CONTINUED success at Nissan's North-East plant could lead to a significant boost in production and the creation of more than 1,000 jobs, a company boss hinted yesterday.

The car manufacturer is looking at the possibility of increasing the number of shifts at the plant in Washington, near Sunderland, from two to three in the future.

Personnel director Danny Griffiths said the move would boost output from the current capacity of 390,000 units to 500,000 and would boost its workforce by at least another 1,000 staff.

The popularity of Nissan's new Qashqai model is expected to push overall production to 385,000 units this year - just 5,000 short of the plant's capacity, while running on a two shift pattern.

The output figure far exceeds Nissan's original annual production target in Washington of 135,000 and represents significant growth on last year's figure of 301,211.

However, Mr Griffiths remained cautious over plans to introduce a third shift at the site, due to the overall cost of the move and the fact the Nissan Micra is moving towards the end of its production life.

"We tend to shy away from moving to three shifts because of the investment in infrastructure," he said. "We won't do it unless we are very certain."

Nissan already employs 4,400 staff in the North-East and a further 1,500 contractors work on site. Globally, the company employs 186,000 people and has sales of about £3.48bn.

Nissan has invested £2.4bn in its Washington plant and the company contributes £460m gross value added (GVA) to the region's economy.

Mr Griffiths spoke about the firm's success at a conference called Modernising Manufacturing: A Strategy for the Future, held at Nissan yesterday.

The company has invested heavily in lean manufacturing techniques and skills training.

Nissan is evolving to meet the demands of the marketplace and its customers, and has set targets to reduce manufacturing costs by 15 per cent and logistic costs by 13 per cent by March next year.

"We are always discussing what to do next," said Mr Griffiths. "We know that, if we rest, somebody will overtake us.

"We are focusing on our unique selling point within Nissan. If we are competing for new cars, our selling point would be that we can do that quicker than any other plant in Nissan."