Gerardo de la Torre: Digital shift 'absolutely necessary' for Nissan’s supply chain

Gerardo de la Torre, regional senior director, Supply Chain Management (SCM) USA & Mexico, Nissan Group of North America, told delegates at Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Digitalisation North America 2024 that it was “absolutely necessary” to change the structure of the group to enable faster growing digitalisation and innovative solutions.

Nissan has been focusing on digital innovation and cybersecurity through its Supply Chain Management division. In his keynote speech, De la Torre said: “After 34 years of working in manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain, I never thought we would have this need to create an individual department fully staffed with people dedicated to ensuring that every new law and requirement that comes now to the shoulders of the supply chain is fully satisfied.”

External partnerships
As well as the formation of its internal SCM division, the OEM has been partnering with external experts too, to ensure an optimal digitalisation strategy.

The company recently named KPMG as its strategic partner for the Manufacturing Cybersecurity Supplier Program (MCSP), and in just one year since the launch of MCSP, Nissan has gone from having assessed 30 suppliers to 60 and is aiming for 80 within this year.

The OEM also partnered with PwC to develop and launch its tier-n solicitation application, launched just last month, which is regionally focused with plans for global adoption across the carmaker.

“PwC was selected as best potential partner as it was already involved with us in our USMCA requirements,” said De la Torre. “PwC is already embedded in our collaborations with our suppliers. We’re making sure that every single box is standardised, and we are now able to create our own tier-n sourcing supply maps, so now we can show the authorities we comply. Our new interface will also support proactive risk identification.”

Internal organisation and growth
De la Torre said that Nissan is not stopping with the restructuring of the business units, as it plans for even more growth. “Organisational expansion is underway,” he said. “We are growing this SCM group because these types of people are not in the traditional supply chain roles like transportation or inventories, or forecast and production. It’s a different type of background that we need to get, together with our supply chain communities, in order to really ensure that we can advance with all of this digitalisation, data analytics, compliance and cyber security.”

He added: “Within our broad scope we’re supporting a transformation. Nissan is shifting its historical approach towards proactivity and resilience using a digital methodology. We want to be a more proactive, resilient supply chain using digital solutions.”

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