Just after completing one of its most ambitious projects at their Smyrna, Tennessee plant auto assembly, Nissan Motor Co. lost Susan Brennan, one of its highest profile manufacturing executives. Brennan is known to leave the company for seeking career opportunities outside Nissan and it will be Randy Knight – succeeding her as the VP Manufacturing of the Smyrna plant with effect from November 18, 2013.
Mr. Randy Night was previously holding post of the material handling and production control director and is a veteran with Nissan for 30 years. As a matter of company policy Nissan denied any further comment on departure of Susan Brennan or her future. Along with being an MBA Brennan is also a pharmaceutical researcher and is known to have spent five years in chemical, biological and pharmaceutical research that also included a research study of breast cancer.
When she joined Nissan Motor Co. she also brought with her a diverse background of clinical science and also factory management and over a period of time meshed that with Nissan’s mission of mass production launching of electric and lithium ion batteries driven cars. In one of her recently made comments Brennan jokingly told the media that this most ambitious project in the history of the 30 year old plant made the pace of work at Smyrna had been so demanding that it was hardly possible to leave Smyrna at all.
Under Bill Krueger, the senior vice president of manufacturing, purchasing, production engineering and supply chain management, Nissan’s manufacturing operations in Northern America is presently in overdrive and Red Knight is now going to hold the top management position at Smyrna when the company is aiming for a higher production volume. This overdrive for manufacturing volume increase has already made Nissan to employment expansion at its Canton factory for manufacturing the Murano crossover with a view of establishing Canton as its global export base. A new auto assembly plant is also launched in Aguascalientes, Mexico as Nissan is focusing on higher production output of its new products – like the recently launched Nissan Rogue or the Nissan Pathfinder and thus better serve their dealers with the highest volume of available products. As Nissan’s sale only in USA have grown by 11% this year compared to a gain of only 8% for the overall light vehicle market in America there is a growing demand from the dealers for the electric Leafs built at Smyrna and now it all up to Night to carry on from where Brennan has left.
