Cadillac celebrated 100 years of car making with a move to a $550 million state-of-the-art assembly plant in Lansing, Michigan, US.

The plant is General Motors' first new production facility in the US since 1986 and designed to turn out 200,000 luxury vehicles a year. Among them is the new Cadillac CTS luxury performance sedan, first seen in the Middle East at the 2001 international motor show in Dubai.

"Cadillac is undergoing a multi-billion-dollar transformation, embarking on a revolutionary programme it calls 'Art and Science' in a powerful bid to recapture territory lost over the past 20 years to luxury imports," a Cadillac text said.

"The programme blends tradition and high technology, climaxing in a $4 billion parade of sedans, roadsters and sport utility vehicles to restore Cadillac's lustre."

Cadillac brand manager for the Middle East Fadi Ghosn said the Art and Science strategy was all about getting Cadillac back to its roots.

"It builds on a heritage of expensive flair and technological ingenuity that historically has set Cadillac apart from other luxury car makers," said Ghosn.

"The new assembly plant is an integral part of that technology and of Cadillac's revival. Customers in the Middle East who have already ordered the CTS on the strength of what they saw at the motor show should know that their new car is produced at one of the world's most advanced facilities."

The plant draws on GM's experience in setting up Greenfield plants around the world and embodies techniques developed in the company's newest assembly plants worldwide such as those in Germany, Poland, Argentina, China, Brazil and Thailand.

GM has also benchmarked global competitors and learned from its international partners like Toyota, Suzuki, Subaru and Isuzu.

"Lansing has been designed around processes that enable operators to do their jobs as safely and effectively as possible," said plant manager Bob Anderson. "The result is a production system that is lean and flexible."

"A hallmark is improved material handling, including more efficient delivery to the plant and to the line. With delivery of material direct to the operator, we eliminate the need for forklifts in general assembly, thus reducing congestion and the potential for accident."

To ensure that equipment and processes were in harmony with the needs of human operators, GM used three-dimensional mathematical modelling to create a "virtual factory". In the past, the integration of equipment, tools, fixtures and machinery could not be validated until everything was set up on the assembly plant floor at the commissioning stage.

Meanwhile, Opel surpassed both Mercedes and VW in reliability, according to research conducted by the JD Powers organisation and published by the German car magazine Automobilwoche.

The magazine said the number of industry-wide defects reported by European customers in 2001 fell by 10 per cent with the most dramatic decline enjoyed by Opel. However, it said Mercedes had suffered an increase in reported faults.

Ghosn said sales of Opel cars in the region had risen spectacularly over the past few years indicating that people had confidence in Opel's manufacturing strength.

The wholly owned German subsidiary of General Motors recently introduced the Opel Corsa to the Middle East, marking GM's entry into the small-car market.