BOB Trailers - Boise - New Product Development
Beast of Burden Becomes the Leader in Following 
Company Profile
In 1991, in San Luis Obispo, CA, Roger Malinowski, a bicycle industry maven, met Philip Novotny, an airline mechanic. Novotny had turned a decrepit beach cruiser bike into a versatile, lightweight, single-track bike trailer, called the YAK, and was rolling it out of his machine shop. Roger knew a great idea when he saw it, and together they turned Philip’s invention into a revolution.
The Beast of Burden Company, in typical California fashion, soon became BOB - easier to spell, funny, and simple. In 2006, attracted by a favorable business climate and a lifestyle conducive to its philosophy, BOB moved its corporate offices to Boise, Idaho. As in California, most of the employees ride their bikes to work and sometimes take a new stroller or trailer idea home for a little product testing.
Situation
Today, BOB Trailers Inc. is focused on producing high quality baby jogging strollers and bicycle trailers at a competitive price. The company employs 25 people, from high school graduates in the warehouse to product development specialists with advanced degrees in engineering. Because of its small size and the technical nature of its products, the company looked to TechHelp to help augment its engineering expertise and speed new products to market.
Solution
BOB’s small engineering team relies heavily on TechHelp staff and resources at the New Product Development Lab at Boise State’s College of Engineering to accelerate product development projects. TechHelp uses the stereo lithography apparatus (SLA) and CNC Mill at Boise State to build a variety of prototype parts for BOB. These parts allow BOB to test functionality of new plastic part designs prior to investing in expensive plastic mold tooling.
BOB also worked with TechHelp on a research project that correlated strength parameters of SLA materials to nylon. This allows BOB to use inexpensive SLA prototype parts in strength testing and to predict more accurately the strength of the final nylon plastic part. Such testing allows BOB to make important design changes before investing in expensive production tooling.
TechHelp has also done product design work for BOB that led to successful final designs and drawings. This work gives TechHelp's 
student engineers at Boise State valuable experience in the product development process and helps the BOB team get to know talented young engineers who might make the BOB team. Two graduates of TechHelp and the Boise State College of Engineering now work at BOB full time.
Results
BOB's work with TechHelp has helped the company produce the following impact:
- Retained sales - $10,000
- Employees retained – 2
- Cost Savings – $347,600
- Improved workforce practices - $1000
- Investment in product development - $332,00
- BOB hired two TechHelp student employees who graduated from the Boise State University College of Engineering
Testimonial
TechHelp has been a valuable asset to our business model. The organization has helped BOB Trailers improve in many ways and has certainly provided stimulus to the economy by helping us shorten our product development cycle and speed new products to market.
Mike Baughnam, Technical Director, BOB Trailers, Inc.
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