Smooth Sailing for Pontoon Manufacturer

By Troy Newport

I don’t want to make waves here, but summer is the most hunky-dory of the four seasons, period. After we emerge from winter, down in the doldrums, there’s no better way to stem the tide than to head as the crow flies to the nearest body of water with family and friends. I may be scraping the barrel with all these maritime- inspired idioms, so before I’m dead in the water, I’m going to turn the corner and make up some leeway by introducing readers to a storied pontoon boat manufacturer and their vertically integrated processes.

Hallowed Ground
Manufactured in the U.S., Avalon and Tahoe luxury pontoon boats have a reputation for quality, reliability, and customer satisfaction. That’s not hyperbole: Avalon has won the National Marine Manufacturers Association’s (NMMA) Customer Satisfaction Index Award every year since 2008. Located in Alma, MI, parent company Avalon & Tahoe Mfg is situated on the 40-acre property where Republic Truck Company operated from 1913-1929 as the largest exclusive truck manufacturer in the world. Later, in 1936, Alma Trailer Mfg (today known as Redman’s Trailer Sales) established itself there and became the largest recreational trailer manufacturer of that era. In 1984, Arp Corporation moved Playbuoy Pontoon Manufacturing to Alma and established its operations on the same property. In response to competitive market conditions, the company was purchased in 2000 by two Saginaw businessmen and four Playbuoy executives.

By 2004, the company was rebranded to begin anew. The updated company name came from CEO Jim Wolf’s experiences on the West Coast. He had spent time in Lake Tahoe and the town of Avalon on Santa Catalina Island and felt those experiences were the embodiment of the types of adventures he wanted customers to have on their boats. With a new name and renewed strategy, Avalon & Tahoe Mfg went on to redefine the pontoon boat industry.

Controlling Destiny
As we have been reminded repeatedly over the past several years, there are myriad external factors that can impact manufacturing operations. World events can reduce (or sometimes even skyrocket) demand, cause ripples in the supply chain, eliminate strategic partners, increase costs, reduce the labor pool, and so on. Larger and more complex companies are often exposed to increased operational risk from these factors, and sometimes vertical integration can be considered as mitigation to the uncertainties of the world.

Vertical integration involves taking direct ownership of processes, materials and supplies used in production, and/or distributors and retail locations to obtain greater control of the supply chain. This approach typically requires significant upfront capital and long-term strategic planning. Apple iPhones are an example of vertical integration. Apple designs and manufactures the chips used in their products, which helps them to maintain control over production, arguably improving quality and product performance.

Another company you’ve witnessed become vertically integrated over the past decade is Netflix. They evolved from exclusively streaming other studios’ content to producing and distributing their own, and you’ve seen other streamers such as Amazon follow suit.

While Avalon & Tahoe Mfg has experienced similar challenges as other manufacturers over the past few years, manufacturing engineer Adam Redes feels their vertical integration has helped them recover more efficiently. Adam, who previously spent 16 years in a Tier 1 automotive interiors production setting, says the first opportunity for the company to take control of an outsourced process was foam production. They purchased the equipment, trained staff, and created their own foam production department. “The main push to vertically integrate, outside of cost, is to provide opportunities to decrease work in process (WIP), lead times, handling damage, and rework turnaround.” Adam says. He adds, “We prefer to control our own destiny. The team here is not afraid to take on new technologies or challenges.”

Working Together
Another process brought in-house is powder coating. “Matt Page is our powder coat team lead, and he has done an amazing job launching the powder coating department and maintaining the process day to day,” Adam asserts. When the company decided to powder coat internally, Matt spent time working with their previous powder coating supplier to understand the process. The supplier freely worked with Matt to streamline the transition, and even helped with troubleshooting activities after they launched their new powder coating department.

While Matt was immersed in learning the powder coating process, the facilities team reached out to integrators to plan the facility layout. With the guidance of Parker Ionics, Richards-Wilcox, and Riveer Wash Systems, a building previously used for shipping was renovated and retrofitted to accommodate a 100 foot x 100 foot footprint.

The first challenge to tackle was that their facility is located within an area with tight wastewater regulation, which could present issues with pretreatment chemical use. Blasting was considered, but some of their lightweight parts would not be conducive to the process. Riveer was able to design a wash bay with reclaim and zero discharge, accommodating local jurisdiction discharge rules.

The second challenge was that some of Avalon’s parts are up to 25 feet in length, restricting kickouts around radius turns in such a tight plant footprint. To solve this conundrum, Richards-Wilcox and Parker Ionics collaborated to custom design a space-saving shuttle-batch conveyor system, which allows the 25 foot long load bars to move horizontally in either direction, traversing with two shuttle assemblies to line up with the finishing equipment and extend directly into the finishing enclosures. This unique solution enabled an approximate 50% footprint reduction, preventing the need for a costly building expansion.

Their line now consists of a manual overhead conveyor navigating parts from a four-position load area to a 10 foot x 30 foot three-stage pretreat booth, then to a 10 foot x 30 foot dry oven and cooling lane. Cooled parts are then conveyed to a 10 foot x 30 foot automatic powder booth, on to a 15 foot x 30 foot cure oven, and finally to a four-position offload area.

“To start,” Adam notes, “we powder coated our wall frames. Then we introduced small parts. And now we’ve added components for new product launches.” He continues, “We currently just powder coat aluminum parts for our boats, but we have also powder coated some steel parts for facilities use and even some of our truck fleet components.” The next evolution, he says, will be to introduce additional colors, if warranted by customer demand.

He says they almost exclusively use a PPG low temperature cure polyester powder formulation for their products. In fact, once the line went into production, they found that aluminum parts were being hardened during curing, causing tubing to pinch and fold during post-powder cure bending. Collaborating with PPG, they were able to make some adjustments to the powder formulation to achieve a slightly lower cure temperature while maintaining all the necessary performance requirements. After some trial runs and a Kaizen Event (Six Sigma language for a focused brainstorming session), it was discovered the root cause of the hardening was related to the anodizing process. With a few corrections on both ends, the line was off to the races, producing more parts than Avalon initially expected.

With 10-year bow-to-stern and lifetime structural warranties, choosing the right powder for the job is critical. “We worked with several powder manufacturers to understand adhesion and post-bending properties, while achieving a balance with excellent physical and chemical resistances,” Adam explains. He says to maintain optimal quality and meet warranty requirements, they faithfully check chemical titrations for the pretreatment system, verify film builds, and routinely perform crosshatch adhesion and salt spray testing.

Even with extensive learning, planning, and a deep bench of capable strategic partners, there are bound to be unexpected adventures that need troubleshooting on a new line. One such occurrence required a team approach to solve. “The issue that stands out the most during our startup and testing phase was a surface defect that popped up, like a fisheye,” Adam reveals. “That took a bit to track down.” He says their strategic partners were very supportive, but it wasn’t an easy root cause to find. “Ultimately it ended up being a new airline that was installed after a dedicated dryer was added upstream from the powder booth. It had oil in the line, which wreaked havoc on our parts.” During an inspection, Adam says, someone noticed oil on a bleeder port near the powder booth. Once the bleeder port was opened and the system cleaned, the visual defect disappeared.

The powder coating department is now mature and runs like a well-oiled machine (pun intended). Because of the luxury features that Avalon & Tahoe Mfg incorporate into their craft and commitment to mastering “the art of the pontoon,” fresh and saltwater boaters are becoming more attuned to what their pontoons have to offer. Obtaining a superbly crafted pontoon with similar levels of comfort and function at a price considerably lower than one expects to pay for a modest cruiser is a significant selling point for consumers.

Troy Newport is publisher of Powder Coated Tough.