Mazda Motor Corporation has announced that on 15th May 2018 cumulative production in
Japan reached 50 million units. A
commemorative ceremony was held at its Hofu Plant in Yamaguchi prefecture to recognise this achievement.
Representative Director, President and CEO Masamichi Kogai, executive
officers and union representatives all attended. The 50
million-unit milestone was achieved 86 years and seven months after
Mazda produced its first three-wheeled truck in October 1931.
“Mazda began making cars 86 years ago, and now we’ve reached 50 million
units of production in Japan. Even making 1 million cars a year, it
would take 50 years to reach this milestone, showing just how long
Mazda’s history is,” said Kogai at the ceremony. “Moving forward, Mazda
will continue to build a strong brand through a variety of initiatives.
Our plants in Hofu and Hiroshima will continue to evolve and act as
parent factories, rapidly deploying their technologies and skills to our
overseas plants. I’d like us all to work together to ensure these
plants continue to embody the kind of technical prowess that does
justice to Japan’s proud history of Monotsukuri.”
Mazda stared the journey as an automaker in 1931, when it started
producing three-wheeled trucks in Hiroshima. Following on, the production of the R360 Coupe micro-mini began in 1960, marking a bold entry into the
passenger car market. Vehicle manufacturing started at Hofu Plant in
Yamaguchi in 1982, and domestic production duties have since been shared
between the Hofu and Hiroshima Plants. The production techniques and
flexible production systems developed at these plants have helped Mazda
to grow its business. Mixed production lines capable of producing
different models on a single line enable manufacture of multiple models
at low volumes, a breakthrough in the traditional tradeoff between
product variety and competitiveness and volume efficiency. In 2016 and
2017, the company took steps to increase its production flexibility for
crossover models and create a framework capable of responding quickly to
changes in demand. The domestic plants take the lead with Mazda’s
global car-making; production techniques and technologies established in
Japan are then rolled out to overseas facilities.
Mazda aims to sell 1,660,000 cars this fiscal year, the final year of
its Structural Reform Stage 2 medium-term business plan, and plans to
establish a global production framework capable of manufacturing two
million units annually by fiscal year ending March 2024. Mass-production
of vehicles featuring next-generation technologies and design is slated
to start in 2019, and the company will continue expanding its
production framework in an effort to get cars to customers as quickly as
possible.
Aspiring to create a world in which cars can co-exist sustainably with
people, society and the earth, Mazda will continue to enrich people’s
live through various touch points, including the manufacture of
high-quality cars, and become a brand with which customers feel a strong
emotional bond.
