RVBusiness, September/October 2019

plans to add more teams sales teams support teams supply chain teams logistics and Aaron Fidler noted is investing very heavily in its infrastructure Along with its current facilities which include a sales and marketing office in Minneapolis plus tech offices a test laboratory and an engineering office in China as well as a global headquarters and engineering facility in Hong Kong Furrion is in the midst of establishing warehouse logistics across North America Were affiliated with some of the biggest distribution companies around the world Aaron Fidler noted So were using their knowledge and their resources and their expertise to help us and make it a very efficient rapid flow to market Were getting ready to supply some of the big retail chains so were preparing to support these customers Were already in the process of shipping and starting to manufacture for these customers some of which we signed partnerships with at CES Its a great opportunity for us and for all the new products Were going to be developing a significant amount of products for this industry he added Were looking to align with customers in the market and align with our partners and were going to make them successful and going to make them win so we win strategically And as we transition out we want to create new synergies and go back to our roots on how we started and improve customer service Were going Employees at Furrions Elkhart Ind Innovation Center with company owners Aaron and Matt Fidler Furrion employs more than 300 worldwide most of them engineers 74 RVBusiness S E P T E M B E R O C T O B E R 2 0 1 9 to be known as the company and the industry you can partner with And were going to innovate and take this business to a whole new level Furrion also has redesigned the cavernous lobby of its Innovation Center to more fully showcase its wealth of products which Aaron Fidler noted now exceed a thousand in number Were developing anywhere between one hundred and two hundred products at any given time he said We have a huge R D operation Were able to scale very quickly and were also developing for the international markets not just the North American marketplace During the last few years weve submitted more than one hundred patents so were very much technology driven Were going over some situations now where we have some patent infringement and were very aggressively confronting that were making a statement that we are an innovator and were going aggressively to make sure our IP international patent is protected In addition to its development of products for the RV arena two emerging markets on which the Fidler brothers appear very high are outdoor leisure products essentially built of stainless steel that can weather the elements be they in a residential backyard or at an owned resort campsite and compact living residential products that have a number of similarities to the compressed living spaces common to recreational vehicles Compact living is something that weve looked towards for a very long time and is really an outgrowth of the way we design for the RV industry noted Matt Fidler We looked at the residential market and the capacity to cook and the quality of products available there and we try to apply that to the RV side But obviously there are space restrictions so we had to innovate redesign and rethink these products and appliances and how that would work inside an RV And we were very successful with that So as weve grown we started to look at the other end of the spectrum why dont we take that knowledge and ability and that brand that weve built in compact spaces and apply that to compact living in the kitchen appliance industry in particular in the residential market he added I mean you look at a kitchen in say the New York or Chicago condo or apartment market and they absolutely are compact but the people that live there still want luxury appliances We launched a number of products directed at that market at CES this year and we got interest from every major big box retailer in North America So it does make sense for us as a brand as a company to be in that industry The products themselves Aaron Fidler noted are manufactured in a variety of locations including the United States China Vietnam the Phillippines and Taiwan We utilize a flexible manufacturing model so because were outsourcing our model is engineering and design from the ground up so we have the specifications we have the designs we own the IP were able to move that whenever we want to And that gives us our flexibility Outdoor TVs are nothing new in the RV industry but Furrions line of Aurora 4K units are weatherproof use a protective aluminum metal casing and can operate in extreme temperatures from 5F to 120F Compact living is a concept that noted Matt Fidler grew out of the companys need to design and engineer appliances for the compressed living spaces in an RV