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Boeing & Aerospace

Boeing’s key suppliers in Japan want an upgrade

Originally published May 13, 2017 at 8:00 am | Updated July 25, 2017 at 3:43 pm

 1 of 3 | Two workers inside Kawasaki Heavy Industries plant

in Nagoya inspect the inside of a 787 carbon-fiber composite
Boeing’s industrial partners in Japan want a bigger role in the next new jet.
fuselage barrel. The Boeing supplier in Japan would eventually
like to be a builder of a complete aircraft. (Boeing)
Despite their difficult 787 Dreamliner experience and uncertainty over
President Trump’s anti-globalization stance, their goal is moving ‘one step
closer to being a builder of complete aircraft.’

By Dominic Gates 
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

NAGOYA, Japan — Three Japanese manufacturing giants here build large, critical
parts for every widebody jet delivered by Boeing. As Boeing contemplates its next
new airplane, these Japanese “Heavies” hope to win an even greater role.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries today makes huge 787 carbon-fiber composite fuselage
barrels and large metal panels for most of the 777 fuselage. Akihiro Shiraishi, director
of production for Kawasaki’s aerospace division, wants to go beyond being a top-tier
Boeing supplier.
“We would like to become Super Tier 1,” said Shiraishi. Whatever Boeing does next,
“In some way or other, we’d like it to bring us one step closer to being a builder of
complete aircraft.”
The ‘Heavies’
Three manufacturing companies in Nagoya that build parts for Boeing:

Kawasaki Heavy Industries

787 Dreamliner: The single-piece forward fuselage barrel, delivered directly to Boeing; the main wing fixed
trailing edge, delivered to Mitsubishi; and the main landing gear wheel well, delivered to Subaru.
777 and 777X: Center and forward fuselage panels, pressure bulkhead at the rear of the passenger cabin,
and cargo doors.
(Note: Kawasaki will make the 777X cargo doors in Lincoln, Nebraska.)
767: Center and forward fuselage panels.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

787 Dreamliner: The wings.
777 and 777X: Aft fuselage panels, fuselage tail section and passenger doors.
767: Aft fuselage panels and cargo doors

Subaru
(formerly Fuji Heavy Industries)
787 Dreamliner: Center wing box.
777 and 777X: Center wing box, wing-body fairing and main landing-gear doors.
767: Wing-body fairing and main landing-gear doors.

How Boeing divides up both the manufacturing work and the technological expertise
on any future airplane program is crucial not only to Japan — it has profound
implications for the U.S. and this region, which has learned that new Boeing planes
bring opportunities but also risks.
Faced with the anti-globalization impulses of President Donald Trump, the Japanese
manufacturers say they’ll even contemplate placing some work in the U.S.
Yet despite Boeing’s long-standing collaboration with Japan Inc., the Heavies are
struggling to glean any details about how they might fit into its plans for what’s being
called the 797.
That doesn’t dent Shiraishi’s faith in how much further his company and Japan can
reach in the aerospace business.
Though Kawasaki is perhaps best known for its motorcycles, it’s an industrial goliath
that makes ships, trains, jet engines and precision machinery. Its aerospace division
brought in $2.9 billion in sales last year, a fifth of its business and slightly more than
the motorcycles.
In military aviation, Kawasaki developed and built Japan’s P-1 maritime patrol
aircraft as well as its C-2 military-transport jet.
“We already have the technology to design and manufacture a whole aircraft, based
on our experience with the Defense Ministry of Japan,” Shiraishi said.
Japanese concern
A visit to Japan in late March highlighted the highflying ambition of the country’s
advanced aerospace-manufacturing sector.
Those ambitions are undiminished by the big financial hit the Japanese suppliers
took from Boeing’s much-delayed 787 Dreamliner jet, or the recent delays in Japan’s
own Mitsubishi Regional Jet program.
The major 787 partners are still waiting to turn a profit on the advanced Boeing jet
and are still haggling with Boeing on the pricing of their parts for the larger
Dreamliner models, the 787-9 and -10.
Right now, Japanese industrial leaders have new concerns about the next step toward
their vision of an expanded aerospace future.
One is Boeing’s caginess as it contemplates its next all-new airplane after the 777X,
an airplane larger than a 737 and smaller than a 787, increasingly referred to as the
797.
A senior executive familiar with the thinking of Boeing’s Japanese partners said they
worry industrial rivals in other countries will match their capabilities unless they
move beyond making parts, however large and complex.
“On the 777 or 777X, we have not participated in any conceptual design,” said the
executive, who asked not to be identified because he also works closely with the U.S.
jet maker. “On the 797, we hope we can be involved at a much earlier phase.”
The Japanese suppliers have pressed Boeing without success for information and
early involvement with an eye to enlarging their role, he said.
“The concern of Japanese industry is that Boeing is not explaining to us the future
plan,” he said. “We cannot get good answers.”
A lean machine
The Japanese port city of Nagoya, some 160 miles southwest of Tokyo, is a showcase
of Japan’s sophisticated manufacturing prowess and the lean efficiency of its
industrial operations.
Inside Kawasaki’s Dai-Ichi (or No. 1) aircraft manufacturing complex there, a Boeing
787-10 Dreamliner carbon-fiber composite fuselage barrel — 20 feet in diameter and
43 feet long — is an arresting sight.
These huge cylindrical parts, spun out of carbon tape elsewhere in the factory, are
baked to hardness inside a giant autoclave, a pressure oven 98 feet long and 29 feet in
diameter, which Kawasaki designed and built itself.
From there, they go to an inspection station. Robotic sensors, one inside and one
outside, move over every inch of a 787 barrel. A jet of water sprays precisely onto a
small area of the carbon-fiber skin as the sensors use ultrasonic waves to detect flaws
in the material.
The skin can be locally repaired if needed. As the inspection proceeds, three workers
seated at computers check the data. If there are no flaws, it’s time to assemble the
structure.
At a series of 10 assembly stations, workers install encircling frames to strengthen the
fuselage skin then add in the passenger cabin and cargo floors, as well as all the
brackets, ducts, tubes and insulation needed. The fuselage section will arrive at
Boeing’s 787 final assembly plants in Everett or North Charleston, South Carolina,
fully stuffed and ready for joining.
At the initial stations, mechanics working inside the barrel complete one section of
the circumference, then step out so the holding fixture can rotate the barrel 20
degrees.
The rotation allows the mechanics to easily work on the next section without
awkwardly reaching up or down.
The second station is the only fully automated cell, featuring a computer-controlled
riveter made by Mukilteo-based engineering firm Electroimpact. On the smallest 787,
the machine’s synchronized inner and outer parts install a total of 6,000 rivets, one
every 25 seconds.
The work at the other nine manual assembly stations is accomplished with small
teams of mechanics. The entire Dai-Ichi plant, which also makes 777 fuselage panels,
requires just 700 workers.
The total direct Kawasaki aerospace workforce is just under 4,000 people. (Boeing’s
Everett plant, where the 787 and 777 jets are assembled, alone employs about 35,000
people.)
In March, about 30 Dreamliner fuselage barrels were in process in the production
facility. Six were tightly wrapped in black plastic, ready to ship out.
From a dock right outside the plant, a barge ferries the barrels to nearby Chubu
Centrair airport so a Boeing Dreamlifter cargo jet can transport them to the U.S.
Working on 777X
Preparing for the introduction of Boeing’s 777X, Kawasaki is investing several
hundred million dollars, as are the other Japanese Heavies.
Construction crews were busy in March installing new manufacturing equipment —
including new Kawasaki-designed robots capable of holding small brackets
delicately in place while a synchronized riveter fastens them to the structure.
Kawasaki’s piece of the 777 airframe, the large curved aluminum panels for the
forward and center fuselage sections, doesn’t change for the 777X. But Boeing is
assembling the 777X fuselage with robots in Everett, so the incoming panels need to
be made to higher tolerances.
Kawasaki’s costly upgrade will drastically revamp production to make the parts more
precise and the process more automated.
Leading a tour of his new facility, director of production Shiraishi said everything will
be ready to start production by September.
On the second floor, the first 777X skin panels had arrived from Kawasaki’s Gifu
fabrication plant and were suspended from racks. Below on the first floor, the
machines for assembling them were taking shape.
An Electroimpact riveter will splice the Gifu skin panels together into four highly
curved “super-panels.” In a final assembly jig, another robot will fasten the frames to
the skin panels. Yet another robot will drill extra-large holes in the side of body,
where the 777X composite wings will be attached.
Just one or two shipsets of 777X fuselage panels will be produced this year, with a
workforce of only about 20 people, Shiraishi said. He’s still working out how many
people he’ll need when the 777X reaches seven airplanes per month sometime in the
2020s.
Kawasaki is eager to distinguish itself from Boeing’s other direct suppliers, Shiraishi
said. One way to do so, assuming Boeing’s next all-new plane requires mass
production of dozens of jets per month, would be use the excess manufacturing
space Kawasaki has in the U.S., he said.
Kawasaki has already started such a pilot project on the 777X. This year, it begins
assembling 777X cargo doors at its manufacturing facility in Lincoln, Nebraska, a
plant established in 1981 that otherwise makes all-terrain vehicles, Jet Skis and train
cars.
“Kawasaki has become a familiar name for the Nebraska community,” Shiraishi said.
“About 2,000 employees work there and they are very well versed to the Kawasaki
way of production.”
“So before Mr. Trump makes any requests, we already have made our contribution,”
he joked.
“We wanted to find out what would be the benefit for us if we built in the United
States,” Shiraishi added. “We thought more business opportunities could be captured
if we operate in the U.S.”
Kawasaki, he noted, already has U.S. plants making gasoline engines and trains.
(Half of New York City’s trains were made by Kawasaki.) “The third should be
aircraft,” Shiraishi said.
Beyond Subaru automobiles
Another of the Japanese “Heavies,” Subaru, is also investing heavily in new
automation for the 777X.
Formerly known as Fuji Heavy Industries, the company rebranded itself last month
after its dominant automobile division. Only 5 percent of Subaru’s revenue comes
from aerospace, versus 94 percent from automobiles.
Yet Subaru is a vital Boeing supplier. In the city of Handa, close to Nagoya, it makes
the key structural boxes within the central fuselage that support the wings of the 777
and the 787. It will supply the same piece for the 777X.
“Next time, Boeing will not be able to make any big airplane without us,” joked
Yasuhiro Hamanaka, vice president of production at Subaru’s aerospace division.
A team of Subaru designers went to Seattle and worked with Boeing engineers to
design the 777X center wing box.
“We’d like to make the center wing box for the next-generation Boeing product, but
not limited to the center wing box,” Hamanaka said. “We’d like to leverage our
experience in composites on the 787, for wing parts, especially the horizontal tail and
parts of the main wing.”
A join venture with Boeing?
Yet Boeing remains mum on how work on its next new airplane will be allotted and
who might help build it.
Asked in an interview in Tokyo about the concerns of the Heavies that Boeing is not
sharing its thinking on the potential 797, Brett Gerry, president of Boeing Japan, said
it’s too early for that.
“This is a very sophisticated and advanced manufacturing culture and workforce,”
Gerry said. “The technical excellence of the partnership has … led to the creation of
tens of thousands of aerospace jobs in the U.S. and Japan.”
But as for future airplanes, he said, “We haven’t made any decisions.”
If and when Boeing does finally decide on its next move, Japan will have to compete
fiercely for work, said aviation-industry analyst Richard Aboulafia.
“Everyone wants a piece of the 797,” he said.
Aboulafia said the next new jet now under consideration is a high-volume, twin-aisle
airplane priced closer to a single-aisle jet. It will be, he predicted, “the most intensely
cost-driven airplane” Boeing has ever produced.
Given the imperative for lower costs, it’s conceivable Boeing will again outsource the
composite wing, as it did to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on the 787.
As for the body of the plane, which will likely be metal, building those sections might
come down to a competition between the Japanese Heavies and Spirit AeroSystems of
Wichita, Kansas.
Yet a more radical outsourcing plan might also be possible, said Aboulafia, given the
prospect of high rates of production: some kind of joint venture between Boeing and
the Heavies, “a grand transoceanic partnership,” similar to the highly successful CFM
joint venture between U.S. jet engine maker GE and its French counterpart Safran.
In such a scenario, he said Japanese-owned aircraft plants wouldn’t necessarily have
to be in Japan.
Japanese industry already thinks globally, he said, and the Heavies could operate
plants wherever it makes business sense, be that the U.S. or Southeast Asia.
A message to Boeing
Meanwhile, the third Heavy, Mitsubishi, has pushed ahead of the other Japanese
partners in realizing the ambition to build its own new commercial airplane.
For Boeing, Mitsubishi makes the advanced carbon composite wings that provide the
787’s high performance in flight. It also supplies aft fuselage panels and other parts
for the 777.
Multiple sources in Japan said Mitsubishi in 2013 offered to build the big composite
wings of the 777X in the U.S., but was rebuffed by Boeing, which instead chose to
build a new in-house wing facility in Everett.
Mitsubishi is also now flight testing in Washington state the 88-seat Mitsubishi
Regional Jet or MRJ — the first commercial airplane in more than 40 years designed
and built in Japan.
“Mitsubishi is in the process of challenging ourselves, of shifting from being a tier
one supplier, where we only manufacture parts, to integrating the whole airplane
with the MRJ,” said Yuichi Shinohara senior vice president at MHI Commercial
Aerospace and CEO of Mitsubishi Aircraft, the division that makes the MRJ.
In January, the MRJ suffered a new two-year delay, the latest setback in a program
that is proving, like the Boeing 787, much more expensive to develop than planned.
Yet Mitsubishi remains fully committed to continuing to fund the airplane.
“This business is very long term,” said Yugo Fukuhara, vice president of MRJ sales &
marketing, in an interview in Tokyo. “We are not making just an aircraft. We are
creating a new industry in Japan.”
Shinji Suzuki, a professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Tokyo,
said, “It might be difficult to post a profit with the MRJ … But if it continues, it will
grow as the root of the Japanese aerospace industry.”
“This is the message Japan wants to send Boeing: That we are developing the ability
to integrate aircraft,” Suzuki added. “Japan needs to go into a new phase, where the
Heavies can codevelop aircraft with Boeing.”

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com