I talked to an engineer yesterday that had recently left S&S to go to Setpoint. He told me that S&S has downsized to 13 employees and that the building of Eejanaika is putting them out of business. Not sure how valid this is (as it was just one employee's opinion). Here's to hoping he's wrong.
Regardless of this being true, was there ever an official end to their wood coaster division? For some reason, I recall something about that. I would really like to see some more vicious woodies like Avalanche and Tsunami--AWESOME rides!
Hmmm....what an interesting rumor. Eejanaika isn't exactly a prototype, so I wonder how it could have ruined them?
Besides, I've always heard that S&S is very profitable, though being private they don't release figures. In addition, their air powered rides have been selling steadily, right?
Setpoint has all kinds of great ideas, but apparently no one wanted to buy any of them. That's a shame. I hung out with people from the company in 2001 (when there were a lot more of them) and they were all good people with great ideas.
I think the acquisition of Arrow by S&S was a really stupid move because I don't feel they had any real significant assets to speak of, other than their parts business. Their steel fab facility was obsolete and a cash drain.
Since the market for the Power Towers is mostly saturated S&S has no ride that sells that well. The Swings, Squirrels, Squatters and Thrust Airs are all single digit sellers AFAIK. The wooden coasters had a good start but there seems to be nothing happening right now.
If you take a look at all the re-designing they did with their 4D trains (you have to go to the "forbidden" site to see those pictures) you can guess that the developmet cost will eat up any profit that could have been made. And how many future 4Ds will there possibly be to cash in on the development costs.
You would think that they would have been able to accurately price tag the building of this ride, considering the terrible time Arrow had with X.
Just because the firm downsized to 13 employees means diddly squat. How many competent engineers and sketch artists does it take for an amusement firm to succeed?
I would go out on a limb and guess as well that this is a disgruntled employee of some sort as well. S&S has always been a profitable business, and although i dont know how many air powered rides theyve sold recently, i was under the impression they were still doing well.
I hope the company doesnt go under just because of another 4D, but I guess we shall see.
What type of other products is Setpoint involved in?
I come from a very strong manufacturing/industrial background and recognize that engineers are capable of almost anything..however it's us accountants that make the world go 'round. ;)
I know engineers can do anything. You asked why one would go from S&S to Setpoint, even though Setpoint isn't huge in amusement rides. That is one reason. They really do any type of integration for manufacturing plants. I've worked with them on a lot of machine vision applications and things like that. They also build machines for Autoliv (they make airbags).
Like I said at first, I don't know how true the rumor is. I was just surprised to hear it at all.
Buying Arrow was a huge mistake. Arrow would have been better fading into the past. I'm sure Vekoma could have supplied parts for Arrow rides, if parts weren't available from the used ride market. I'd bet there are tons of Arrow parts floating around.
