Mass production daycruiser! Most cost effective production method?

[rberrey]

Not mediocre quality, just no frills, not priority on cheap, just affordable. Size would have to be kept to trailerable . As I said the concept of the boat would be as important as the production method. You would have to design the VW of the boating world. Rick

[tunnels]

Originally Posted by Gripenland

You must have come over a poor batch of engineers, tunnels

But you don't have to have a degree to do engineering, in my mind. Solidexsperiance is often way better then academic degrees. The problem is that is is very hard to find

I dont want to be called a engineer and i dont want to be called a expert either .i just want to be paid for what i do !!

[ancient kayaker]

I tend to look to the car industry to get a handle on what can be done in the way of large, complex powered objects with stringent safety requirements for relatively low cost, but an entry model car that only sold 10,000 in its first year would considered be an utter failure. I was involved in the design of electronic devices that sold routinely in the low 1,000's per year range, and we were able to significantly undercut our major competitors' prices. Yet quality domestic radios of comparable complexity that probably sold in the high 100,000's per year went for about 1/5 of our price despite an extra layer of retail profits, due to the ability to recoup the cost of complex tooling and savings of continuous line production.

We were stuck with largely manual assembly and simpler tooling that reflected the practice of many years earlier. The key is to reduce the labour content, not the material cost, which in any case drops sharply as quantity increases. I recall we were being charged $300 (unit price) for a general purpose microcomputer, and reading that GM were negotiating for a custom-designed microcomputer that was expected to drop to around 35 cents (millions) once in serious production. it wasn't as capable as the one we used, but it didn't have to be and at their quantities they could get exactly what they wanted with no unwanted extras.

I doubt if any boating product is going to reach quantities remotely close to the levels needed to justify serious mass production, so the prices will continue to be closer to those of luxury cars than Honda Civics, except for rotomolded kayaks sold by Wallmart and seadoos and suchlike.

[michael pierzga]

For actually hull construction technology it might be educational to learn the production technology for large mass produced composite structures like wind turbine blades.

[Stumble]

My guess is that the only way to significantly reduce the production time of a large boat would be to switch to an aluminum hull. With a 10,000+ ton hydraulic press stamping out hulls from sheet goods. This isn't an area I know much about, but it could probably be designed. The problem is the initial investment cost. A machine like this could run in the millions of dollars used, not including the die you would need to stamp them out.

Just for the forming cost it might take 10 million plus to set up. Which would require huge sales numbers to justify, and limit year to year model changes, but it might be possible. You would likely have to hire a car engineer, and a NA to to the preliminary work, since the design would have to be custom for the process. And this still leaves out finding a market for tens of thousands of them a year.

[Gripenland]

Stamping out aluminium hulls would certainly be quick. I wonder if it is possible to do the complete hull in one go or if it is easier to stamp panels and join them together? Perhaps the panels could be bonded with the same type of structural glue that is used in the aerospace and automotive industry?

[michael pierzga]

Perhaps study the production techniques of the Detriot Boat Company !

Great price for the 28 footer.

http://www.antiquengines.com/DBC_Literature.htm

http://www.antiquengines.com/Michiga...Co._photos.htm

[ancient kayaker]

Originally Posted by Gripenland

Stamping out aluminium hulls would certainly be quick. I wonder if it is possible to do the complete hull in one go or if it is easier to stamp panels and join them together? Perhaps the panels could be bonded with the same type of structural glue that is used in the aerospace and automotive industry?

I wish car manufacturers would move to Aluminum. At current cost it would only add a few thousand to the price of a typical car. Cars would last far longer made of Aluminum; 90% of the vehicles I have owned have had to be replaced only because of rust, not because of any mechanical defect.

[Gripenland]

Off topic but..

The move to aluminum in the car industry is already on the way but the pace is rather slow. The main problem is welding and strength.

When using steel, spot welding is the preferred type of welding. Extremely fast, strong, easy to keep track of weld quality and minimal problems with warping due to heat.

For some reason spot welding can not be used on aluminum. Structural bonding, structural rivets, laser welding and mag welding is used. All those techniques are slower and more expensive.

The second problem is strength to weight ratio. Aluminum is simply not strong enough compared to modern high strength steel. But there are many parts of a car where stiffness is more important then pure strength and there is where aluminum can find its place.

The new Audi A6 has 20% of its body components in aluminum for instance.

[Landlubber]

....I am quite convinced that mass production of boats is a dream, not because of difficulty in making them, the problem is getting enough purchasers to make it worthwhile.

I live in Brisbane (Australia), east coast, plenty of nice water, and an eager market...but either no money to buy or no where to keep the bloody thing after purchase.

With homes and land becoming smaller, time becoming more precious and the diversity of the 4WD market, there are many good reasons for not buying a boat, even though the desire is certainly there. Local marina costs have skyrocketed, garages are so small today that large cars are often parked in the street, and where we once had the side of the house to store the boat, that space has gone with the advent of 400M sg blocks, where the neighbors eaves almost touch the house next door.

I have available to me a few very good yards in China that are begging for an idea to mass produce boats, but it always stems back to the "who will buy" argument.

I was at a boat show in Shanghai a few years ago where a fella was spouting he was making 10,000 boats a year, I politely asked him where was he selling them, his response was, well we haven't done so yet, but we are going to do it, I smiled and walked away, it is not going to happen.

Just my observation.......believe me, I would love to see it done, the making is not the real problem, getting rid of em is.........I remember reading a few years back of a machine in the States that was producing glass boats in record time, it worked a treat, but was shut down cos there was simply not enough people to buy them. After a few weeks making them, they were running out of storage room.

[tunnels]

we should only make a limited number of any one type of boat then moulds should be destroyed then move onto the next model .with limited numbers will make them harder to get so will keep waiting lists long and prices can be higher because of the scarsity of boats .
Best times in nz were the late 1970s/80/early 90s the company i was prodution manager for had orders for one model 2 years and the bigger model 18 months but the company refused to speed up or change to make another mould so production could be doubled .
Now the same boats produced in those times are second hand fetching almost double price of the same size of any other brand the same size of the same era !. When the company sold the moulds to another company and a second mould was built in less than 6 months orders fell by half and the prices for the later boats second hand now is about half of the earlyer boats !!mass producing is not a good idea !! Boats are a personal thing !!

[DCockey]

Originally Posted by Gripenland

All costs are dependant on the number of boats being produced.

A modern diesel 200 hp diesel engine is only 900€ (1200$) if you buy them in large enough numbers. I don't have any figurers for petrol engines but that price should be even lower.

Based on my experience in the auto industry 900€ is only a fraction of the cost of a 200 HP Diesel engine, even if purchased in quantities much greater than 10,000 units /year.

All hardware, design and certification costs will be really low when divided by a 10000 units per year production run.

In comparing to the auto industry keep in mind that a high volume for an automobile starts at 50,000 or so units per year, and in some cases goes up to 500,000 units/year.

The main problem I see is how to truly industrialize the manufacturing of the hull. As far as I know no one has done that yet?


How do you build 30 hulls per day? I don't think that is possible with traditional boat building techniques?

Ok, you can use traditional methods like a hand lay up and use a really large work force but that will not be efficient.

Maybe it isn't even possible to do with composites? Perhaps aluminium is the way to go?

A number of closed mold processes for volume production of composite parts have been developed and used in boatbuilding. Some have been described in the open literature, some are proprietary. Back issues of Professional Boat Builder magazine has articles about several of them. The best one from a financial standpoint depends, among other factors, on the size and complexity of the parts, structural and durability requirements, equipment and facilities which the builder already has, investment required, material costs, labor costs, annual volume and production life.

[Gripenland]

Originally Posted by DCockey

Based on my experience in the auto industry 900€ is only a fraction of the cost of a 200 HP Diesel engine, even if purchased in quantities much greater than 10,000 units /year.

Then we'll just have to disagree.

Originally Posted by DCockey

A number of closed mold processes for volume production of composite parts have been developed and used in boatbuilding. Some have been described in the open literature, some are proprietary. Back issues of Professional Boat Builder magazine has articles about several of them. The best one from a financial standpoint depends, among other factors, on the size and complexity of the parts, structural and durability requirements, equipment and facilities which the builder already has, investment required, material costs, labor costs, annual volume and production life.

Good info! I'll try and find some issues of Professional Boat Builder magazine to learn more.