A RESOURCE EFFICIENT FRAMEWORK FOR MANUFACTURING COST EFFECTIVE SURFBOARDS USING AN ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING PROCESS CHAIN

Surfing South Africa has an outreach program which takes children from underprivileged communities and teaches them how to surf in order to deter them from joining gangs and committing crimes. The problem faced by them is the availability of cost effective surfboards which can be used for the initiative. Additive manufacturing (AM) is becoming increasingly popular. The AM technology is adapting as nowadays one can purchase fused deposition modelling (FDM) technologies that are capable of building 1 cubic meter in volume. These types of advancements opens up new markets and avenues for the 3D printing technology as well as for designers to be actively involved in the social manufacturing movement. The current manufacturing process chains used to produce surfboards are long, labour intensive, and produce a significant amount of waste. Also customisation of surfboards requires the manufacturer to have a vast amount of knowledge and skill. This study investigates the possibility to manufacture surfboards with a relatively low skill set and a minimum knowledge base to make the process as resource efficient as possible in order to keep the costs low. In this research study the plausibility of manufacturing a cost effective 6 foot surfboard using 3D printing is determined. The newly developed additive manufacturing process chain was compared to the conventional process chain in terms of resource efficiency.