Doyle business transition benefits customers
by Tracey Johnstone on 24 Apr 2008
RAGAMUFFIN Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta 2008. Andrea Francolini / Audi
http://www.afrancolini.com
The transition of Doyle Sails Sydney towards providing an increased level of customer service and production is nearly complete.
The business model being implemented is innovative. It is targeted at modernising the company’s operations to meet current and future market needs, and to ensuring the business’s longevity in a highly competitive market.
Managing director John Hearne says 'we are expanding our manufacturing base. We are now manufacturing not just for us (Sydney), but also for lofts around Australia and overseas.' The change in manufacturing has meant the closing of the under-utilised Somersby loft and the moving of high-volume production offshore to Doyle’s China production facility.
The decision to establish the Doyle business in China ensures customers will continue to receive Doyle-made product. When a customer now buys Doyle sails, whether the sails are made in Australia or China, they will know they are buying a Doyle product, not a sail made by a wholesaler and re-branded with the retailer’s brand.
'As China comes more on line we will get some sails from the Doyle China loft while a lot of grand-prix sails will still be made in Sydney. We also have a working relationship with the Doyle loft at Lake Macquarie run by Peter McNeill. He will manage some of our over-flow work for us,' Hearne says.
Doyle’s has also secured access to a large working area which has the capacity to service super-yachts and other larger craft, and to support the newly established Doyle sail cleaning service.
Results
The changes in the company’s operations has improved the delivery of quality products to boat owners. You only need to look at the top end of last summer’s offshore results to find many Doyle customers.
'It was a brilliant result in the Hobart race for Syd Fischer and his new Ragamuffin – second IRC overall and second in his division. We had a mainsail and spinnaker on Ragamuffin. We also did a lot of re-cuts on the existing sails as the spinnaker pole was replaced with a bow-sprit. We have since supplied other sails which helped Ragamuffin to her Blue Water Championship win this year.'
Another Hobart success story to carry Doyle sails was Bruce Taylor’s Victorian yacht Chutzpah which finished fourth IRC overall and first in Division C.
The West Australian S&S34, Huckleberry, competing in Sydney to Hobart IRC Division E had a great race finishing third in her division.
Not to be outdone by the IRC boats, David Pescud’s Sailors with Disabilities, carrying Doyle sails and John Hearne as co-skipper, finished the race first on PHS overall and first in Division A.
In Victoria’s major summer offshore race, the Archambault 35 Archie, owned and skippered by Sally Rattle and carrying Doyle sails, took out overall honours in the Sovereign Series and handicap honours in the historic Melbourne to Hobart Race.
In overseas racing the super-yacht Midnight won the 2007 Dubois Cup and with Neville Wittey at the helm was placed fourth in Palma’s Superyacht Cup.
Doyle sails power boats in many inshore fleets with customers across a range of classes. Success in inshore regattas has been often with the most recent being Middle Harbour Yacht Club’s Arajilla (A35) winning the IRC and PHS club pointscore and Brilliant winning the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s PHS division 3 Short Ocean Pointscore.
Value-added customer service
The rationalisation of the Doyle production operations means the Sydney loft staff are already putting a much greater focus on sales and customer service delivery. It will also allow the staff to utilise their sail making and sailing skills more effectively for the benefit of Doyle customers.
'When you have sailing skills like what our staff have, then it is almost a shame to have them head down and bottom up sewing sails all day when there is more they can be doing to help people with their boats and sails.
'We want to change the focus of the business so we can utilise their skills to help customers rather than by having them working all day on the floor sewing sails up. With today’s technology, this has become more production-line,' Hearne says.
The Sydney loft now has a staff of nine responsible for sales, customer service, sail development and design. This team will still be responsible for the manufacture of grand-prix boat sails at the Sydney loft in Rushcutters Bay.
Hearne leads the team applying his technical experience to the job along with a hands-on approach spending as much time as possible on the water with his customers.
Sales manager Neville Wittey, with his experience in Olympic sailing, one-design and grand-prix boats, is an important part of the new company structure.
'Neville brings a lot of skills that we didn’t previously have. Those skills are supplementing our sail making business. He has fantastic sailing, umpiring and coaching skills. This ensures that all customer bases are covered.'
The other staff members in Sydney are company director Steve Hewitt, Michael Carter, Matt Thomson, Nigel Williams, Sam Price and Brad Favelle.
China operations
Celebrating the one-year milestone of the establishment of the production loft in China, loft manager Mark Fullerton says the business is going from strength to strength. So much so he has put on another international sailmaker, Todd Cunningham from the Doyles Marblehead head office, and doubled his local staff.
The loft’s first big project, providing a set of Doyle headsails to Melbourne-Osaka Race competitor Tom Crabb, is now behind them. Expansion of operations is on Fullerton’s mind.
'Now that we have established ourselves here we are more in a position to take over some of the load from Sydney. We will have two more sail makers here in the next few months giving us more expertise in the loft,' Fullerton says.
This increase in both technical expertise and local staff will give Fullerton and his team more time to focus on producing high-quality sails.
While the main aim of the China business is to supply the loft in Sydney, Fullerton and his expanded team will also aim to grow his loft business through the wholesaling of sails to other Doyle lofts in Australia and overseas.
'We have supplied sails to six lofts in Australia and to Norway, New Zealand and three lofts in America. All these lofts have re-ordered from us so obviously they are confident of the product we are producing.'
To date the loft has manufactured sails for boats ranging in size from 2 metres up to a 40m super-yacht. No boat’s sail is too big or too small for this loft.
Quality control
Fullterton say’s quality control is certainly a big concern for any client having their product manufactured in China. The difference with the Doyle Sails products is that they are manufactured in a loft controlled by qualified and highly-experienced sailmakers.
'I am 100 per cent confident we are producing a good product,' says Fullerton.
'We certainly set ourselves up to duplicate what we are doing in Australia. We have tried to make sure we keep the time pressures off this place so have enough time to make sure we get the job done perfectly. If it is not perfect, we are happy to just make the staff do it again until it is.'
Fullerton and his team of sailmakers are responsible for watching every stitch and every eyelet that goes into a sail is right.
This approach to quality control is clearly proving rewarding for the China loft team with super-yacht spinnakers recently completed, and more orders on the way, along with the delivery of a large range of sails to customers in A
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