Surfing the smartphone wave
Once a cottage industry, the Australian surfboard market was smashed by a wave of low-priced, mass-produced imports in the past decade.
But one artisan decided to ride out the tsunami by adopting technology better known for mobile payments, to keep track and improve delivery of his bespoke creations.
From Marshall, near Geelong, Josh Dowling's custom surfboards take a fortnight and 30 separate fabrication steps to make. Until recently the process was documented on a dog-eared specification sheet taped to each board.
The low-tech approach continued in the JD Shape's office, with the customer records system comprising an email archive, scribbled notes, and pictures on his Facebook page.
For surfing buddy and apps developer Stephen Franklin, Dowling's back-of-the-envelope operation was the perfect test bed for a production control app using near-field communication (NFC) tags and a smartphone scanner.
NFC short-range wireless technology requires a distance of about four centimetres to initiate a connection. It allows small amounts of data to be shared between an electronic tag and an NFC-enabled device.
NFC is employed in mobile payment systems, including MasterCard's PayPass and Visa's PayWave; which aim to speed payment at point of sale by allowing customers to tap their card or phone at the checkout.
Franklin's app is used by Dowling to enter order details on his Android phone and transmit them to the tag embedded in each surfboard. At each stage of manufacturing, customer information and design specifications can be retrieved.
Camera, search and share functions within the app also enable Dowling to find and send images of previous boards to customers deliberating over the minutiae of their latest design. For diehard surfers, a new board is an emotionally driven purchase and requests for progress reports are common.
Photos can also be posted to Facebook or Instagram.
"The app will allow it to be a little bit more streamlined for me," Dowling says.
"Each board is discussed pretty intensely - a lot of emails back and forwards."
Franklin said that while scanning technology was not new, past attempts to employ it in the surfboard industry had centred on proprietary systems that were out of reach for small players like Dowling.
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The article describes Josh Dowling of JD Shape embedding NFC (near-field communication) tags in each surfboard and using a smartphone scanner and a production-control app on an Android phone to store and retrieve order details and design specifications throughout manufacturing.
Facing pressure from low-priced imports and relying on dog-eared specification sheets, email archives and scribbled notes, Dowling adopted NFC and a smartphone app to better track bespoke orders, improve delivery and streamline customer communications.
NFC is a short-range wireless technology that needs about four centimetres to connect; Dowling’s app writes small amounts of order and design data to a tag embedded in each board, and that information can be scanned and retrieved at each manufacturing stage.
According to the article, the app lets Dowling retrieve customer information and specifications at every fabrication step, send images of past boards to customers, post progress photos to social media, and reduce back-and-forth emails — helping with progress reports for emotionally driven purchases.
NFC is widely used beyond manufacturing; the article notes it’s employed in mobile payment systems such as MasterCard’s PayPass and Visa’s PayWave, enabling quick tap-to-pay transactions at point of sale.
The article states JD Shape’s custom boards take about a fortnight to make and involve roughly 30 separate fabrication steps, which is why clear, accessible production tracking helps.
Before the app, Dowling relied on low-tech methods: a specification sheet taped to each board, an email archive, scribbled notes and photos posted on his Facebook page to keep track of customers and designs.
The article illustrates that accessible mobile technologies like NFC tags and smartphone apps can offer small artisans a practical, lower-cost way to modernise production control, improve customer service and stay competitive without needing expensive proprietary systems.
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