How can a manufacturer or distributor use AI?
Start in the office, not on the floor: quotes and estimates, product data and spec sheets, orders that arrive as emails and PDFs, and the prep before a sales call. Those jobs eat hours every day, follow rules someone could write down, and hurt nobody when a draft needs a fix. Keep AI out of safety decisions on the floor. The full answer walks through each one.
What did you build at Quartz Importers?
An AI agent platform and a knowledge graph for a quartz surfaces supplier's sales team. The graph connects companies, people, projects, and permits, so a rep can see who is building what and who to call before a competitor does. The platform took in the whole market in about 30 days. I am the company's fractional CTO and handle all of the technology except field sales. The case study has the details.
Do we need a CTO, an IT company, or both?
An IT company keeps the computers, email, and network running. A CTO decides what to build or buy, which vendors to trust, and how the data fits together. Most companies under a few hundred people need the second for a while, not forever. A fractional CTO seat is $3,500, $6,500, or $11,000 a month, with a three-month minimum and a two-year maximum.
Can you modernize an old B2B ordering site?
Yes. For Ecolab I redesigned an old, tired B2B e-commerce site on a new design kit made by Fjord. B2B buyers reorder the same things, buy on contract prices, and need the spec sheet and the safety data next to the order button, so the work starts with how they buy, not with the look. Redesigning an outdated B2B site covers the order to do it in.
How do we relaunch a product without losing the old one's customers?
Keep the old version's pages and documents live for the people who own it, give the new version a name buyers can tell apart, and point each audience to the right page. For Marvin I did the UX for the relaunch of a flagship window, where double hung is such a standard that a new version can easily look like the old one, and the existing URLs and documentation still had to work. Relaunching without breaking the old pages walks through it.
Why does product data matter so much?
Every AI tool you buy reads your product data first. If the same part has three names across the catalog, the price sheet, and the ERP, the tool will be wrong three ways. Cleaning the categories and naming one source of truth comes before any software. Getting it out of spreadsheets covers how.
What does it cost to start?
The 90-minute session on the AI inside the tools you already pay for is $450. A half-day workshop with your team is $1,500, and a full day is $3,500. Builds are quoted at a fixed scope or $150 an hour. Anything over $3,000 can be paid by the month, no interest.
