An all-around strategy to retain leadership
Alto Shaam
Vector range redesign & IoT Platform
Founded in 1955, Alto-Shaam provides foodservice equipment solutions made in the USA to more than 90 countries globally. Alto Shaam has been recognized by industry leaders and customers year after year for quality, design and innovation in the foodservice industry.
Task
Alto Shaam wanted to retain their leading position in the foodservice equipment. To do so they needed to define a new strategy and the first step to start the ambitious project was to redesign their Vector Multi-Cook Ovens.
They chose Studio Volpi as a strategic partner to join their made in the US quality with our strong experience in supporting international companies in their path towards innovation. During the project we built a very close cooperation with Alto Shaam.
As part of the project, we defined with Alto Shaam an ambitious task: to develop an IoT platform to empower their clients and allow the remote management of the ovens. develop an IoT platofrom to empower their clients and allow the remote management of the oven
Challenge
Overall the main challenge reseded in how to seamlessly integrate the new design and the new digital solution with the existing assets of the brand.
Alto Shaam required that the redesign of the range of ovens didn’t affect their production line.
Our design team relied on the experience of our engineers to develop a solution that adapted to Alto Shaam’s production line.
The particular nature of project also required a wide range of activities that spanned from the redesign of a range of professional ovens, to the definition of UI elements and of an UX that required few clicks to help users save time, and the development of an IoT system. Hence the involvement of a consistent number of players - our team, Alto Shaam team, our partner at DAOS, and the team at Kalpa, the company that supported the development of the front end of the IoT platform - had to work hand in hand on multiple tasks.
Concerning the IoT platform, we were required to provide Alto Shaam with a turn-key solution that would allow and easily accomodate further developments in the future.
Solution
The redesign of the Vector Multi-Cook Ovens
Vector Multi-Cook Ovens allow simultaneous, high-quality preparation of a wide variety of food thanks to the Structured Air Technology®. This innovation offers up to four ovens in one – each chamber with independent temperature, fan speed and cook time control.
To define a strategic and effective redesign of the family of products, we underwent an analysis that included a reasearch on the field: our designers met chefs that use daily Alto Shaam’s ovens and therefore provided extremely useful insights.
As a result, we redesigned the Visual Language to make Alto Shaam ovens unique and highly recognizable. We renewed the iconic curved handle and turned it into a contemporary element.
We developed a new Visual Language that incarnates the brand values and starts a new, innovative and unique path that is still ongoing. The Visual Language is now applied to all of Alto Shaams ovens and products.
A new language for the UX & UI
In the process of definition of the Visual Language, we also worked on the User Experience and the User Interface. Our goal was to provide users with an unique and seamless experience on all of Alto Shaam ovens, even from different ranges and product families. To do so, we created interfaces that are the same on every product and that offer specific modalities, according to the needs of the user.
After an analysis of existing interfaces and a series of researches on the field when we met chefs that use everyday Alto Shaam ovens, we created a compendium of functionalities that we used to redesign the User Interface.
The UI, that reflects all branding elements, is declined, thanks to the styleguide we developed, on every range of Alto Shaam ovens to provide users with a seamless experience and a familiar feeling even when using different products and to mark Alto Shaam unique identity.
A multiplayer synergy for the implementation of the UI
DAOS Group, supported the activity, embedding the UI in the product. In particular the team worked hand in hand with the team at Alto Shaam. Thanks to their experience in developing the core functionalities of the ovens, the team at Alto Shaam focused on them, while DAOS team embedded the UI elements we developed at Studio Volpi.
Thanks to their knowledge and experience in hardwares development, DAOS defined a strategic proposal that deeply considered the analysis of the client and their necessities.
The solution consisted in creating two components of the software - one dedicated to oven functionalities and another related to UI and aesthetics - that communicate through a single touchpoint.
It enabled the two teams to work simultaneously on the two different aspects of the project, without interfere to each other.
ChefLinc platform: a custom-made turn key solution
In the context of the project with Alto Shaam, it was defined the need to create an IoT system to remotely manage ovens and empower the brand clients. Alto Shaam required an infrastructure that collected all the existing components and products but that also allowed an easy addiction of further services.
We provided Alto Shaam with a custom-made turn key solution, a webapp later named ChefLinc, built through modules and highly scalable in order to accomodate the strategic needs of the brand.
We defined the specifications of the platform and designed the User Experience. We internally designed the front end to ensure the homogeneity of the visual language of the new visual identity of Alto Shaam. The back end of the system was developed by our partner Daos and the front end was created by Kalpa
The platform is an infrastructure that is accessible from all around the world and that grows with the brand. A web app was chosen because proved to be the best solution to provide excellent performance and allow constant updates.
The possibility to rely on a modular structure easy to update was crucial due to the continuous development of specifications and the challenging timeline required by the agile methodology.
The completely custom made structure of the IoT platform provided Alto Shaam with a limitless solution to empower their clients with data-driven insights.
An all-around partnership to fully support Alto Shaam:
As a strategic partner, we also supported Alto Shaam in the production of marketing and communication materials, such as product videos of the new range of ovens that presented the new visual language of the brand.
During our collaboration, the creation of renders and videos not only covered the new range of Vector Ovens, but we also supported Alto Shaam marketing team with the creation of multimedia content for other products.
