From being 10 x carbon positive, to our solar powered design center and our relentless pursuit of more sustainable materials and processes, our ethos regarding sustainability and sustainable partnerships truly drives us. Our fundamental aim is to leave the planet better off than when we started.
DIGITAL COMPOSITE DESIGN
At the heart of what we do are the needs of riders and the desire to innovate. Good design goes beyond a single new material, technology or design process. First, we define why a product should be made, then we figure out how best to make it. For us, it's Digital Composite Design. We have strived to ensure a seamless transition from the R&D lab to our production facilities, using digital design and digital manufacturing. This essentially means that the exact design file of the final product prototype, which has been refined, tested and approved, is the exact product that the rider can buy in store.
OUR INNOVATIVE PROCESSES
In theory, these are each simple processes, but in application, they are lifetimes of work.
The aim is to develop proficiency in a multitude of critical disciplines beyond big ideas: iterative design and engineering, material selection, rapid digital prototyping, extensive testing, and finally exact duplication in our digital production processes. We know the results are worth it, and if you’ve used any of our products before, we think you’ll agree.
This is what keeps us up at night; makes us discuss and debate, test, retest, criticizing and questioning everything we thought we knew, until finally we had a product that survived the gauntlet.
This is what we present to you, the rider.
The first step in creating a product is to define why something needs to be made, how we can bring something new to customers, and what problems it solves.
We start from a completely empty space to redesign a product in the design laboratory.
We spend time testing, connecting with riders around the world, and immersing ourselves in what kitesurfing will look like in 10 years. We then pursue this idea immediately and constantly.
From concept to incremental evolutions of each product, we take feedback and incorporate it into the next development cycle.
All of Airush’s kite and board design software is purpose-built or custom parametric design software that allows us to fine-tune every specific detail of a prototype.
Often seen as the most fun part of the process, effective product testing requires a relentless approach that constantly fuels the iterative design process.
The same prototype can be retested 10 times under various conditions, with constant adjustments and upgrades. This continues until we have exhausted all options for this product and got the most out of it.
At Airush, our processes require almost singular research for each model – sometimes a key development pilot will spend a few years refining a single kite or board model.
The obsession with mastering the digital design space is useless without the ability to duplicate that skill in production.
Traditionally, production products have been seen as a step down from a custom product, but our processes have been developed to overturn that idea.
The exact file and build, approved by our development team, is used to duplicate the final product in production. Kites are laser cut, boards and sheets are precision CNC cut, to allow us to work within sub-millimeter tolerances to duplicate the exact product every time.
We are getting to work, taking this next concept and integrating it into our prototype process as soon as possible.
“We hire smart people who have a variety of interests. Ideas are often taken from proven engineering concepts and applied to our industry”
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