Tuttnauer

Tuttnauer is a company that has been designing and building sterilization and infection control products for over 80 years. Supplying a range of top-quality autoclaves, steam sterilizers, washers and disinfectors to over 100 countries, Tuttnauer has earned global recognition as a leader in sterilization and infection control.

The Challenge

Tuttnauer's website had been built using a priority Content Management System (CMS). The CMS allowed easy editing and updating of content, but had other assorted problems, not the least of which was that it was not SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly. This resulted in poor ratings in search engines for Tuttnauer which translated directly into sales opportunities lost to competitors. On the advise of Tuttnauer's SEO consultant, a decision was made to rebuild the website with an SEO friendly CMS. Meetings were held, research was done, and a number of decisions were reached.

If Tuttnauer was going to rebuild the website and work with a new web developer, it was decided to use an open source CMS so that Tuttnauer would no longer suffer from “vendor lock in”. Since Tuttnauer liked the design elements of the present site and chose not to invest in a new graphic design it was also deemed necessary to use a CMS that that was flexible enough to allow incorporation of the present graphic elements without limiting changes and additions in the future. The new CMS still had to have ease of use for the Marcom people of the company allowing easy updates and changes. Most importantly, the rebuilt site had to jump Tuttnauer to the top of the ranking in Google.
The Approach Taken
At the end of the decision making process Tuttnauer and their advisors came to the conclusion that the appropriate CMS was Drupal. It had the desired combination of Open Source, SEO friendly design, flexibility, and ease of use. The next decision was choosing the appropriate web developer. Linnovate, a leading Drupal shop was the obvious choice. Combining knowledge, experience, and an impeccable reputation for integrity and quality, Linnovate stood out among its competitors because it recognized local Drupal talent within Tuttnauer's marketing team and offered to provide consulting services to guide the migration instead of a turn key project.
This approach was very appealing to Tuttnauer, and it set forth in building and training an in-house drupal team and building aggregated drupal knowledge within the organization. As noted above, the graphics and site layout were kept the same. To the untrained eye the site was the same, but to search engines there was a marked difference. Google ratings for the Tuttnauer site soared. When searching for autoclaves the site jumped to the top 10. The number of visits to the site grew accordingly. Within a month visitors grew in 25% distinct visitors a month.

Harvesting the benefits

Now that the new Drupal based site was deployed and the results were clear, it was time for Tuttnauer to utilize the Drupal infrastructure to do something creative and entirely new. Jake Miller. The Marketing Manager for Tuttnauer, had dreamed for years of a web based application that enabled potential clients to “design” their own autoclave. This application would highlight the range and diversity of the Tuttnauer products. He came to Linnovate and laid out his ideas. They were bold and innovative, something fresh for a conservative industry.

Together Linnovate and Tuttnauer planned the details, weighed the options, and came up with a number of design model.
After Jake approved the basic concept and the design model, Linnovate got down to the nuts and bolts. The project required the integration of a complex flex application communicating with the Drupal CMS using webservices. The task was not trivial, but Linnovate was up to it. Linnovate's development team, including in-house flash developers, were able to translate Jake's dream into an on line reality.
http://www.tuttnauerusa.com/build-tuttnauer-autoclave?sid=212

Another fascinating practice that is happening these days in tuttnauer is the abilty to use the in-house team to address business workflows which exist in tuttnauer.
The team is utilizing workflow engine frameworks which exist in the drupal ecosystem (rules) to address real world challenges of collaberation, integration and customer engaement that where not possible to integrate upon the custom proprietry cms.

Industry recognition

The advanced technology implemented let Tuttnauer initiate and take the lead within it's vertical, an analyst covering the Application wrote the next words in an assay about the “Build you Autoclave application”
My childhood memories are filled with many Do-It-Yourself adventures such as pick your strawberries, LEGO, building model cars, easy bake oven…which of course was my sisters. So it should be no surprise in adulthood I still get excited at DIY opportunities, especially when its building something as advanced, and not to mention shiny, as a scientific steam sterilizer. Now it’s not as if Tuttnauer allowed me on to their factory floors to weld the stainless together, install the generator and program the controller, but its pretty close with their new online “Build Your Own Autoclave” application.  I just finished building the John Buie custom model autoclave and this tool was very impressive, allowing me to choose every possible component of the autoclave, configuring it to my exact specifications and tiniest preferences. It would be exciting to see this trend of mass customization via online configuration tools continue to grow in the laboratory market as Dell had started in the PC market 13 years ago and Tuttnauer has now introduced to the autoclave, and laboratory market."