SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.
(BUSINESS WIRE)—July 29, 2004- PowerSki
International
Corporation (PSI) announced today that PowerSki Manufacturing
Corporation (PMC), issued purchase orders to begin the assembly
of the Igniter
330 PowerSki Jetboard. PSI recently announced PMC as PSI’s
limited licensing and manufacturing partner with an investment
commitment to PSI of $2 million. The first purchase order was
to North American Marine Jet for 900 units of the PowerThruster
330
Jetpump. The second purchase order was issued to Pacific X Corporation
for 12,000 units of the SuperTorque XT Marine Engine. This was
the first step in moving forward for PMC as they ready for volume
manufacturing of the Igniter 330 Jetboard.
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| From
left to right: Bjorn Elvin, VP of Research and Development
| Larry Schaefer, CFO | Bob Montgomery, CEO, Inventor
| Leo Greene, VP Engineering | Ritzo Muntinga, President
Electrex
USA | Mike
Moon, General Manager Pacific X Auto Corp. |
The
Canadian government offers incentives for new businesses and
the Alberta private
investment community was quick to respond
to the idea. Randy states, “As the Canadian distributor
for PSI, we are excited with the market potential of the PowerSki
Jetboard so when the manufacturing opportunity became available,
Rob and I decided to go ahead and do the manufacturing ourselves.” The first purchase
order was issued to North American Marine Jet (MAMJ) located
in Benton, Arkansas. Len Hill who is the owner,
said, “The PowerThruster 330 Jetpump which I developed
for PSI, will add a lot more thrust and since specifically designed
for the Igniter 330 Jetboard, it will save time in assembly.” Len
also stated, “This purchase order from PCM is just the
beginning, I believed in Bob Montgomery and his motorized surfboard
and he has done a remarkable job… Looks like we have some
Jetpumps to make.” With the first P.O. issued it is expected
that PCM should be seeing Jetpumps around Aug. 27 or even sooner.
Rob Paulson explained, “Manufacturing the Jetboard isn’t
all that hard to do, really The sub-assemblies that come from
the vendors simply bolt in place. For example, the engine alone
can be installed in under 12 minutes. The Jetboard hull
is what takes the time and we are looking at several vendors
to take on this molding task. We will need to work with more
than just one vendor to meet our production goal of 10,000+ Jetboards
in our first year.” Rob then added,” Today’s
events are very important to PMC and PowerSki Canada as we see
the Igniter 330 Jetboard come to life.”
Pacific X Auto Corporation
(PXC), Carson, Calif., received the second purchase order from
PCM for 12,000 units of the patented
SuperTorque XT Marine Engine developed by PSI. “We will
have no problem building engines for the Jetboard and they will
have a one year warranty as well. Our Korean facility is currently
producing motorcycle engines in mass quantity.” stated
Mike Moon, General Manager for PXC. He also added, “PXC
is fabricating die cast tooling directly from PSI’s Pro/ENGINEER
Wildfire files using HP workstations. This tooling is capable
of high volume production while providing engine parts of lower
cost, lighter weight and greater strength. We look to ship the
first SuperTorque XT Marine engines to PSI in January 2005. ”
PSI will continue
to build engines utilizing their recently revised sand casting
tooling until the PXC engines begin arriving
from overseas. PSI has already delivered over
120 units, mostly Igniter 2000 Beta units. These units
were instrumental in the field testing necessary to make final
engineering and tooling modifications prior to the production
of the Igniter 330. This is the same process utilized
successfully in the software industry. Bob Montgomery,
CEO of PSI said, “We have gone ahead and ordered another
500 engine cases from Alumacast, a foundry in Los Angeles, Calif.
This order exceeds our backlog of prepaid Igniter 330 Jetboards
and should meet near-term production requirements until the PXC
engines arrive in Q1 2005. PSI’s revised sand casting
tooling is capable of producing an additional 8,000 to 10,000
units if needed to fill orders. This is a big moment for
PSI, as now the dream is coming to life. PSI can now, with the
cooperative efforts of all the vendors and PCM, begin to bring
the Igniter 330 Jetboard to high volume production.”
Mr. Ritzo Muntinga,
President of Electrix USA Ltd, was part of the PMC kickoff
meeting today. He stated that Electrix
is in the final design stages of a new electrical system for
the Powerski Igniter 330 Jetboard. The waterproof assembly fits inside the engine case, has only 2 connectors, and is water-cooled. It
is capable of charging the battery at idle, just 1500 rpm. Previous
Beta units had an off-the-shelf electrical system that was costly
and not designed for marine applications. This new unit
has been in design for over a year and solves these issues. The
unit has key features designed in, including an engine overheating
protection, a rev limiter, start kill which prevents engaging
the starter when the engine is running, and a lock out preventing
engaging the starter unless the rider’s safety lanyard
is connected.
PCM will send to PSI
key personnel to undergo rigorous training at the San Clemente,
Calif. facility within the next two weeks. PCM
has placed P.O.‘s to build their initial 10 Igniter 330
PowerSki Jetboards in their Canadian Plant immediately upon their
return as per the Limited Licensing and Manufacturing Agreement,
signed July 5, 2004.
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