MHI Delivers Aft Fuselage Panels for the First 777X, Boeing's Next-Generation Wide-Body Airliner

･ Delivery ceremony held at the Hiroshima Machinery Works Eba Plant on February 7
･ Productivity enhanced with proprietary automated facilities, furthering development of the commercial aircraft business

Tokyo, February 7, 2018 - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has delivered the aft fuselage panels for the first Boeing 777X, Boeing's next-generation wide-body passenger aircraft. The panels were shipped from MHI's Hiroshima Machinery Works Eba Plant. Based on the development and supply contract concluded in July 2015, MHI continues to be responsible for the similar structural components as for the current 777 series, manufacturing the panels of aft and tail fuselages, and passenger doors.

A ceremony to commemorate the first delivery of the panels was held at the Eba Plant the same day. Many project officials attended the event, including Boeing representatives such as Eric Lindblad, Vice President & General Manager, 777X Program, Jason Clark, 777/777X Vice President, Operations, and others.

The Eba Plant, which formerly had been a steelworks factory, was renovated for aerostructures production with proprietary automated production lines developed by MHI, thereby improving quality, expanding processing capacity and enhancing efficiency. For the 777X, MHI introduced new specially-developed equipment for high-quality component manufacturing, and also aggregated various production processes that previously had been spread across several locations, utilizing integrated processing to shorten lead-times and eliminating other bottlenecks in the previous workflow.

Delivery of the first 777X airplane to airlines is scheduled for 2020.

MHI has developed and introduced leading-edge equipment for the international co-production of the 777X, and will continue to pursue further growth in the commercial aircraft business.