Unit4 - Individual Project

Nev Hyman had been building surfboards in

Australia for 35 years. In 2005, he teamed up with

Mark Price and a group of longtime surfing friends

in Carlsbad, California, to form Firewire Surfboards.

This company thrives on innovation and was

responsible for the first major change in surfboard

composition and assembly methods in 40 years.

Rather than polyurethane resin and polyurethane

foam, Firewire’s boards were composed of expanded

polystyrene (EPS) foam and epoxy resins. Hyman

and Price believed that this composition for the

surfboard core, along with aerospace composites

for the deck skin and balsa wood rails (the out-

side edge),created a more flexible and maneuver-

able product that would attract top surfers and set

Firewire apart from its competitors.

Firewire is competing in a crowded field thatncludes Isle Surfboards, Surftech, Aviso Surf, Board

works Surf, Channel Island, and Lost Enterprises.

Firewire is alone in the reintroduction of balsa wood

to the board rails for added flex response time and

the ability to maintain speed during precarious

maneuvers. Firewire believes it can compete success-

fully because its surfboards are far lighter, stronger,

and more flexible than those of its competitors. An

additional selling point is the reduced environmen-

tal impact: Firewire’s materials emit only 2 percent

of the harmful compounds of traditional boards

and recycling excess expanded polystyrene (EPS)

foam has earned Firewire international awards and

acclaim.

But that isn’t enough. To make sure it stays ahead

of the competition, Firewire decided to start making

custom surfboards instead of just the usual off-the-rack

sizes. For the everyday surfer, the durability and flex-

ibility of Firewire’s materials was a key selling point. However, custom boards made to surfer specifications

are critical in the elite surfboard market, and the abil-

ity to claim top-level competitive surfers as customers

drives the broader surfboard market as well.

Traditionally, skilled craftsman, called shapers,

designed and built surfboards by hand, but Firewire

started doing some of this work using computer-

aided designs (CAD) sent to cutting facilities. The

company’s computer-aided manufacturing process

returned to the shaper a board that was 85 to 90

percent complete, leaving the artisan to complete thecustomization and the lamination process. According to Price, who became Firewire’s CEO,

there are 29 time-consuming and labor-intensive

steps in the surfboard manufacturing process.

Initially, the multifaceted manufacturing process

made it impossible to offer personalized CAD to the

average consumer. Customized boards could only

be produced for elite competitive customers. There

was no way to offer customization to a wider market

without overburdening Firewire’s CAD system.

Moreover, most custom boards had to be ordered by

filling out a piece of paper with various dimensions

for the requested changes. There was no way to

see a visual representation of these adjustments or

assess their impact on the board’s volume, which

directly affects buoyancy, paddling ability, and

performance.

Firewire needed a system that would allow

customers to experiment with established designs,

feed the CAD process, and integrate it with its

computer numerical control (CNC) manufacturingprocess. Enter ShapeLogic Design-to-Order Live! For

NX, which provides an online customization system

with a Web-based user interface and advanced 3-D

CAD tools.

Firewire started working with the ShapeLogic

NX software in 2009 to develop its own Firewire

Surfboards’ Custom Board Design (CBD) system,

which allows users to easily manipulate board dimen-

sions of established models within design param-

eters. Any registered customer can choose a standard

Firewire model and use drag-and-drop tools to adjust

the board’s length, midpoint width, nose width, tail

width, and thickness, as long as these changes don’t

degrade the board’s design integrity. CBD generates a

precise three-dimensional model of the stock model

used as the base design along with a 3-D portable

document format (PDF) file of the customized board.

The PDF file documents the board’s dimensions and

volume. A customer can manipulate the model fromall angles and compare the customized board to the

standard board to fully understand the design before

placing an order. When the customer uses the system

to order a custom board, CBD generates a precise solid

CAD model of the board that is transmitted directly

to the Firewire factory for driving the CNC machines

that manufacture the board.

This combination of technologies results in a

board that is 97 percent complete, minimizing the