Investment in CNC is the Way Forward

by Jeni Bone on 16 Sep 2008 WA boat builder, Chivers Marine has adopted cutting edge technology in the form of CNC routing machines to keep up with international competition and take its brand into the next phase of growth.

Chivers Marine started business producing and retailing marine products when Laurie Chivers began manufacturing wooden racing yachts and associated rigging products in 1958. The company has been at the forefront of boat building every since. Americas Cup legend, John Bertram, had his first race boat built by Laurie all those years ago.

The business has steadily grown over the last 50 years and Chivers Marine has diversified from first building fiberglass boats 17 to 60 feet, to designing and manufacturing aluminium boats since the late 1990s. The Chivers brand of plate alloy boats has been the fastest growing part of the business since then with models ranging from 17 to 27 feet.

Responding to an increase in competition and a strong demand for quality aluminium plate alloy boats, Chivers Marine embarked on an extensive research and development program in early 2007 in order to stay in front of the competition and create new benchmarks in plate alloy boat construction.

Ride quality, stability and aesthetics were identified as key shortcomings in most alloy boats and all of these issues were addressed as Chivers created completely new models from the ground up.

It was quickly identified that in order to produce the new range of boats efficiently and to a world-class standard, the old method of cutting boats by hand was no longer practical or economically viable. The new model boats have nearly double the lineal metres of cutting, so the decision to acquire a CNC Router was a logical step in the evolution of the brand.

“We spent a lot of time researching CNC routers for our applications.” says Luke Chivers, Managing Director of Chivers Marine. “Because the future success of our company would rely on our ability to be highly productive and efficient it was important that the router be reliable and be backed up by a company that had a long history with CNC routing machines in the marine industry.”

After looking at two Australian manufactured machines, the decision was made to purchase a fully Australian manufactured Multicam CNC routing machine from Multicam Systems.

“Looking at the build quality, strength and rigidity of the Multicam router made our choice easy. It was the only CNC Router where the columns and bridge were welded together, not bolted. It also didn’t have plastic covers concealing thin structural supports,” points out Production Manager, Richard Candy.

“Also, because of the size of some of our boats, we needed a machine that could perform and handle the large sheets of aluminium that we need to process.” he continued. “Multicam manufactured a machine for us with a cutting area of 9m x 2.2m. The large bed size means that we can consolidate parts and cutting lists and also get a better yield from the sheet as opposed to using smaller sheets of aluminium.”

“The automation, precision and speed of the Multicam CNC Router have made possible our vision of efficiently producing the best quality plate alloy craft possible,” adds Luke. “The Multicam machine has allowed our business to grow without the need to increase our workforce, and our boats are now quicker to build with optimised usage of materials and drastic reductions in wastage. As a benefit we have also identified inherent improvements in safety for our workers with very little need for handheld cutting tools and also reduced materials handling.

“The purchase of a Multicam CNC routing system has been a definitive turning point in the direction of Chivers Marine that will ensure the company remains at the pinnacle of boat building in Western Australia.”

The new range of Chivers Plate Alloy Boats was released at the Perth Boat show in August.

More at www.chiversmarine.com.au and www.multicam.com.au