Aerospace and aviation industries could barely survive without Mitsui Seiki, even though many professionals have barely heard of this none-too-profitable maker of the machine tools that create the most precise parts in engines and airframes. It’s astonishing how efficiency in aviation can come down to a skilled technician shaping metal by hand at Mitsui Seiki’s Tokyo plant. Imagine an airline that enjoys stronger profits because it has introduced efficient new aircraft, whose advantage over the competition lies mostly in engine design.

Spanish state shipbuilder Navantia has won both of Australia's current warship competitions, beating out a Gibbs & Cox design for the country's air-defense destroyer contract and a proposal from France's DCN for helicopter-capable dock landing ships.

Unexpectedly strong demand for the Boeing 787 has led Kawasaki Heavy Industries to consider building a second plant. The Japanese company, which builds one-piece forward fuselage barrels for the 787, stresses that it is only drawing up contingency plans that would depend on Boeing's future sales success. Japanese daily business newspaper Nikkei says the extra plant would double Kawasaki Heavy's capacity to 14 shipsets a month.