Toray Industries, Inc. (headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Akihiro Nikkaku; hereinafter referred to as "Toray") today announced that it and Toray Carbon Magic Co., Ltd. (headquarters: Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, Japan; President: Nobuya Ando; hereinafter referred to as "TCM") held the inauguration ceremony on February 12, 2016 (Friday) for a new plant of Carbon Magic (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (location: Chonburi, Thailand; President: Shinya Isoi; hereinafter referred to as "CMTH"), a subsidiary manufacturing carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) parts. The ceremony was held at the Saha Group industrial park in Sriracha, Chonburi, Thailand.
The inauguration ceremony was attended by about 180 guests led by former Prime Minister of Thailand and currently Privy Councilor General Surayud Chulanont, the Japanese Ambassador to Thailand Shiro Sadoshima and officials from the carbon fiber industry.
The establishment of the new CMTH plant is part of the move to enhance production capacity of TCM and CMTH announced in May 2014. In addition to the enhancement of functions with the new TCM office building completed in December 2014, CMTH newly established an integrated mass production plant covering the processes from molding to coating in the about 22,000 m2 premise newly leased from Saha Group.
Since coming under the Toray Group from Dome Group in April 2013, TCM and its Thai production base of CMTH have been adding the competitive edge of Toray’s high quality materials to TCM’s outstanding design technology and CMTH’s mass production cost competitiveness, which has led to even higher rating and expectations from the market,.
The current enhancement of TCM and CMTH is in response to the market needs for their products, which are not only for premium vehicles and motorbikes, the company’s specialty for long, but also for new fields such as aircraft and trains as well as wheel chairs and prosthetic limbs, for which the companies are seeing rapid increase in inquiries for design, development of prototype and mass production.
Toray Group positions TCM as the core base of the advanced composite business and aims to develop new markets and increase applications for CFRP parts, in addition to the existing automobile field, in cooperation with other composite bases outside japan such as Euro Advanced Carbon Fiber Composites GmbH (EACC) in Germany and Plasan Carbon Composites, Inc. (PCC) in the U.S.
Moreover, the Group will enhance the supply chain starting from carbon fibers in upstream to base materials in middle stream and to CFRP composite in downstream by including large tow carbon fibers of Zoltek Companies, Inc., which joined the Group in February 2014, and Composite Materials (Italy) s.r.l (CIT) and Delta Tech S.p.A with its subsidiary Delta Preg S.p.A, two Italian prepreg manufacturing bases which became Toray subsidiaries one after another in 2015.
Under the medium-term management program Project AP-G 2016, which was launched in fiscal year 2014 and is scheduled to be accomplished in fiscal year 2016, the Toray Group is driving forward the Green Innovation Business Expansion (GR) Project in a group-wide endeavor to expand the business that contributes to solving environmental problems and resource and energy issues.
The carbon fiber composite material business, which improves mileage through weight reduction of automobiles and aircraft and contributes to reduction of CO2 emissions, is at the center of this GR Project, and the Toray Group is determined to continue contributing to the realization of a sustainable society through expansion of this business.
