THE BOARD FACTORY
Please give us a brief history of the factory. Our company is called The Board Factory Co. Ltd., because this is what we focus on above all. Making sure production, quality and technology is properly executed and controlled for every board by our team, every time. TBF was started by Klaus C. Mueller and Martin Jandke, who both worked in Cobra International for many years. They dreamed of creating a much smaller board factory with LEAN Manufacturing, based on the Toyota Production System (TBS). They then joined up with Bert Burger, Shaper of the Year 2007 and one of the founders of FireWire Surfboards, who 112
The Board Factory Co. Ltd is a Thailand-based surfboard manufacturer started by Klaus C. Mueller and Martin Jandke and later joined by FireWire co-founder, Bert Burger. Situated within just a few KMs of 25 different surf breaks, they have their R&D needs on lock and produce both their premium offering SUNOVA as well as their entry priced offering suns surfboards at the facility. Read on for all the details of the LEAN Manufacturing process they are championing. had come to Thailand to set up the FireWire factory and never left.
SUNOVA surfboards and suns surfboards. We keep production capacity very minimal to focus on quality. Who are the key management These brands are a little staff in the company? like the Ferrari and Fiat. We are a mix of surf addicts SUNOVA focuses on the most that love to work like hell when advanced and high quality, it’s about play. Each of us loves high performance technology the sea and spends most of boards. All boards are custom their time in it or creating and and hand crafted with wood thinking how to build even sandwich construction. This better boards. On all levels allows for SUNOVA’s totally the team is independent and unique look and feel as the motivated to continuously material reflects especially improve the status quo to the in flex and durability as well next level. as its light weight. suns is our entry level brand and its main Tell us about the brands you feature is the perfect mix work with. between durability and price. Our factory focuses To stick with the car example, only on our own brands it’s the city car for every day
