A major innovation, or in Mark Pennington's words, a "tooling triumph", was the lumbar tool. Engineers in the US said a tool could not be made to meet Formway's specifications for the lumbar. In true Kiwi style, the Formway team, led by Ian Footit, rose to this challenge and worked with Wanganui's Axiam, to develop a complex curved core tool that would do the trick. Formway