Toray Composite Materials America is an engineered materials company based in Washington that produces carbon fiber and composite prepreg materials for the aerospace, defense, and industrial sectors.
How did your background growing up in Washington influence the career path that led you to join Toray in the 1990s?
I left college with a calling for manufacturing so I worked across three sectors, starting with forest products in the early '80s. When that industry declined, I moved into the paints and coatings chemical industry. In 1995, I saw a newspaper ad for a position at Toray in Tacoma. Though I knew of carbon fiber, I was unfamiliar with prepreg.
Boeing's use of composites in the 777's structure led Toray to build the Tacoma plant. Boeing didn’t want to be sole-sourced from Japan, so Toray established the facility in 1992, starting production in 1994. By 2001, Toray expanded to Alabama for U.S. carbon fiber production and started exporting globally, with major growth around 2003-2004 during Boeing's 787 development.
How does Toray’s aerospace and aviation portfolio compare to the rest of the markets it operates in?
Pre-COVID, about 75% of our business was in aviation and 25% in industrial, with a high concentration in air transport. We have carbon fiber plants in Decatur, Spartanburg, and Tacoma. Our carbon fiber segment is diversified in multiple sectors including aerospace, defense and industrial. Currently, our business is 60% aerospace and 40% industrial.
Our aerospace portfolio is market-leading. Our materials were the first to be used in the primary structure of commercial transports, and our recent development has focused on improving both performance and processability. The aerospace and defense sector remains performance-driven, and a portion of the market is always driving the latest mechanical performance. However, we must always balance performance with processing and the efficiency of materials in a production system.
Many aviation companies are concerned about delays in and rising costs of their supply chains. How are you mitigating supply chain management for your customers?
Supply chain management is crucial since our prepreg needs to be shipped frozen around the world. From 2004 through 2015, I was director of supply chain management and helped develop the 787 supply chain. Toray is vertically integrated, making the precursor, carbon fiber, and prepreg. Our biggest challenge is chemicals. We work with global chemical companies to secure multiple sources and create long-term agreements.
Now, we ensure our vendors have multiple sources and work closely with them to avoid being blindsided. We collaborate with our chemical vendors and consider our paper suppliers, as prepreg is cast on paper. We identify key chemicals and ensure dual sourcing to prevent disruptions. For instance, if a specific chemical is only 2% of the total but is single-sourced, we find alternatives. This process involves proving the equivalency and getting approvals from our aerospace customers.
What does the current appetite for more sustainable materials such as carbon fiber technology look like in 2024?
Carbon fiber technology is crucial in advancing transportation innovations, including eVTOL vehicles. The immediate focus lies in current applications such as hydrogen vehicles which, particularly in public transportation and logistics, could drive significant demand for carbon fiber. This global shift necessitates infrastructure development, where the US is currently lagging.
The current demand for urban air mobility and eVTOL vehicles is minimal, even less significant than niche markets like golf shafts and fishing rods.
Factors such as interest rates and economic conditions influence investments in this emerging area. While the long-term demand growth is expected to be substantial, it will take time and the market is in its infancy, with expectations of major players like Joby and Archer achieving certification in the next five years. Initially, the market may find traction by replacing conventional helicopters used in tourism, firefighting, and news reporting with quieter, more fuel-efficient electric versions.
Toray’s composite materials claim to alleviate the critical issues in the space sector. How do your innovations in space technology help mitigate challenges?
Toray has developed advanced carbon fiber, like the T1100, an intermediate modulus plus carbon fiber. This gives us a competitive edge, especially with new resin technologies like our 3960 resin. In the space and military sectors, success often comes after planting many seeds and waiting for them to grow, which can take years.
Space applications typically require specialized materials with low coefficient thermal expansion. This enables materials to be used in the harsh temperature environment of space and still maintain their dimensional design. Both our company, and our sister company, Toray Advanced Composites in California, have engineered material systems for this type of speciality application.
