CAR giant Nissan is looking to zap up to £500,000 a year off the cost of each future model manufactured at its Sunderland car plant.

The Japanese car-maker will achieve this by using high-tech laser beams to measure car panels.

The state-of-the-art Model Maker provides the necessary data to create an electronic replica of a panel by rapidly scanning its surface with a laser beam and sending back thousands of measurements to a computer.

Ian Bargman, an engineer in Nissan's quality assurance department, said: "At the moment, we fix panels into specially-built gauges, which represent the perfect shape the panel should be.

We then drill down through the panel until we reach a subsurface layer positioned beneath it, and then measure the distance in between."

He added: "Once we've taken enough measurements like this, we can tell how closely a particular panel matches its design specification.

"It's very time-consuming and not as precise as we would like.

"Using a laser beam, the Model Maker systems takes 14,000 readings a second and can scan an entire panel in less time than it takes to drill a panel in the old way. We can use the information gathered in this way to create a virtual panel."

The electronic data gathered in this way is then analysed closely to see how it matches the original design specification. If the panel does not match the originally specification, the press panel production shop can be informed of what changes need to be made.

The new process will help Nissan's Sunderland car plant in its continuing efficiency drive, initiated as part of the Nissan Revival Plan.

Training in the use of the £123,000 machine is under way at the plant. The technique will be applied for the first time on the next generation of the Primera, due to start rolling off the assembly line at the end of this year.

The Sunderland factory produces three models: the Micra, Almera and Prim-era. Production of the Primera is being wound down in preparation for the launch of the new model at the end of the year.

Sunderland, which is Europe's most productive car plant, won the £235m contract to build the new Micra in January, safeguarding 1,300 jobs.

Last month, Nissan announced a return to profit, after three years in the red,

The Wearside factory is introducing a raft of measures to cut costs by 30 per cent by 2003 as part of the plan. They include being the first Japanese car manufacture in the UK to use ultrasonic weld testing.