A Serious Side to Creating Fun

WhiteWater West-manufactured water parks dot the globe

WhiteWater West CEO, Geoff Chutter

Geoff Chutter, president and CEO of WhiteWater West, Richmond, B.C., is surrounded by completed assemblies that will become part of a water installation halfway around the world.

Original kid. Adrenaline junkie. Thrill-seeker. Play designer. Director of imagination. Storyteller. All self-proclaimed titles of individuals who think outside the pool at WhiteWater West Industries in Richmond, B.C. They describe traits that aren’t typically on a resume but that keep the company at the top of its game.

Over 600 people around the world apply their passion for fun to designing and manufacturing themed water parks. Project managers, sales staff, and designers in 20 offices worldwide apply the same focus on fun to their jobs to ensure that waterlogged entertainment in each region celebrates its own specific clientele and culture.

Dragons, elephants, gargoyles, pirates, and serpents wend their way through production to add a splash of color and visual excitement, and provide a unifying theme for waterslides, wave pools, and interactive water playgrounds. Buckets that will hold— and dump—up to 1,000 gallons of water, an attraction pioneered by the company, await artwork that will blend in with the other park elements.

Thirty-four years ago Geoff Chutter, president, CEO, and founder of the company, discovered waterslides while he was conducting a financial audit at the first Canadian waterslide park in Kelowna, B.C.

“I was quite intrigued by the water entertainment concept, so I left accounting and acquired a partner and a loan to purchase 18 acres of property in Penticton. We couldn’t get waterslides so we ended up fabricating our own molds and producing them ourselves,” Chutter said. Penticton’s White- Water Waterslide and Recreation Complex opened in 1980.

“That first summer four different groups came through to enjoy the park and asked where we got our slides. We said we could provide the engineering, the slides, and the supports for their parks. That culminated in four contracts. The rest is history. We had no vision of what we have today.” Today White- Water has over 5,000 installations worldwide.

Pipeline to Success

Waves of growth propelled the company forward. In the early 1980s, WhiteWater obtained a license from an international company to manufacture interactive water play systems with features like bubbler jets, water curtains, and pipe falls. It eventually purchased the company and developed the products into its own AquaPlay™ brand.

In 1987, while talking with a potential customer located in sight of the pyramids in Cairo, Chutter learned about another Vancouver- area entrepreneur who sold wave equipment. When he returned home, a meeting with that company owner, Andrew Wray, resulted in a perfect pairing. Wray became a WhiteWater West partner and continues to bring his love of big water to the company’s attractions.

“Recently we did the same thing as we did with the interactive play systems company— licensed first then acquired a company that is dominant in the industry. This company manufactured surfing equipment, and now we have our FlowRider® line of attractions,” Chutter said.

“The beauty of that equipment is that it requires a certain amount of skill, so people want to come back to improve their ability to surf. We’ve installed 160 FlowRiders around the world, on the back of Royal Caribbean cruise ships and in indoor and outdoor water parks.”

Flanges

Supporting flanges are positioned on a structural pipe.

By scooping up other manufacturers and expanding their own designs, WhiteWater West, unlike its competitors, now manufactures every piece of equipment that goes into building a water park. That, Chutter said, gives them a unique ability to help existing facilities grow.

“We look at the demographics to see what the park actually needs. Does it need more capacity, a pool, something for the teenage market, or a play area for 5-year-olds? Having the various equipment allows us to design something specific to the park that will drive their gate. That’s what it’s all about.”

Designing attractions that bring families through the gate is one aspect of the marketing goals, keeping them in the park is another. White- Water West has a broad definition of “family,” starting with grandparents who might enjoy tubing down a lazy river, embracing young adults looking for the adrenaline rush of a 98-ft.- high Abyss™, and sprinkling toddlers as they float under a raintree. “You don’t know what mix the family is going to be, but you know that to be successful, increase the length of stay, and hold them in the park for a meal, you’ve got to keep everybody happy.”

Ambassadors of Goodwill

Chutter views his company and its employees as ambassadors for Canada. “We are in virtually every country of the world. We break down international barriers because everybody likes the water and the sun. We go into countries that have not viewed the West in the way we would like to be seen—as a family-oriented, compassionate culture.”

The family recreation emphasis has broken down barriers in cultures that appear to be water park-averse. Yet a main attraction for tourists and local residents in Abu Dhabi, UAE, where wearing a bathing suit and exposing skin in public are unacceptable by much of the population, is the recently completed Yas Waterworld, WhiteWater’s most expensive installation so far with $14 million for attractions. The park itself, heavily themed for Sheik Zayed, topped $300 million.

“To date,” Chutter said, “no culture has been able to withstand the onslaught of a water park.”

A core company belief is respecting local cultures. WhiteWater does not own the parks or provide services that can be provided locally.

“We view ourselves as a global company located in Vancouver, not a Vancouver company that has gone global. It’s a completely different mindset, and our focus is on customer intimacy. In every country there are great concrete masons, building builders, landscapers, and so on. So we invest in the local community by using the local services. We create the park layout and stick to building the products that are not available in most locations.”

Making a Splash

Water park components are built in two British Columbia facilities with a combined 180,000 square feet dedicated to production. Fiberglass waterslides and attractions are molded at FormaShape, the company’s 80,000-sq.-ft. plant in Kelowna. Theming elements and steel fabrications flow from the Richmond (Vancouver) facility. All of the steel going into WhiteWater products is manufactured in accordance with CSA W47.1 or AWS D1.1.

About five years ago, many of the standard components parts were outsourced.

welder

A welder completes an assembly in one of WhiteWater’s 10 welding/fabricating cells.

“I decided to outsource two-thirds of our manufacturing for purely cost reasons,” Chutter said. “Our costs dropped, therefore our selling prices dropped, and our sales volume went up tremendously. As a result, we had more key items to be manufactured in Kelowna or Vancouver. Not only did the plant volume increase, but work with the higher-paying jobs like the architects, engineers, and project managers more than doubled.”

WhiteWater has the largest inhouse team of experienced engineers in the industry—over 60 structural, mechanical, civil, electrical, and slide path engineers; technologists; and project managers.

A True Production Flow

Keeping up with that increased volume in the ISO 9001-certified steel fabricating shop falls to John Bookless, director of manufacturing. The Toyota methodology, lean initiatives, and kaizen processes are implemented. Management systems are from the bottom up.

There is a definite lack of inventory and work-in-process throughout the shop. About 120 tons of steel is processed through the shop each month. Most is carbon, but some stainless is used for components that will spend their lives in water.

Flame-cut, shaped, or bent parts are brought in and held in the kanban system until they are drawn into an assembly on the shop floor. They are welded together, inspected, and sent out for galvanizing. When they return, they are sanded, painted, and crated for shipping.

“We use a lot of lean production methods, so we do single-piece flow. We don’t build project by project, it’s part by part. The system is actually about 40 percent faster than the Henry Ford model of batching, and it maximizes throughput at each individual workstation. It gives us a balanced load,” said Bookless.

“We’ve just gone through a four month planning process in the steel fab shop. A project that took us 50 calendar days now takes us 26. We took about 30 percent of the time out through lean initiatives. We calculated how much it costs to move our equipment around the plant and got down to steps our workers take. Every step costs 4 cents. So we eliminated waste in terms of travel,” Bookless said.

Seemingly small things like shadow boards and localized tooling made huge differences in production efficiency by keeping the employees producing at their stations. Capacity doubled without adding more people or equipment.

Shop floor innovations have made production so efficient that there is no need or desire to manufacture elsewhere. “Manufacturing here in B.C. is more expensive on an hourly basis,” said Chutter, “but, theoretically, if our shop employees are doing twice the work, we can afford to pay them more.”

One at a Time

Similar to the single-piece flow, one water park project at a time works its way through the shop. Components for each park are built from standard parts but require customization because of the various thematic elements.

1,600 liter tipping bucket

A 1,600-liter tipping bucket is ready for final assembly and theming.

The production system maps out what will be done each day. Bookless can call up the schedule and identify what day an individual assembly will be welded, finished, painted, and staged in the yard for shipping.

Finished metal assemblies are physically joined with the theming pieces on-site.

Welding is held to a very high standard. Bookless said, “We have to have CWB welds, but they also need to be aesthetically pleasing because they are all open to public view. Our welders are well-qualified and they are trained to handle the fabrication aspects of their job. It gives us much more flexibility.

“The great thing about WhiteWater is that it is multidisciplined. There is steel work that goes on, but we also make plastic and fiberglass parts. We have excellent painters, our thematic sculptures are phenomenal, and the theme painters do incredible work,” said Bookless.

If there is a main production problem, it is space. “We were looking to buy a high-level bending machine for some new products, but my difficulty is where to put it. I’m maxed out for room,” Bookless said. “We’ve added on, put up tents, and tried different things, but as our production capacity has grown, our workload has kept up.”

“I’ve been in manufacturing for 45 years, producing things from rescue submarines to waterslides. And although we have some unique challenges specific to our business, we face the same challenges as other manufacturers—getting our parts on time, getting the work done, shipping on time, and doing it cost-effectively,” he added.

What’s Coming Down the Chute?

There has been an evolution. Chutter’s first water park started with individual body slides. Those slides morphed into two-person inner-tube rides. Now six-person rafts let families and friends ride together, facing each other as they swoosh up and down and through WhiteWater tubes and spirals.

The thrill factor has also intensified. Options like shooting down a funnel or standing in a capsule where the floor drops out and the rider speeds through a 360-degree upside-down loop can be terrifying and fun.

WhiteWater’s 12-person development group continually stirs up new adrenaline-building experiences. “We have a target of having 25 percent of our gross revenue come from new products. Every year. New products are attractions that have only been around for three years. We make it difficult for others to keep up,” said Chutter.

www.whitewaterwest.com

Whitewater assemblies

Colorful, completed components await shipment in the staging area.