Boeing will increase the production rate of the 787 from the current 10 shipsets per month to 14 shipsets by the end of decade.
Commencing October 2014, MHI will start expansion work at the Shimonoseki Shipyard & Machinery Works, where composite stringers, a reinforcement structure, are manufactured, and at the Nagoya Aerospace Systems Works' Oye Plant, where composite skin panels and wing boxes are fabricated and assembled.
Increased production rate is targeted to begin in 2016.
At the Shimonoseki plant an autoclave will be added. At Nagoya, an automated composite tape layer will be added and the Painting and Assembly Factory expanded with the modification of an automated drilling machine and installation of a painting robot.
Around 50% of the primary structure of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (including the fuselage and wing) is manfactured of composite materials.
