Quickstep Holdings, the manufacturer of advanced carbon fibre composites, today announced that manufacturing output for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter Program (JSF) exceeded a rate of 100 parts per month for the first time in September 2016, with 108 parts made.

David Marino, CEO and Managing Director of Quickstep, said: "Quickstep's Aerospace Manufacturing business has continued to increase scale, and has exceeded the JSF 100 part milestone earlier than anticipated. This compares with 590 parts completed during the previous financial year. We are now well-positioned and have confirmed our capacity and capability to meet further JSF ramp-up. This performance has led to increased orders with our current customers, proving Quickstep's ability to deliver additional contract volume."

The business delivered 256 parts during the September quarter and is confident of meeting the continuing ramp up for the JSF program. The Aerospace Manufacturing business will complete further capital works in calendar 2016 to increase capacity for the planned growth, supporting improved production efficiencies. Capital works to date have enabled the passing of the 100 parts per month milestone ahead of schedule.

Quickstep is the primary supplier globally to Northrop Grumman for 21 JSF components including doors, panels, skins and other composite parts, and also the supplier of JSF vertical tail components for BAE Systems and Marand Precision Engineering.