Toray to Enhance Production Facility to meet Demand

Toray Industries have announced its decision to enhance the production facility for the company’s carbon fibre prepreg products at its US subsidiary

Toray Composites (America) located in Tacoma, Washington plans to introduce a high-performance facility suitable for producing prepreg products for the aerospace and automotive applications. The new facility is expected to start production in January 2016.

The American facility produces prepreg mainly for aerospace and automobile applications for the U.S. market and its existing production facilities have been operating at full capacity, following the monthly assembly rate of Boeing 787 reached 10 s/s in November 2013.

The production facility enhancement is in response to Boeing Company’s decision in October 2013 to raise the number of monthly assembly rate of 787 aircraft to 12 in 2016 from the current 10 s/s. The plan is aimed at achieving a stable supply of prepreg for 787 aircraft by obtaining production line qualification by Boeing.

Toray Group is currently constructing a 2nd production line at its Ishikawa Plant in Japan for prepreg for industrial applications such as chassis for IT devices and automobile outer panels that require high quality stability, and the added facility is expected to start production in February 2015.

With the expansion of facilities in America, Toray will not only be able to fully meet the demand from increased production of the Boeing 787s but also to further strengthen the stable supply structure of prepreg materials to cater to the high value-added products market, where the demand is expected to increase more in the future.