Sharrow Engineering is collaborating with Ford Motor Company’s Advanced Industrial Technology & Platforms team to scale production of the patented Sharrow Propeller. Through using advanced 3D sand-casting techniques, Sharrow can reduce production timelines from 130 days to two weeks, while maintaining the precision required for the patented designs.
Michigan Central, a Detroit hub for mobility innovation that brings together startups, industry leaders and other partners, helped facilitate the collaboration. “Michigan Central was built to bring together the people, infrastructure, and expertise needed to help companies move from breakthrough ideas to real-world scale. Sharrow is exactly the kind of company we’re here to support — an innovator with proven technology and growing demand,” says Carolina Pluszczynski, acting CEO of Michigan Central. “It is incredible to see how Sharrow has scaled since joining our ecosystem. They have leveraged the prototyping labs here, found talent to grow their team, and expanded their footprint. And now, by connecting them with the Ford advanced manufacturing team, Sharrow has drastically accelerated its production processes, turning innovation into tangible impact.”
The Sharrow Propeller launched in 2020, quickly growing in demand due to its improvements in efficiency, noise reduction and performance. The breakthrough design has attracted interest beyond marine propulsion, with potential applications across mobility, defense and energy systems. As a result, demand for the technology has expanded and scaling production to meet global interest has become Sharrow’s primary focus.
“Since we introduced the Sharrow Propeller, the market response has been extraordinary, but scaling production has been our biggest challenge, particularly getting high-quality castings fast enough to meet demand,” explains Greg Sharrow, founder and CEO of Sharrow Engineering and Sharrow Marine. “That’s one of the reasons we came to Detroit — to tap into a level of manufacturing capability and ecosystem we couldn’t find anywhere else, including the network at Michigan Central. This collaboration with Ford Motor Company has solved that problem for us in a big way. What used to take an entire boating season to produce can now be made in just a few weeks. That’s game-changing. It’s a powerful example of what can happen when companies like Ford help bring breakthrough technologies to industrial scale.”
To learn more, visit sharrowmarine.com.
PHOTO: SHARROW MARINE FACEBOOK
