving instructions of Isuzu’s professional engineers helps decrease the fuel cost as well as maximizes the vehicle uptime, they said.