Toray Industries, Inc. (headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Akihiro Nikkaku; hereinafter referred to as "Toray") announced today that its production facility for slit tape made of TORAYCA® carbon fiber prepreg (carbon fiber sheet impregnated with resin) established at its Ishikawa Plant (Nomi, Ishikawa, Japan) received certification from the Boeing Company and recently started its full-scale operation for Boeing 787 aircraft.
Toray held a ceremony to celebrate the start of operation of the said facility at Ishikawa Plant on February 21, 2017 with about 30 guests including Ishikawa Prefecture governor and Nomi city mayor attending.
The slit tape, whose production has begun at Ishikawa Plant, is a narrowly slit TORAYCA® prepreg tape material. Its applications have been expanding from the perspective of improving production efficiency and yield. In Toray Group, U.S. subsidiary, Toray Composites (America), Inc. (location: Tacoma, Washington, U.S.; President: Dennis Frett; abbreviation: TCA) has been manufacturing and supplying the slit tape and the Group had been responding to the demand for 787 aircraft in Japan by importing them from TCA.
It is the first time that slit tape is being produced in Japan and Toray will be supplying the product to Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. for the fuselage of the Boeing 787 aircraft. The start of the slit tape production facility at Ishikawa Plant enables Toray to develop an even stronger structure for ensuring stable supply of materials for 787 aircraft. At the same time, the company will enhance Ishikawa Plant as a production and development base in an effort to accelerate the development of new demand in Japan and rest of Asia by swiftly responding to customer needs.
In addition to the first prepreg production facility, which started operations in July 2009, Ishikawa Plant has been producing TORAYCA® prepreg for Boeing 787 aircraft as well as sports and industrial-use applications at the second production facility that went on line in November 2014.
Toray has been working on production capacity increase in response to the growing demand for TORAYCA® prepreg for Boeing 787 by taking measures including the completion of an additional production facility for the material at TCA in 2016 and the construction of new production facilities for TORAYCA® and TORAYCA® prepreg in South Carolina, U.S. The Group will continue to drive forward the enhancement of the global supply structure of the materials including the start of the slit tape production.
Under the long-term corporate vision "AP-Growth TORAY 2020," Toray positions carbon fiber composite materials business as a Strategically Expanding Business that leads the Group’s profit expansion over the medium- to long-term. The company aims to globally expand the business centered on aircraft application by focusing its management resources on the business.
