Empire Welding & Machining
Manufacturing
Bringing AI into a forty-year-old fabrication shop, and the website to match
Empire has built agricultural, construction, and oil field equipment in North Battleford since 1986. Their CEO came to us to work out what AI could honestly do for a manufacturer, not a software company. We spent the time to answer that properly, trained the leadership and the people on the floor on the tools we use ourselves, and delivered the new website and an AI-integrated workflow now running in the business.
www.ewam.ca1986
The year Empire started, so the workflow had four decades of habit in it
2
Levels trained: the leadership team and the people doing the work
3
Sectors the new site sells into: agriculture, construction, and oil field
Live
The new website and the AI workflow, both running in the business
The challenge
Almost everything written about AI is written for software companies, and Empire is not one. They are a welding and machining business that has been making equipment for agriculture, construction, and the oil field since 1986, and the people who run it are excellent at that rather than at evaluating technology vendors. That leaves a manufacturer with two bad options and no good one: buy something expensive that does not fit how the shop actually works, or wait, and watch competitors get faster at quoting, drawing, and reaching customers. Their web presence had the same problem in a different form. The equipment coming out of that shop is better than the website that was representing it.
What we did
It started with the CEO and went back and forth over several sessions, which is the right pace for this: we would rather talk a client out of three AI ideas and into one good one than sell all four. Where a tool would not survive contact with a fabrication shop, we said so. What survived that filter we then taught, at two levels and deliberately not one. The leadership team needed enough understanding to make and defend decisions after we left, and the people doing the work needed the tools in their hands, because software nobody on the floor uses is an expense, not an investment. Throughout we demonstrated rather than described: showing the work on their material, in their context, so the room was judging something real. The new website was built alongside that, presenting four decades of product properly across the three sectors Empire sells into, and the AI work was integrated into the way the organisation already runs rather than bolted alongside it.
The result
The advanced website is live at ewam.ca, carrying the product range across agriculture, construction, and oil field, and the AI-integrated workflow is running inside the organisation. The part we are most pleased with is the part that does not show: management can now judge the next AI proposal that lands on their desk without calling us, and the people on the floor are using the tools rather than working around them. That is what makes it stick after the engagement ends.
Every piece of it, stage by stage.
- 01
The first conversations
Empire's CEO reached out, and we met back and forth rather than pitching once. Several sessions working through what AI is genuinely doing for businesses like theirs, and what it is not, before anyone proposed anything.
- 02
Where AI earns its place
Separating what would hold up in a fabrication shop from what only works in a demo. The honest answer to a manufacturer is shorter than the sales answer, and it is the one worth acting on.
- 03
Leadership sessions
Training the upper management, aimed at judgement rather than buttons: enough understanding of what these systems do and where they fail to make decisions confidently after we are gone.
- 04
Team training
The same work with the people who would actually be using it, on the tools and techniques we use ourselves. A tool the floor does not adopt is an expense, so this stage decided whether any of it mattered.
- 05
Demonstration on their own work
Showing the tools running against Empire's material and Empire's situations rather than a generic example. A room judges something real very differently from something described.
- 06
Website design
A site built to match the quality of the equipment: the product range legible across agriculture, construction, and oil field, and a company with four decades behind it presented like one.
- 07
Website build and launch
Building and shipping it, with the product catalogue, the careers and contact routes, and the technical groundwork underneath, then putting it live at ewam.ca.
- 08
AI integrated into the workflow
Putting the surviving tools into how the organisation already works rather than beside it. Integration is where these projects usually fail, and it is the reason this stage was ours rather than left with the client.
- 09
Handover
Finishing with a team that can run it: the trained people, the working system, and the decisions documented, so the capability stays in the building.
Scope of the engagement
- AI advisory
- Executive sessions
- Employee training
- Tooling and demonstrations
- Website design
- Website build
- Workflow integration
- Handover
Wherever you’re starting from, let’s figure out the next step.
Tell us what you’re building. We’ll tell you honestly whether we’re the right team for it.