The plot thickens. Hittade detta från Mr Simon Bolze, Wayland Folding Kayaks UK, om de senaste turerna kring Kleppers 'outsourcing' av sin produktion:
Folks
I do not have all the finer details about the whole story, but can confirm that the equipment that was at Rosenheim has been transferred to the Wayland factory in Poland. IE the production of Klepper range of wooden framed kayak models has been outsourced to Wayland.
Wayland is continuing with the production of 5 Klepper models - Aerius II 545, Aerius II 545 short version, Tramp, Aerius I 490. I am not sure what the 5th model is. The wooden frame pieces are being produced at another factory - not sure where this is, but it seems that this factory is close by in Poland too - this appears to be a temporary measure to allow Wayland to focus on accelerating Klepper production back up to the daily volume that Klepper recently had.
What has not been mentioned in the various articles about Klepper in this thread is that there was a fire at the Rosenheim factory back in May this year, where a fair bit of stock got damaged. This possibly was also a contributing factor in the way things turned out for Klepper.
With the production being outsourced, this should enable Mr H Isbruch to rebuild Klepper and hopefully focus more on marketing. I do not think that the outsourcing will be the kiss of death of Klepper at all - its the same Klepper production equipment being used, same parts/fittings and the skins will still be made by master craftsmen with years of experience.
När fan blir gammal blir han religiös. Detta var en högoddsare, det har ju varit ganska bistra tongångar mellan Klepper och Wayland under många år.
/Mats
