Joby Expands Ohio Blade Production as FAA Certification Drives Scale
The Ohio expansion of eVTOL manufacturer Joby Aviation is providing something approaching a case study in advanced air mobility manufacturing and specifically what the evolution of an aircraft program from prototypes to actual manufacturing looks like. In the Dayton area, Joby is currently focused on producing perhaps the most certification-sensitive part of its aircraft: propeller blades.
Joby is currently using a 45,000-square-foot facility that was formerly a U.S. Postal Service sorting building along Concorde Drive, near Dayton International Airport, as its current manufacturing hub for Joby blade manufacturing. Tom Ubelhart, general manager for Joby’s manufacturing operations, said that he anticipates the company adding a second shift at the Dayton site by the end of this month, with potential to grow the site up to 75 to 95 workers by year’s end. In nearby Vandalia, where Joby recently purchased a 700,000-square-foot facility, Ubelhart anticipates eventually using a third shift in that facility as a future production center for Joby.
Why does that growth matter? Because Joby’s manufacturing needs depend largely on blade production numbers. In addition to requiring six propellers per aircraft, consisting of five-blade assemblies, Joby’s production process requires 40 blades per aircraft to account for spare blade requirements. For a powered lift aircraft manufacturer, that means that production scaling does not necessarily depend on assembly bays alone; rather, it depends upon whether safety-critical rotating parts can be reliably produced, reliably inspected, and proven to match the approved aircraft design every single time.
That need for consistency is important when discussing Joby’s Ohio expansion because that requirement lies at the center of Joby’s strategic decision to manufacture there. Dayton-manufactured blades currently get shipped out to California for assembly and FAA inspections, as Joby pursues full aircraft certification. In a recent interview, Joby’s chief policy officer Greg Bowles explained “But the goal is we start to turn more and more production and we grow here (in Dayton and Vandalia).”
In other words, Joby is able to expand current facilities through increased production floor space and additional shifts at this point. However, large-scale production capability still depends heavily on certification processes maturing and evolving with the aircraft’s development.
Another reason why advanced air mobility manufacturing is different becomes obvious in the blade production process itself. According to Joby, each blade is manufactured with a proprietary composite blade-building process. In that process, Joby begins with a foam core that serves as a spar for the blade, with various components and composites being applied to the blade. Later, foam is stripped away from the blade, leaving a hollow blade weighing less than seven pounds. One step in the blade manufacturing process includes a laser-guided procedure done in a dark room. As Sandra Wright, head of the employee training room (“dojo”) at the Dayton plant stated, “This is artistry.”
More than colorful talk from the factory floor, those comments highlight another critical difference between traditional manufacturing processes and advanced air mobility manufacturing. “I have the skills to bring someone from zero to Joby production hero,” According to job descriptions provided by Joby, the blade components are listed as critical parts that involve safety concerns. Therefore, training of employees in blade production, including their ability to meet blade quality standards, is not a separate issue from readiness to produce airworthy products.
Finally, Joby’s manufacturing strategy provides further clues about advanced air mobility trends. While Joby has been able to ramp up aircraft production to one per month in its manufacturing center in Marina, California, Ohio facilities will begin shipping blades into this production stream. Company executives have stated that they expect to increase production of aircraft in Dayton and Vandalia. When Joby announced earlier this year its plans to buy a large site in Vandalia, Ohio, the company noted that it expects to use that facility as a future base for manufacturing four aircraft per month in 2021.
While the expanded production capability in Ohio represents not merely a backup option, but an anticipated future manufacturing stronghold, Joby’s blade manufacturing process also offers important clues to understand that decision. The blades play a vital role in ensuring that Joby’s aircraft maintains its low-noise performance characteristics. The blades are listed among the most difficult parts of the aircraft to design and manufacture. Furthermore, the blade’s influence on both noise level and aerodynamics has been documented in Joby technical studies publicly available on the company website. As a result, blade manufacturing process itself takes on special significance in Joby’s efforts to obtain FAA certification and enter an extremely regulated operating space of the civil air environment.
It should be noted that many of Joby’s production and training principles are based on company experience obtained in cooperation with Toyota. For aerospace readers, that information may be of interest as yet another sign of the advanced air mobility industry. The more significant message behind Joby’s approach to blade production may be seen in the ability of eVTOL manufacturers to combine aerospace conformity culture with industrial manufacturing practices without losing control over key aircraft parts.
The Joby Dayton production expansion, therefore, can be properly viewed as a manufacturing and certification story. Increased facilities and shifts will help to raise the theoretical production capabilities, but successful production in advanced air mobility can only occur once the process of blade manufacturing is proven to be reliable enough. For advanced air mobility manufacturers, factory scale will make sense only if it is accompanied by conformity scale.
By Stephen Wallace, editor of AMI’s advanced aerospace and unmanned mobility integration content focused on drone production, VTOL systems, autonomous networks, and air-ground integration.
