Scout Boats expands product development capabilities with new facility

Scout Boats, Inc. is building a new dedicated 21,000 sq. ft. product development & engineering building (PD&E) on its manufacturing headquarters campus in Summerville, SC. The new $3 million facility is set to be completed in Spring of 2022.

Of the 21,000 sq. ft. two-story building, 4,000 sq. ft. will be dedicated to Scout’s Research & Development (R&D) offices. The building will also house two new 5-axis routers for cutting new tooling and further advancement of the company’s design processes. Fifteen new jobs will also be created by this expansion.

“Our new dedicated PD&E building will allow us to house our research and development as well as our lead engineering teams under one roof here on campus,” said Scout CEO Steve Potts in a press release. “This is an important move for us because it combines all of our product development teams and incredible minds in one place, allowing them to work together and perform more efficiently so we can continue to develop new and exciting products for our customers.”

Scout currently houses their R&D facility onsite in one of their four production buildings, Plant B, and once it’s moved to the new PD&E building this space will be allocated to additional Light Resin Transfer Molding (Light RTM) space for composite parts. Process engineering offices will remain inside of the four Scout plants respectively.

“I’ve always wanted to keep our processes in-house as much as possible so we could control our outcomes and product consistency, and this is the next evolution of our continued growth here at the plant,” added Potts.

The company is currently hiring for 55 open positions and projecting the need for an additional 100-plus employees within the next year.