While we love the excitement and positive feedback, we couldn’t have done it without the entire EVO team – which includes our industry partners and outside vendors. Working together for almost a year, they’re the ones who made the vision a reality for EVO Systems founder and president Bob Hornung.
How it started . . . Create a PPE standard for the fenestration industry
PPE, or personal protection equipment, is one of those products that window and door manufacturers need and order repeatedly. However, while everyone knows what it is – “We need more gloves for the glass cutters, stat!” – a lot of confusion exists on which items are best for the industry.
For example, does a common PVC-coated cotton glove that lasts four hours suffice for glass cutting? Or, should a company spend more for one that’s been ANSI rated, repels hot melt butyl, and lasts 32 to 40 hours.
“You also have small and medium-sized plants that don’t have a full-time safety manager,” says Caleb Ladizki, EVO Vice President of Business Development. “Buyers purchase PPE based on what a salesperson recommends – or trial-and-error, or habit.”
To solve this challenge, The EVO team initially set out to create a PPE standard. They spent months visiting customers across a wide spectrum of the fenestration industry, which included window and door manufacturers using vinyl, aluminum, and wood, along with commercial IG manufacturers.
They researched products, read standards, and talked to owners, management, safety, supply chain and most important, workers on the production floor, on what worked best – and what didn’t.
This research spawned new ideas, including the development and commercialization of new products, such as the Paradox Glove.
The team’s initial goal was to create a curated product catalog with a few dozen SKUs that were purposefully chosen to reduce the risks associated with handling glass, vinyl, and aluminum; water-based paints; sealants and adhesives; and cutting oils.
“We wanted to remove the confusion and time involved sorting through thousands of SKUs,” said Ladizki. “We wanted to make finding and ordering PPE a consistent, standardized process.”
While this research was taking place, Hornung had an idea brewing. He believed EVO Systems could leverage an online digital platform where EVO Cloud 9 customers could easily order PPE along with their window parts – and even better, order PPE based on the machine and work process.
Having a visual representation of a window factory would eliminate all guess work for customers.
Creating the Evoverse factory
According to Hornung, it took a good year to create the Evoverse. The EVO team had to map out the backend (software coding and development, connecting with Cloud 9, etc.) and the front-end – the part everyone sees – and how both would tie together seamlessly.
They also had to create the animated factory. To create the machine animations, the team sought out partners in the industry who provided CAD drawings of the equipment found in a window or door plant.
The biggest challenge was creating the digital, animated environment that replicates a real-life OEM. The team had to vet and then choose an agency to create the animations, plus oversee months of back and forth reviews and revisions.
“We also had to teach them the capabilities and limitations of what an e-comm company can do in a virtual environment,” said Hornung.
Others on the team created an in-house photo studio to photograph all the PPE, while others wrote up the Good, Better, Best recommendations and designed datasheets and a product catalog.
Most important, everything had to tie together and then connect with Cloud 9 and its Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) high-speed platform.
The result: the Evoverse, a virtual environment where people can learn about PPE, request samples, or purchase product seamlessly and with zero friction.
Phase II – Building out the animated factory
The EVO team is still fixing minor bugs post-launch, so Evoverse Phase II is still on the drawing board. However, Hornung says, the next phase will introduce more equipment on the production line to accommodate luxury window hardware brands.
“Our goal,” says Hornung, “is to help promote, educate, and market these products to our manufacturers. They’ll be able to see the products and how they’re installed.” According to Hornung, incorporating luxury hardware into higher-end windows involves different punch tooling, etc.
Another goal is to attract the youth in the industry with a digital platform they find easy to use – whether on their mobile devices or a shopfloor computer.
Sums up Hornung, “The entire EVO team did a fantastic job with building the Evoverse. All of us are grateful and humbled by the response. We’re also thrilled that we’ve made mundane PPE something to be valued, exciting, and yes, maybe even a little sexy.”
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