TOKYO -- Pilot plans to invest 8 billion yen ($71 million) focusing on its Japanese plants to triple production capacity for inexpensive oil-based pens over the next three years, using the arsenal to write its ticket in Asian and South American markets.
Japan's largest pen maker seeks capacity of 500 million pens annually by 2018. Pilot will upgrade buildings and introduce automated assembly equipment to boost production of retractable ballpoint pens at its Isesaki plant in Gunma Prefecture and also of oil-based markers at the Tsu plant of subsidiary Pilot Ink in Mie Prefecture.
