Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Smart Ski (Smart Ski)

Teaser

As of this moment, people ski in similar way as they did 100+ years ago. With material development, security elements and design & shape advancements, skis are different pair of plates than before, but, crucially, they are produced and used in the same way: a factory produces...

Summary

As of this moment, people ski in similar way as they did 100+ years ago. With material development, security elements and design & shape advancements, skis are different pair of plates than before, but, crucially, they are produced and used in the same way: a factory produces different types of skis for different types of skiing (slalom, downhill, general use) and different types of skiers\' skills. Users then step in the bindings before descending down the hill on the plates.

First, such production has become expensive & ecologically objectionable, not being able of further developing and upgrading. All ski customization and type differentiation is done at the factory within production process. Hundreds of ski types exist for each specific use, terrain and situation, but all are pre-produced in factories. This means that ski brands and factories compete only in the sphere of design, PR and branding, and not in technical upgrades and innovations. Such pre-destined customization also means massive unoptimal costs and rather large energy use and production waste. Materials and technologies involved are often non-recyclable and environmentally problematic.

Secondly, even more important, users (skiers) cannot control one single thing regarding their skis, because it’s ready-made finished product. Skis are still similarly bulky, similarly low-tech and similarly limited product.
Users are limited to using skis without any control or manipulation of product’s properties. Users can buy pre-fabricated types, based on their ability levels. Skis as a product do not grow with users’ advancements as a skier, therefore either the progress of skier’s ability slows down or new set of skis have to be bought which means additional costs. Ski properties such as sliding behaviour, skiing type and functionality are all pre-destined in the production factory so users cannot influence them when concrete situation on ski area would require so. Also, physical properties like torsional and bending stiffness are defined at the very beginning of the process and cannot be later changed to customer’s needs or wishes. Also, skiing has not yet embraced previously limited technological options that now could easily be incorporated. Most suitable seems mobile control of smart sensors, which not only enables actual smart skiing, responsing to skier input and adjustments, but also offers possibilities for evaluations, reviews, statistics, training visualisation, comparison and improvement, because tracking, positioning, on-slope effectiveness or similar elements can be observed. Skiing doesn\'t yet have similar technological services although such information is needed both for professional skiers\' training to effectively visualize needed data directly from the ski sensors, and for recreatives to automatically customize physical ski properties in regard to real-time ski slope conditions and weather.

Our main objective is to become a global leader in the market of ski development industry, changing the skiing with breakthrough innovation of Smart Ski. With disruptive market penetration we aim to widespread use of adjustable skis, setting industry standard.
Overall goals of the project remains similar as they were at beginning of Phase 1:
• to enable skiers to manage their ski properties according to ability levels, different terrains and weather conditions
• to reduce ski production cost and waste
• to sell the solution to market leaders but acquire and retain patents on technical solutions (in Phase 1, we discovered that this sales & financial model might not be the only suitable model immediately after market launch, but is preferable long-term option)

Work performed

In Phase 1, we concluded and tested final 10% of technology needed for mass production and for finalization of our prototype. We also tested IT-based smart electronics and found that the design of electro-mechanical regulation system could also be protected as our intellectual property.
First, we completed finalization of first functional prototype without electronic parts with 3d printing. With this result enabling further procedures, we then carried out following actions:
1. Development and internal validation of prototype of foldable skis with fixed skiing properties
2. Development and internal validation of foldable skis with adjustable skiing properties
3. Development of software and hardware, and testing of construction of mechanism for electronics
4. Development and tests of connection between smart phone and wearable electronics within the skis
5. Thorough on-field testing of all prototypes:
• Internal research tests on ski-slopes
• Open tests with inclusion of final users (novice and demanding skiers)

These steps were re-iterated number of times, until expected results were obtained:
• Validated final prototype of foldable skis with fixed skiing properties
• Validated final protoype of foldable skis with adjustable skiing properties
• Validated control of ski electronics with smart phones

We can report also on confirmation of initial estimation regarding production processes, estimated costs and waste. Our team started the project being relative insider of ski industry due to past experiences in ski development, innovations and production. We have direct contacts with all key ski market players and during Phase 1 we researched on processes of their development departments and production. We couldn\'t obtain publishable formal data and numbers due to trade secrets, but our research inquiries could result in informal and off-the-record information that confirm our predictions:
• Our production process is faster per ski, based on current set-up, with even more reserves in optimization on our side once mass production grows over initial numbers
• Technological production waste equals 30% of current waste, calculated per 1 pair of skis to have standardized comparison
• Final product is 70-80% recyclable in comparison to 0% of current skis
• Total production costs of Smart Ski are already in current set-up 25-30% lower than of today’s skis,calculated per 1 pair of skis to have standardized comparison

To reach marketing- and business- related outcomes of Phase 1, our activities were (as planned) related to development and activation of network of relevant project stakeholders (industry professionals, advisors, test users, early birds final users, pre- marketing or -sales channels) who can in future provide following benefits to our project:
A. Opening doors and connections to final decision-makers at market leaders\' companies in order for us to form mutually beneficial partnerships with them
B. Active advising on dissemination and promotion of project end results to our target groups
C. Enabling us to develop different possible financial models and matching different possible strategic scenarios, related mostly to (not) agreed partnerships with big market players
D. Communicating with and engaging early-bird interested final users, volunteer test users and feedback providers

In relation to this framework, we realized actions and obtain findings as follows:
• On-field showcase presentation of prototype with Wolfgang Greiner, editor of RoadTripVerlag and SKIPresser magazines
• ISPO fair organizes its ISPO innovations competition and ISPO awards. In 2017 we were offered to be involved with option to acquire also prime presentation location. This could be hugeboost to our future dissemination and promo efforts
• ISPO also offers service of crowd testing of sports equipment on final users on mass scale (1000+ users). At this moment their demands are too expensive, but they remain strong partnership

Final results

In Phase 1, project didn\'t yet have true socio-economic impact. In this context, we can report about:
- final prototype of foldable ski was finalized and validated on real ski-slope environments. This is already beyond the state of the art, because skis are (as mentioned above) still produced as bulky pieces
- electronics for smart prototype was tested and validated, which confirmed our assumptions for smart ski to be another step beyond state of the art
- production process was tested and we concluded that our test production lines are more efficient, cleaner and cheaper than current state of the art solutions

We expect potential impact of final product to be:
- generator of new skiing revolution, similar to carving in 1990s (also our innovation), when whole industry was shaken and carving slowly gained almost 100% market share
- new value: smart and manual ski adjustments will bring different types of skiers to one solution. That will lower production costs also on global level, while still retain customization, branding and similar customer-related trends
- new skiing process: Smart ski will have two key novelties: foldability and manageable ski properties. This will result in going skiing being simplified similar to tennis: people will simply put their folded skis in a sport bag and go skiing without much thinking about bulky luggage, special transport, etc.. On the other hand, they will be able to adjust ski properties based on conditions (weather, humidity of ski slope, different type of snow, etc.) or their skills without the need of having separate skis as is necessity today.

We also see global potential of business-related issues:
- our company will license smart ski solution and in long-term position as pioneer smart foldable ski developer, with all current major ski players still benefiting from the solution, due to license exploitation without much costs
- our initial conservative estimations (partly validated in discussions with big players\' representatives) show that whole ski industry will gain from this innovation, and that already smart ski could gain whole current market value with 50% of market share, meaning huge potential for new investments, additional innovations and employments exist.

At this stage we cannot yet share other findings with public: what we discovered and researched in Phase 1, gives us more than enough confirmation that the market for smart ski is there, and that our way of its exploitation with big players partnerships is very interesting for them, because we do not position ourselves as their competition, but rather as their development partner. Such way is also significantly less tiresome for us.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.zns-ski.com.