Our founders have spent decades living and breathing industrial engineering and automations. They had been speaking with manufacturers — machine operators, maintenance techs, engineers, plant managers, and executives — almost daily. The stories that they heard over they years were as unique as each company, each site, and even each workstation.
So we didn’t expect to hear the same frustration echo from plant to plant, across industries and geographies.
But by 2021, it became ever more clear that we had to change our assumptions: Whether we were speaking with the owner of a small precision shop or the operations manager of a regional food processor, one story was eerily consistent. Team after team struggled with the tradeoffs at the core of life in a small or medium manufacturer:
“We’re forced to choose between profit, uptime, and sustainability, and we don’t have the right tools to balance all three.”
The Problem No One Was Solving
Small and mid-sized manufacturers live in a world where many of the biggest cost levers are locked. Commodity prices fluctuate wildly. Customer prices are often dictated by contracts or market forces. That leaves production costs as one of the few areas they can try to control.
In theory, reducing energy waste should be one of the simplest, fastest wins. But in reality? Most teams are flying blind.
- Monthly energy bills only offer a backward-looking, site-wide total that tells you nothing about which machines or which production routes drove those costs.
- Occasional energy audits give a point-in-time snapshot, useful for a week, outdated by the next production change.
- Full-scale automation projects are often expensive, complex, and years away for many SMBs, putting their promise of real-time data far in the future.
The result
Manufacturers making major operational and capital decisions with a blurry picture of their actual energy use. Meanwhile, $195 billion in annual industrial energy costs in the U.S. alone are tied to processes that could be optimized….if only the insights were there.
Large global corporations can justify building custom systems and hiring data science teams. But what about the smaller, leaner companies that are every bit as skilled in their craft? They deserve the same visibility without the corporate price tag.
The Breakthrough: Route-Level Energy Monitoring
The more conversations we had, the clearer it became: this was not just a “nice-to-have.” It was an urgent, unaddressed pain point that cut directly into margins, delivery timelines, and environmental impact.
The missing piece? Granular visibility – not just by machine, but by route.
A production route is the specific sequence of machines and processes used to complete a job. Energy use can vary dramatically between routes, even for similar products. Without route-level monitoring, you might know your total daily energy cost, but not that Route A costs 20% more in energy than Route B for the same output.
This is where most manufacturers lose opportunities to cut costs, improve margins, and make greener choices without sacrificing throughput.
Our “Easy Button” Moment
We brought together industrial automation experts with decades of plant-level experience. Our challenge to ourselves was simple to say, harder to deliver:
“Create the easy button for energy insights, at both machine and route level.”
That meant building a platform that was:
- Simple, so your team could use it without IT overhauls or data scientists.
- Reliable, so you could trust the data on day one.
- Powerful, delivering actionable insights down to the exact production route.
- Fast to value, so you’d see measurable impact in weeks, not years.
We called it Watt Window®: a clear view into your factory’s energy use, route by route, machine by machine.
How It Works: Insights without Breaking Your Workflow
Unlike many systems that demand new sensors, re-wiring, or full automation upgrades, Watt Window is designed to work with your existing infrastructure. Our technology integrates with incumbent equipment, pulling detailed energy cost and performance data at both the machine and route level.
The result? High-resolution energy cost insights that tell you:
- Which machines are energy hogs.
- Which production routes are most cost-efficient.
- Where idle time is eating into your margins.
And because we know factory teams are busy, we designed the interface so you can spot route inefficiencies at a glance, without diving into endless reports.
Customer-Centric Insights: Where to Start
Over the past few years, we’ve seen manufacturers uncover unexpected savings by leveraging route-level data. Here are some of the most effective starting points we recommend:
- Compare Routes for the Same Product
If you make the same part using different production paths, measure and compare energy use. Often, one route delivers identical quality at lower cost, knowledge that can directly boost your margins. - Spot “Energy Hog” Routes
Just as some machines consume disproportionate energy, some routes consistently drive higher energy costs. By identifying these, you can reassign jobs, tweak scheduling, or investigate root causes. - Pair Energy Data with Output Quality
Sometimes the lowest-energy route isn’t worth it if quality drops. But with data in hand, you can make informed trade-offs and fine-tune processes. - Optimize for Both Cost and Carbon
Route-level data lets you calculate the carbon footprint per job, enabling sustainability improvements alongside cost savings.
Use Data to Train and Empower Operators
When operators understand the energy impact of route selection, they can make smarter, faster decisions in real time.
The Real Payoff: Control and Confidence
Energy efficiency isn’t just about trimming your utility bill. It’s about having the power to choose: the route that balances uptime, profit, and sustainability without guesswork.
When you can see, in real time, exactly how much each route costs in energy, you’re no longer reacting weeks later. You’re making strategic, data-backed choices in the moment, and proving the ROI of those decisions with hard numbers.
And because Watt Window was built for small and mid-sized manufacturers, you get all of this without the complexity, cost, and bloat that often sink larger systems.
Looking Ahead
We started Watt Window because we believed small and mid-sized manufacturers deserved better. They deserve tools that match their skill, dedication, and ambition, tools that make it possible to compete on equal footing with industry giants.
Since launching, we’ve been privileged to see customers reduce waste, improve margins, and hit sustainability milestones they once thought were out of reach. And we’re just getting started.
If you’ve been relying on monthly bills or outdated audits to guide your energy strategy, it’s time to see your operations in full detail, route by route, machine by machine.
Your machines and your routes have a story to tell. Watt Window makes sure you hear it, and act on it.