During the first 12 weeks, the MAGNET and S.R. Smith engineers held weekly telephone conferences. At key project milestones, Svendsen traveled to Cleveland to meet the MAGNET team either at the MAGNET Manufacturing Innovation Center, the pattern maker's shop or the roto molders' facility.

"We knew we would manufacture this product in Ohio," explains Svendsen. "In addition, we needed our roto molder partners to attend pattern review so they could catch anything that might not work in the molding process. So it made sense for us to travel there for things like sign-off dates."

The team monitored adherence to the CPSC safety requirements by holding monthly meetings with the company, the pattern builders and the mold builders, so each partner could bring the benefit of their particular expertise to that challenge.

Throughout the project, the MAGNET PDD team relied not only on its own experience designing pool slides, but also on the knowledge base of the manufacturer, the pattern maker and the tool builder to insure the quality and safety of the design.

"Based on our trial and error during development of previous slides, we were able to estimate how parts were going to shrink based on their geometry," says Keller. "We incorporated what we had learned from previous designs to make sure all the seams matched up."

After meeting the 12-week design and engineering deadline, MAGNET participated in review meetings and made Pro-E design and engineering revisions as needed, before submitting the final Pro-E drawings to the pattern and mold tooling vendor.

The new Typhoon slide went into production in January 2008, allowing the company time to build up enough inventory before its busy season begins in late Spring.

Svendsen says MAGNET met his company's challenge, and he would recommend it to any other company faced with a similar large-scale project.

"I came to them with a concept, something I had in my mind that needed further development," says Svendsen. "They have the expertise to develop that concept into a manufacturable product. Having worked on projects similar to this, I know that if we had tried to do this in-house, the project would have been delayed getting into product, because we don't have that expertise on board."