The ability to use a CNC machine to manufacture the company’s Skyactiv engine is what allows Mazda to gain a competitive edge, according to an article in Wards Auto by Bryon Pope.
He points out thatMazda is one of the first major automakers to employ CNC manufacturing on a large scale.
Here is an excerpt from the article.
Tiny Mazda believes it may have found the secret to competing effectively against such automotive behemoths as General Motors and Toyota that enjoy huge cost advantages inherent with mass-producing millions of vehicles annually.
Hiroshima, Japan-based Mazda churned out only 1.4 million vehicles last year on a global basis, according to WardsAuto data, only a fraction of the 9 million-plus cars and trucks built yearly by each of the world’s biggest auto makers.
“We needed to approach that fundamental truth (of economies of scale) and find out if it’s still fundamentally true, or is there a way to engineer our way around it,” Dave Coleman, vehicle development engineer-Mazda North American Operations, says during a media backgrounder here. “And it turns out there is a way to engineer around it.”
Click here for the complete article “Mazda Rethinks Manufacturing Process.”
