It was the late 1990s, and General Motors Corporation and Isuzu Motors Ltd. were still forming its new DMAX joint venture – yet plans for DMAX’s turbo diesel engine manufacturing facility were already taking shape. Chiyoda – a Japan-based automotive process engineering firm and one member of a program management solutions consortium that also included Kahn and The Lathrop Company – had already developed a strong process engineering relationship with Isuzu in Japan, so before DMAX was even formed Kahn-Chiyoda-Lathrup had been commissioned to search for a suitable site for this facility. Plans for the chosen location – in Moraine, Ohio, where the plant still operates – were finalized as soon as union agreements and other details were in place. more...
Partnership and Diversity
Chuck Robinson, PE, LEED® AP, who played a crucial role for Kahn during that start-up period, gives much credit to Maho Mitsuya – then a key Chiyoda member and now the President of DMAX – as the team’s Isuzu contact. “We had contacts at GM Powertrain, but Maho [Mitsuya] essentially acted as the owner in getting permits and approvals,” Robinson says. “We developed the plant criteria, made budgets, and actually started construction before DMAX was fully in existence.”
Kahn’s Mike Durand, PE, LEED® AP, who joined the team once the project was underway, also describes Mitsuya as the project’s key liaison acting on behalf of Chiyoda, which was hired as the project’s overall program manager.
“He was our go-to person,” says Durand. “We worked very closely, and he helped us better understand how Isuzu’s process engineering expectations might differ from what we might have considered more traditional automotive standards.”
Collaboration and Modification. The Perfect Ratio.
DMAX and Kahn. The Perfect Ratio.
