Flexibility is the calling card of domestic downsizing. But it's also part of Asian automakers' continuing upsizing in North America, led by Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Hyundai subsidiary Kia, the latest big OEM nearing an assembly site announcement. In that search, Mississippi is emerging as the clear favorite.
   But while states await that verdict, they can look to Tennessee, where news of the closing of GM's Spring Hill complex was leavened by the relocation from California of Nissan's North American headquarters.

DENSO's instrument cluster division, pictured, sits side-by-side with its electronics division in Maryville, Tenn., with a starter-alternator plant across the street. The company's electronics expansion project, announced in November, will be sited on land behind and between the instrument and electronics division, forming a triangle.

Nissan will move 1,300 employees onto the Tennessee tax rolls along with a $70-million headquarters complex in Franklin, a Nashville-area city known more for its distribution centers. But it's right down the road from Nissan's hugely successful assembly plant in Smyrna, which got its own expansion announcement earlier in 2005.
   "Nissan is no stranger to Tennessee," said Nissan President and CEO Carlos Ghosn at the announcement in November. "We made a strategic decision to relocate our corporate headquarters here because of the long-term benefits associated with overall investment and operations costs."
   Nissan was advised by McCallum Sweeney consulting, which said its activities included "an unprecedented benchmarking effort relative to other headquarters operations and relocations as well as comprehensive in-depth financial modeling and successful incentive negotiations."

DENSO's Tennessee expansion announcement came a month after the company opened this new facility in Osceola, Ark. Slated to employ 500 by 2008, the operation will be headed by DENSO Arkansas President Jerry McGuire (inset).

   Any doubts as to the heft of supplier investment were quelled by an announcement less than a month later, when DENSO Manufacturing, a Toyota affiliate, announced it would invest more than twice the amount pledged by Nissan — $185 million — in the expansion of its electronics parts complex in Maryville, Tenn. The complex will add 220,000 sq. ft. (20,438 sq. m.) to its existing 1.5 million sq. ft. (139,350 sq. m.) and add 500 new jobs to its payroll of 2,500.
   Production will start up in spring 2008. While the current complex occupies some 154 acres (62 hectares), the new facility will be built on land owned by local government. The news comes just a month after DENSO opened its new facility in Osceola, Ark., which expects to employ 500 by 2008.