New molding methods reshape industry
As a result of tough new air quality emission standards and the introduction of more efficient manufacturing techniques, nearly all boatbuilders may be required to change the way they make boats, or run the risk of being forced out of business.
Within three years, US-based boatbuilders may be required, under a proposed US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation, to substantially cut the emission of hazardous air pollution (HAP) such as styrene generated from building boats.
Meanwhile, in Europe, there is a growing environmental movement that seeks to substantially limit the amount of HAP coming from boat production.
As the European Union moves closer to being a single economic and regulatory zone, stringent environmental standards in place in Northern European countries, such as Sweden and Germany, will likely migrate south into Italy and France.
In particular, European regulators seek to reduce emissions on the plant floor as a way to protect the health of the workers, as well as emissions into the environment. The challenge for European boatbuilders is to reduce the amount of emissions in the workshop.
"It will become more strict," says Ben Drogt, business manager for Netherlands-based resin manufacturer DSM Composites. "The targets are set for the long term."
To meet new requirements, boatbuilders may be required to change manufacturing techniques. Currently, nine out of 10 boatbuilders use open molds to build hulls, a process known to emit a significant amount of HAP.
European boatbuilders may have a tougher time. Rising standards of European health and safety legislation may eventually outlaw the wet lay-up processes used in the boat industry, according to UK-based Defence Evaluation Research Agency.
Although it is not likely that the open mold process will be outlawed, at least in the US, regulators will make it extremely difficult for boatbuilders to operate as they had in the past under the old manufacturing system.
And if the pressure becomes too great, boatbuilders in Europe and North America may relocate production to countries that do not have such strict regulations, such as China, Taiwan, Mexico, Singapore, Malaysia or Egypt, to name just a few.
Open molding is nearly universal among small and medium-sized boatbuilders. To avoid problems with regulators, these builders may have to team up to shoulder the cost of switching from open mold systems to a less polluting, closed-mold system, a process where resin is infused or injected into the core or cavity of a two-part mold.
There are basically two primary types of closed-molding processes that can be used in the marine industry: resin transfer molding (RTM) or vacuum infusion process (VIP). Another process, compression molding, has yet to make a major inroad other than in the construction of personal watercraft.
The prospects of such a massive retooling in the marine industry has set off a mad scramble among companies and inventors to develop a closed-mold process that is affordable and efficient.
Robert Fuller, vice president of sales at Brunswick Technologies Inc., a US-based manufacturer of hull laminate reinforcements, says the closed-mold process hold great promise for the future. "These processes will become the dominant [construction] method for boats under [9.15 metres]," he says.
Fuller is among those who predict the hull manufacturing industry will eventually be consolidated into what are being called "super hull centers"-giant closed-mold manufacturing plants that can churn out four times as many boat hulls as the average plant.
Instead of building hulls, small and medium-sized boatbuilders will hire these super-hull plants to build their hulls. The reason: many builders can't afford the cost of building a closed-mold shop of their own.
Other industries, most notably the recreational vehicle business, automobile part subcontractors, home appliances and custom vans, have already seen the rise of contracting plants, and some suggest the marine industry will follow the same path. In addition to hulls, these plants will make boat parts, decks and other marine accessories on an as-needed basis.
Fuller does not think it will reduce the number of hull shapes. He says the closed-mold processes being developed give manufacturers enough flexibility to keep their own hull designs.
In the end, however, the super-hull centers will lead to fewer smaller builders. "The industry is moving this way," says Fuller.
There are several companies that have developed a closed-mold system in hopes of cashing in on the need for lower emissions, including US-based Genmar Holdings Inc.
Genmar, one of the world's largest boatbuilders, has spent US$32 million on creating a virtual engineered composites (VEC) closed-mold system. Included in that price tag is US$12 million to build state-of-the-art, closed-mold manufacturing plant in Little Falls, Minnesota, home to the Glastron and Larson operations. The plant will officially open in August for the start of the 2001 model year.
Genmar's highly automated VEC plant is being cited as the prototype of what the super-hull centers may look like.
Genmar is not alone in its rush to develop a closed-mold system for the marine industry, however. Companies such as Tokyo-based Japan Synthetic Rubber Co. Ltd., US-based TPI Composites and Compsys Inc. and Dutch-based ECP Enichem Polimeri Netherlands B.V. and DSM Resins are developing systems that could compete with Genmar's VEC.
ECP, for example, recently created a new process for producing gel-coated shaped articles in a shorter time, a process that could lower emissions as well as cut labor costs-two of the same values being touted by Genmar for its VEC process.
And TPI's vacuum-bagged, closed-mold process, called the Seeman Composites Resin Infusion Molding Process, or SCRIMP, has its own adherents, including Hinckley Co., a manufacturer of high-end boats in Maine.
Hinckley's chief engineer Peter Smith says the US$25,000 spent to initially license SCRIMP, plus the US$15,000 annual fee, is worth the price; since installing the system, Hinckley cut HAP emissions to one-tenth what it had been when open molding was used.
"It has really changed the shop environment. It's much better for the guys," says Smith.
Meanwhile, some of the major boatbuilding companies, including US-based Brunswick Corp., remain tight-lipped about the future in terms of closed vs. open molding. "We don't discuss our technology plans," says Brunswick spokeswoman Virginia Mann.
For the moment, Genmar says it has no immediate plans to use its VEC plant to make hulls or parts for other companies, but it has not ruled out licensing the technology sometime in the future.
"We are busy following our stated path of putting VEC into our companies and discussing leasing VEC cells to non-direct competitors in the marine industry," says Genmar President and Chief Executive Grant E. Oppegaard.
Oppegaard says the company believes eventually there will be an economic advantage, perhaps, to licensing VEC technology to other boatbuilders. "But, exactly how that will be done is a decision for the future," he says.
Several years ago, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began developing new standards that would reduce styrene emissions and other hazardous air pollution generated by the construction of boats.
To reduce air pollution, the EPA, using a process called maximum achievable control technology (MACT), will regulate the content of production resins, pigmented gel coats and base-coat gels, as well as skin coats, tooling resin and tooling gel coats, and possibly solvents used for equipment clearing. In fact, nearly everything that makes a fiberglass boat is being scrutinized.
At its most basic level, MACT will require boatbuilders to reduce annual styrene emissions roughly 20 percent. Allowable styrene content used to make boats will be 35 percent, not the 44 percent used by many builders. Gel coat will only be allowed a 33 percent styrene content.
It is the MACT standards, as well as the need to cap the overall emissions generated by a plant to comply with best available control technology (BACT) regulations, that will drive the industry toward closed molding.
Oppegaard says current capacity constraints in the marine industry have little to do with the size of plant facilities, but rather, the EPA's cap on emissions that creates limitations on the number of boats that can be built per day with open face lamination.
In addition, the open-face molding process is so labor intensive that there are not enough employees available today to maximize plant capacities, even if emission restrictions were not in place.
Genmar believes VEC solves both issues. The company claims emissions from the VEC process during lamination are more than 75 percent less than during traditional open-face molding, allowing more boats to be built under soon-to-be required state and federal permits.
Lamination and cure time are reduced from eight hours or more to a little more than one hour, eliminating the need for duplicate copies of molds to achieve high volume. The number of workers in lamination is also significantly reduced, allowing crews to be shifted to assembly operations.
The results: more boats built with the same number of workers, a reduction in the number of molds required, and less pressure for brick and mortar expenditures to expand production. "These are money issues that we believe will drive the industry in the future," says Oppegaard.
Genmar scored a coup when it, along with the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA), convinced the EPA that closed molding was a viable technology. The EPA included closed molding in the MACT standard, an action that will undoubtedly help market the process.
Although federal regulators shied away from deciding that Genmar's VEC meet BACT requirements, state regulators have the option to rule that it does, as long as it is commercially available without a huge licensing fee.
While most of the activity developing viable closed-molding systems has been centered in the United States, interest in Europe regarding closed-molding manufacturing may soon explode.
Europe was a leader in developing environmental restrictions in 1999 and it is expected it will continue in 2000 and 2001. Consumers and environmentalists are making it increasingly difficult by using non-science based studies to set regulations.
According to US-based Michigan State University researchers Alec B. Scranton, Bharath Rangarajan and Lindsay S. Coons, several fabricating techniques have been developed that may be used to produce composites, including RTM, a process widely used in Europe.
The researchers say RTM has widespread potential because it can draw upon the vast amount of technology developed over many years for reaction injection molding (RIM) techniques.
However, while RTM is already being used to build boats in Europe and elsewhere, researchers say further developments are required to develop suitable high-volume production techniques using RTM. Mass-produced boats require low cost and high speed-two attributes that RTM does not yet fully meet.
The university researchers recently received a patent on a special material that slows down the curing process for RTM enough to make RTM more cost-effective.
Hank Yeagley, a US-based consultant in the composites fabrication industry, says RTM and VIP have the potential for playing a major role in the boatbuilding business.
Yeagley says Genmar's VEC is an advancement of the RTM process. What makes it different is the degree of automation. "Nobody has done that before," he says.
Yeagley, however, does not see the future being populated with super-hull centers, such as one that might be created by Genmar. Instead, as the government moves toward eliminating styrene in the workplace, boatbuilders will use low-styrene resins and gel coats, or new manufacturing techniques, such as closed molding, or a combination of the two.
"Each manufacturer will take its own turn on finding ways to reduce the use of styrene," says Yeagley. "I would say that [hull centers] will not happen in a big way, but increasing government regulations will force the industry to consolidate."
As a result of the higher costs that could go along with closed mold construction, some boatbuilders and accessory manufacturers may decide to open plants in less regulated countries.
But there are potential risks to that strategy. Yeagley says it may be hard for a company to maintain the level of quality if it moves boat production to a less regulated country.
While there may be an increase in the number of mass-produced boats made in China or Taiwan, builders of high-end boats in the United States and Europe might be better off not moving.
"Despite regulations, it might be cheaper to be closer to the market," he says. "The majority of marine market customers want to customize the boats-you can't do that in Southeast Asia."
Meanwhile, John McKnight, head of the environmental health and safety division for the NMMA, says there will be two factors that will drive the marine industry toward closed molding-BACT and MACT.
McKnight says these two requirements will encourage companies to have an incentive to develop it. "Companies will feel pressure from regulatory agencies," he says.
But one stumbling block with closed molding is that it is often technology patented. That means companies will have to pay a fee to use it. The big question is whether boatbuilders would want to buy a license from Genmar, or any of the other companies with closed-molding technology.
Instead, a company may avoid the closed mold cost by low-styrene materials. Another option would be to agree to limit production to emit less than 250 tons of HAPs annually or to outsource production.
There are other reasons that would make boatbuilders consider closed molding, such as the purported material and labor savings.
"If a closed mold system offers less labor, than the technique will catch fire," says McKnight. "The regulation is the carrot. But what's pushing it is an affordable, efficient system that reduces labor and material costs."
Dealing with MACT is only the first in a series of US government regulations designed to reduce styrene in the workplace. In the next five years, boat builders may be placed under a risk-based standard called 1-12R that could be more stringent than MACT.
"The implementation of MACT is by far the biggest most complex regulation that manufacturers have had to face," says McKnight. "The future will continue to put pressure on boatbuilders to reduce styrene emissions."
Virtual engineered composites (VEC) is a flexible mold lamination process that uses a thin composite skin in the shape of a part that is mounted on a water-filled pressure vessel.
VEC is controlled by integrated software and hardware, which allows it to be managed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition to lowering labor costs, Genmar Holdings Inc. believes VEC will eliminate structural inconsistencies and variances, and produce stronger hulls and parts.
The use of robotics and computer controls will allow hulls to be built four times faster than the conventional open-mold process.