Decathlon has a repute for good worth sporting items throughout its full vary of actions. Head to the game superstore’s web site, and you would package your self out for all the pieces from kayaking to horse driving, to rollerblading, tenting (is {that a} sport?), and biking. The French model not too long ago upped its sport within the latter, nevertheless, signing a sponsorship deal to package out the Decathlon-AG2R professional workforce, and concurrently dropping the worth of WorldTour worthy bike possession by round by a number of thousand kilos.
The Van Rysel RCR Professional bike – designed and manufactured by Decathlon – prices £9,000, round £2,000 to £3,000 cheaper than professional degree bikes obtainable from different manufacturers. It’s typically stated that it’s the ‘scale’ of Decathlon that makes this doable. However what precisely does that imply?
Identify any main metropolis in Europe, and likelihood is, there’s a Decathlon retailer inside a 5 mile radius; the corporate has round 1,800 shops worldwide. While it’s not alone in catering for a number of sports activities – Scott Sports activities, for instance, caters for winter sports activities, working and moto gear in addition to a variety of bikes – it does stand out in catering for rookies, from the beginning of their journey with an exercise, rising the general gross sales quantity.
This permits it to soak up R&D prices whereas nonetheless conserving its costs low. In finalising the design of the Van Rysel RCR Professional, ten totally different prototypes have been examined, with the ultimate design’s aero credentials examined in three totally different wind tunnels, for instance.
A go to to Decathlon’s R&D laboratories
Decathlon’s helmet drop assessments use between 50 and 60 particular person helmets to check the security of every design
(Picture credit score: Future)
The Decathlon HQ constructing in Lille, a office for 1,600 individuals, is constructed on the location of an previous airport and is over one kilometer from one finish to the opposite, with workers utilizing scooters to get across the buildings. There are over 100 workers working for Van Rysel on highway bikes alone.
Decathlon’s HQ is residence to a spread of ‘laboratories’, used for growing and testing gear, with learnings shared throughout its sports activities portfolio.
One such facility is the Tech’Off laboratory, which assesses merchandise’ high quality. There are ISO requirements that each one sports activities items should meet, however Decathlon goes additional, with a number of drop assessments for its helmets on totally different components of the construction.
The most recent race content material, interviews, options, critiques and professional shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
Decathlon has drop testing rigs on web site to make sure that its helmets meet and exceed security requirements worldwide, with every helmet being marked up with the totally different positions and impacts for which they are going to be examined. European requirements require drop assessments on six positions on every helmet design; Decathlon influence assessments at sixty totally different positions.
The Tech’Off laboratory doesn’t simply take a look at merchandise on the macroscopic degree both. It has its personal scanning electron microscope on web site, a tool used to look at the microscopic construction of supplies utilized in its sporting items, comparable to carbon fiber laminates.
There’s but extra prototyping happening within the Booster Innovation lab, the place the workforce develops early prototypes and concepts to assist product groups devise new merchandise by turning out ‘monsters’.
For instance, it has produced a sequence of prototypes for packaging-free sports activities vitamin. None of them might even see the sunshine of day, however they’re dialogue factors for tactics to ship the undertaking’s goals. In one other nook of the identical lab, a transportable help for a badminton web was being welded collectively.
Sports activities lab
Decathlon’s sweating model is positioned in a chilly chamber to evaluate the effectiveness of chilly climate gear
(Picture credit score: Future)
Decathlon’s Sports activities lab covers 900 sq. meters and its workers embody PhDs in biomechanics and sports activities physiology. It has its personal sweating model, which it makes use of to check the efficiency of materials in its sizzling, chilly and windy environmental chambers.
Once we visited the lab it was testing gloves for Decathlon’s Wedze ski clothes model, utilizing a thermal hand model to see how nicely they protected the person’s extremities from chilly. It’s analysis that’s simply as related to winter cycle clothes.
There’s one more a part of the Sports activities lab which makes a speciality of digital human modeling, performing 4D digital scans of person place and clothes throughout a spread of sports activities, together with biking. Its analysis is used to reply questions comparable to what number of sizes a motorcycle must be supplied in to accommodate the complete vary of rider heights.
The lab has used strain sensors to determine the optimum steadiness of stiffness and weight for biking sneakers, permitting Decathlon to cut back the burden of its sneakers by round 30 p.c whereas conserving them stiff sufficient for optimum effectivity.
In addition to growing Decathlon’s merchandise, the Sports activities lab acts as a middle of excellence in help of French Olympic athletes. It’s additionally scanned a few of the Decathlon-AG2R professional biking workforce to assist tailor its merchandise for his or her particular person wants.
Additive manufacturing
The body adapters used within the RCR Professional meeting line have been 3D printed in home
(Picture credit score: Future)
Decathlon has invested closely in additive manufacturing – or 3D printing – in each plastic and steel. It’s used closely for prototyping new merchandise, with 2,300 3D printed objects produced monthly throughout its product growth portfolio.
It additionally produces round 20,000 components monthly for manufacturing use and even a few of the instruments utilized in Decathlon’s factories. The adapters used to mount the RCR Professional bike body on its 5 meeting strains have been 3D printed in-house. It’s 3D printed prototype aluminum bike frames and can 3D print customized merchandise comparable to bike saddles.
However Decathlon can be utilizing 3D printing to cut back stock. Whereas up to now, extra inventory of some components is perhaps manufactured and saved in case clients wanted a substitute, 3D printing permits it to provide substitute components on demand.
It’s nonetheless dearer than producing an element in a regular manufacturing run, however there’s no storage price. Some plastic components can degrade over time in storage too, which isn’t a difficulty if a spare half is 3D printed to order. It’s permitting Decathlon to cut back waste and its environmental influence.
Power in scale
The variety of sports activities and quantity of merchandise offered permits Decathlon to keep up world-class R&D services whereas conserving its costs low
(Picture credit score: Future)
It’s been stated earlier than that Decathlon’s capability to hit low costs is enabled by its ‘energy in scale’, however these three easy phrases are onerous to understand till you’ve seen a ski glove rigorously examined below the identical roof as a brand new commonplace in portability for badminton, all whereas carbon seatposts are flexed to their limits. Don’t assume that Decathlon has minimize corners to achieve its low costs, it’s simply, nicely – larger.
