Joining Thermaline as their first-ever technical hire, I stepped into a company with decades of history but untapped digital potential. Little did I know that the systems I would create would fundamentally reshape how the business operated.

How to hand power to your customers

I designed a custom CMS that brought together complex technical tools with rich product content, creating a seamless user experience. This system integrated interactive 360-degree views of sample equipment, dynamic configurators, and detailed product information— all feeding directly into our internal quoting tool. QuickQuote then generated precise technical specifications and automated CAD drawings, streamlining the path from exploration to engineering.

Engineering and design, on-demand

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Perhaps the most visible impact came from developing our engineer-to-order e-commerce systems - the first of their kind in our industry. Rather than simply digitizing existing processes, we created something entirely new that opened additional revenue streams.

Automated technical drawings, pre-engineered units with minimal assembly needed, and simple yet industry-specialized tools drove these improvements.

All this user activity presented as an engaging e-commerce experience and fed directly into Bigfoot.

Bigfoot

A comprehensive internal platform

Bigfoot wasn't just another software project; it was a complete reimagining of workflows that had been established for decades in a respected manufacturing organization.

Bigfoot combined manufacturing resource planning, sales tracking, custom engineering software, work-floor task management, job tracking, and automated technical drawings.

Bigfoot drove lean practices and streamlined processes across all of Thermaline.

The results spoke for themselves: order-to-ship times dropped by 80% and profitability multiplied. The effects were massive; The roles of our engineers shifted to R&D, enabling new product lines, and our increases in reliability and profitability reached all of our employees through profit-sharing and high morale.

Engineering the Future

Beyond the business systems, I found particular satisfaction in creating specialized engineering and quoting tools. Developing technical drawing generators and fluid dynamics engines might sound dry on paper, but they became the invisible foundation for R&D breakthroughs and new product development.

These tools translated complex engineering concepts into practical applications that could then be handed to our distributors, multiplying the power of our engineering team at no cost.