S&S to be gone soon?

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.

Anything's possible. X did it to Arrow, this one could do it to S&S.

Maybe S&S grew too fast, or overestimated the market for what they planned on offering. Still, it might be the grumblings of a jaded former employee.

And he went to Set Point of all places?

They don't exactly have a glaring record of sucess.

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.

Would you have preferred Arrow going away entirely? That would have been trouble for all the parks needing parts.

Another thing:

http://www.fabriweld.com/track.html

I was under the impression that Arrow made all their own track. So what is this joint?

Arrow started using fabriweld in the early 2000's to cut costs. That company also made track for at least Togo and Vekoma.

Arrow had to be using them prior to 2000 considering Vortex @ KI has been open since 87.

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.

^Agreed.

I doubt Walter and Claude even have 13 employees.

This woudl especially makes sense if S&S farms out their fabricration as all the other companies do.

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MagnumsRevenge said:
And he went to Set Point of all places?

They don't exactly have a glaring record of sucess.

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Setpoint does much more than just amusement rides. As an engineer, he can take on just about anything at Setpoint, not just coasters.

So can any engineer.

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.

Out of total curiousity....whats the forbidden site?

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MagnumsRevenge said:
What type of other products is Setpoint involved in?

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http://www.setpointusa.com/

Amazing what Google can do for you.

The site is one run by people who have done harm to enthusiasts' relationships with the industry. We're not going to get into it here.