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I often hear savvy boaters
puzzling over who really makes what in the marine electronics industry;
some even seem miffed that, say, company X’s radar scanner seems
to be exactly like company Y’s. In truth, the interrelated web of
suppliers and contractors behind many a major brand multifunction screen
is more complex than even the most suspicious might imagine. But it’s
not about scamming consumers. What’s evolved is a healthy system
of specialization and collaboration that’s helping both features
and reliability to advance rapidly. A recent field trip deep behind the
scenes of Maptech’s remarkable new i3 3-D fishfinder brought this
phenomenon vividly home to me.
It turns out that the
fishfinder’s high performance and unique features, discussed on page
46, were very much a multi-team effort. While Maptech’s hardware
and software engineers focused on overall development of its do-everything-easily
PC-based i3—which is coming along very well, by the way—two
specialty teams hustled together the fish hunter. Airmar, a behind-the-scenes
designer/supplier so ubiquitous that you probably know its name, built
the black box processor that’s wired between its sonar transducer
and the i3, and a company you’ve never heard of, NSI, coded the software
module. One feature of the process, appealing to some, is that you actually
don’t need to know a thing about Airmar or NSI; Maptech can market
and support the finished product just fine. But getting to know the companies
behind the 3-D touchscreen will help you understand the larger state of
fishfinding technology, plus you’re apt to come away with a warm
and fuzzy feeling about the state of American enterprise.
It didn’t matter
that Airmar founder and CEO Steve Boucher was off visiting Asian clients
when I toured his Milford, New Hampshire, headquarters because the results
of his 20-plus-years at the helm are wholly apparent. In fact, he helped
design the building that now hosts the whole process of designing and
manufacturing some half-million transducers per year, and is set up for
further growth. Outside Boucher’s palatial corner office hang some
30 odd patents, and nearby a cube farm bustles with industrious R&D
types, including a staff physicist for the really far-out stuff and two
process engineers focused on making the production floor below ever more
efficient, reliable, and ergonomic. When long-time business development
manager Peter Braffitt walked me around, he seemed to know the name of
all 200 employees, many of them fellow long-timers. He also seemed as
proud of their handiwork—assembling transducers really does involve
soldering irons, needle-nose pliers, and dexterity—as he was of all
the high-tech manufacturing and test machinery. Every component gets tested
before, during, and after production, which likely accounts for a failure
rate below 0.3 percent, down from about five percent when Airmar began
and purportedly the best rate in its niche.
Airmar’s near total
domination of that niche is telling. The company’s underwater sensors
account for more than 75 percent of the worldwide recreational marine
market, PWCs included! Every electronics brand uses at least some Airmar
transducers, even Simrad, notable as I’ve also toured its equally
high-tech and worker-friendly facility in Horten, Norway (which is apparently
content building big commercial transducers). Most companies ship these
sensors as their own—which they are in terms of total product, warranty,
etc.—but others are proud to proclaim their use of Airmar; thus the
boxes pouring out the door in Milford are labeled with all sorts of brands,
even Airmar’s.
So, yeah, you very likely
have an Airmar sensor feeding your fishfinder and/or digital depth/speed/temp
display. And, sure, you may be able to use it even if you change screen
brands, but, then again, maybe not. Airmar is totally ecumenical. While
it was one of the first to build “smart” sensors able to output
data in standard formats like NMEA 0183, 2000, and SmartCraft, it can
also produce a transducer with an injection-molded, hand-soldered plug
that’s entirely custom and all built in-house. (If you are struggling
with “Will this sensor work with that machine?” issues, Airmar
may be your best source of help, as noted in the Q&A.)
Next page >
Part
2: One job of the big guys is to put it all together so your boating
and shopping is easier. > Page 1, 2,
3, 4, 5,
6
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