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Chapter 11 Managing Knowledge 461

manufacturing time, finishing process, and thus, tout their design or suggest improvements to other
costs to the consumer. In contrast to the earlier CAD customers. Interactive communication such as this
assisted, 10 to 15 percent hand-finished boards, once drives customers to the Firewire site, creating a
a surfer has designed the board of his or her dreams, marketing buzz that boosts sales.
it can be remade to those exact specifications time
Sources: “Case Study: NX CAD technology drives custom surf-
and again. Neither the ideal handmade board nor board design,” http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us,
a shaper-finished board can be replicated with this accessed June 14, 2012; “Firewire Surfboards by Nev Hyman,”
degree of precision. www.allaboutsurfboards.com, accessed June 14, 2012; “Firewire
Partners with NanoTune ‘Board Tuning Technology,’” www.surf-
An additional benefit of Firewire’s online design newsdaily.com, February 22, 2012; William Atkinson, “How Firewire
system is the social networking engendered by the Surfboards Refined Its 3D Order Customization,” www.cioinsight.
sharing of customers’ unique design files. Before com, November 21, 2011; “Firewire Surfboards Custom Board Design
Blends Replicability of Machine Made Boards With Uniqueness of
placing an order, customers can show their modi-
Custom Boards,” http://surfingnewsdaily.com, October 12, 2011;
fications to fellow surfers and ask for opinions and and “Firewire Surfboards Garner Recognition for Technological
advice. After placing an order and using the product, Advances,” www.surfermag.com, July 22, 2010.
they can report their experiences and (hopefully)

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Analyze Firewire using the value chain and 4. How did the integration of online custom board
competitive forces models. design software (CBD), CAD, and computer
2. What strategies is Firewire using to differentiate numerical control (CNC) improve Firewire’s
its product, reach its customers, and persuade operations?
them to buy its products?
3. What is the role of CAD in Firewire’s business
model?

that information back to the computer. For instance, to walk through a virtual
reality simulation of a house, you would need garb that monitors the move-
ment of your feet, hands, and head. You also would need goggles containing
video screens and sometimes audio attachments and feeling gloves so that you
can be immersed in the computer feedback.
At NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, students wearing 3-D
glasses are able to “dissect” a virtual cadaver projected on a screen. With the
help of a computer, they can move through the virtual body, scrutinizing layers
of muscles or watching a close-up of a pumping heart along with bright red
arteries and deep blue veins. The virtual human body was created by BioDigital
Systems, a New York City medical visualization firm. The virtual cadaver being
used at Langone is a beta version that BioDigital plans to develop into a search-
able, customizable map of the human body for medical educators and physi-
cians. NYU medical school has no current plans to phase out dissection, but the
3-D virtual cadaver is a valuable complementary teaching tool (Singer, 2012).
Ford Motor Company has been using virtual reality to help design its vehicles.
In one example of Ford’s Immersive Virtual Environment, a designer was pre-
sented with a car seat, steering wheel, and blank dashboard. Wearing virtual
reality glasses and gloves with sensors, the designer was able to “sit” in the seat
surrounded by the vehicle's 3-D design to experience how a proposed interior
would look and feel. The designer would be able to identify blind spots or see if
knobs were in an awkward place. Ford’s designers could also use this technology

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