Making it Work: EviView targets €1m funding to further expand shift handover solutions firm

The Cork-based company has sold its analytics software to some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies and believes it can cut out inefficiencies on the factory floor

Karol Dabrowski, chief executive at EviView: The company provides a ‘one-stop solution’ called e-ConnX to firms in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries with the goal of helping them improve their factory production processes. Picture: John Allen

In a business world increasingly obsessed with minimising inefficiencies, it’s surprising that so many manufacturing companies still use rudimentary tools such as whiteboards to record information during shift handovers on process lines.

EviView, a Cork-based technology firm founded in 2015, believes it can help cut out this information shortfall with an analytics platform that can store key metrics and statistics all in one location.

The company provides a “one-stop solution” called e-ConnX to firms in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries with the goal of helping them improve their factory production processes.

It counts some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies among its clients, including some which rank in the top 10 in the world by revenue, and is now planning a €1 million funding round by the end of the year to fund further global growth.

It has also recently established a new business entity in India as part of a plan to expand its operations in Asia, and is planning an increased focus on the English and German-speaking markets.

The company’s premise is simple – making sure data doesn’t get lost in the gap between one shift and the next – but EviView says its biggest competitor is still Excel spreadsheets which are “just not fit for purpose”.

“So many companies are working with the wrong tools,” Karl Nolan, the company’s vice-president of business development, said of a typical shift changeover process in many manufacturing firms.

“In many cases, they’re working with Microsoft Word or they’re jotting stuff up on whiteboards which then gets wiped down. This presents a risk of shift information loss.”

Given that even an hour of downtime can cost a company thousands, EviView, which is backed by Enterprise Ireland and currently employs 25 people, believes it can become a global leader in one of the world’s most lucrative industries.

e-ConnX, an all-in-one platform which can be used on desktop, tablet and mobile, measures end-of-shift efficiencies against the performance of the process in the middle of a shift, and then provides this information to both incoming staff and managers.

“Middle management at factory sites want to be able to pick up their phone and log into the dashboard, and keep clicking through the analytics to see what went wrong, to what degree it went wrong and whether it’s been handled,” Nolan said. “What we do is safeguard all of that information and metrics.”

The business was largely unaffected by Covid-19 given that many companies continued to operate throughout the pandemic, but believes increased awareness of the importance of digitalisation is working to its benefit.

“All these pharmaceutical companies are going through digital journeys, where they’re trying to eradicate pen, paper and whiteboards,” Nolan said. “And a key part of that is how they handle their shift handover.”

Karol Dabrowski, the company’s chief executive, said EviView wants to be the “number one partner of choice” for managing shift handover analytics. “Over the next four or five years, we’ll significantly grow our team in order to continue to offer world-class enterprise solutions,” he said.