Elan Offers Multiple Snowboard Constructions
Austrian factory provides a full package for its clients and plans to expand its brand.

"We have a complete program," says Elan’s Sales Manager Gerhard Schellander. "We can make all the constructions—PU, foam, and to sandwich, cap, and some special things."

With a production capacity of around 300,000 snowboards a year, the factory located in Fürnitz, Austria is definitely a full-service supplier. Elan manufactures boards for six main brands, including Nitro, Rad Air, Sims, and house-brand Nale. Of course, the factory also make boards for many other companies, but in much smaller quantities.

With so many options under one roof, SNOWboarding Business decided to visit Elan, probably the second-largest board producer in the world.

Located close to the boarder between Austria, Slovenia, and Italy, the Elan snowboard factory was originally opened in 1978 as a foam-injected junior-ski factory. Elan skis are made in a factory about 40 minutes away in Slovenia.

When the company started making snowboards in 1988, it started with a modest production run of 8,000 boards. "We made snowboards for Sims and Crazy Banana the first year," says Schellander. "We’re still producing for Crazy Banana. We make 10,000 to 15,000 boards for them. After all these years, we are now also making boards for Sims again."

From the outside, the Elan building looks similar to a big silver vacation camper with shiny aluminum siding. Just inside the entrance is a factory store, and past that are stairs leading up to the main offices. Both the administrative and design offices are located here.

The day SNOWboarding Business visited the factory, Nitro’s owners Sepp Ardelt and Tommy Delago were also there meeting and overseeing things. Being the largest snowboard client in the factory, the two often go to the factory to monitor production, work on R&D, and generally keep an eye on things.

In fact, Nitro’s Delago helped tour us around the factory, along with Elan Production Manager Willi Moschitz. Much of the production going on in the factory was of Nitro boards.

The front area of the building is mostly offices, with administrative and product-testing areas in different rooms. Past the main offices, the factory floor opens up with the different work areas including lay-up and presses, finishing, and raw-material storage.

Because of the different construction techniques used in the factory, there are several different press rooms. In one area, fourteen presses are dedicated to constructing PU-injected boards. RIM construction is another option, where the board actually has a woodcore in the middle, but foam is blown in similarly to PU-injected boards and wraps around the woodcore. With both these board constructions, the fiberglass is already laminated on the topsheet and base material.

In another area of the factory, cap and sandwich-laminated boards are made. The company uses prepreg fiberglass for most of its sandwich-laminated boards. "We will produce more than 30 percent sandwich construction and 50 percent capped construction," says Schellander.

Having 50 years’ experience in the ski business, it wasn’t difficult for Elan to adapt its construction techniques to snowboard production.

"In ski technology, we used all these productions, but with snowboards it’s tougher because snowboards are wider," says Schellander. "Making an eight-centimeter-wide ski is different from producing a 30-centimeter-wide snowboard. But the techniques are similar.

"We can implant a lot of techniques we used in ski production into snowboarding," he continues. "But on the other hand, we try to also create new techniques for snowboard construction, such as the Nitro C.A.M. board." (See related story in the SIA coverage on the C.A.M. board.)

For the company’s future in the snowboarding business, Elan is following two strategies. One is maintaining strong partnerships with several different strong brands.

"We are trying to concentrate on special clients now and are making boards for less people," says Schellander. "With overproduction, it was a good strategy to work with [fewer] brands." He estimates that one-million boards are in stock worldwide, and therefore doesn’t see Elan’s overall production growing this year.

The company’s other strategy is to become more aggressive with its own brand. "Nale is a small brand for the moment," Schellander says. "It started in the U.S. and was managed from there. In the last year we sold 23,000 boards. But we recently decided to install a product manager in Fürnitz. Although it’s too late to make a difference to this year’s line, we are getting more serious about it."

According to Schellander, the program might still be Nale, or it just may be renamed Elan in the next year, but it will be a full-service brand with all types of boards and sizes.

He believes that recent changes in the market make it a good time to work on the brand. "In the near future, only ten or twenty brands will have 80 percent of the market," he adds. "And the market is becoming wider. Some years ago it was impossible for a ski brand to sell snowboards. Now some of them are doing well."

With the huge capacity available, Elan knows that brands may also move to other factories. So having its own brand protects it from that possibility. Schellander says: "Our goal is to have our own brand with two or three other strong brands. I’m not worried that our clients will go elsewhere."

There is also another reason for Elan to expand into snowboarding. "We have our own distribution around the world, and with the ski business losing marketshare, our distributors are looking for some other business," Schellander says. "We have one of the biggest snowboard factories, why shouldn’t we have snowboards.?Elan tries to make tools for on-snow sports. The market is wider and the distribution channels are the same for snowboards and skis."

Certainly, if the company wants to be a full-service supplier, it will continue offering different construction techniques to clients and its own snowboards directly to retailers.

—John Stouffer