From Hundreds of Silencers to One Configurator: Inside ETS NORD's SILENCERiQ

Ventilation systems live or die on noise control, and getting it right used to mean wading through hundreds of product variations by hand. We spoke with Margus Napp, ETS NORD's product manager, about how his team built the silencer configurator now known as SILENCERiQ, a tool that handles selection, pricing, and production for a product line too complex to manage manually.

ETS NORD specializes in developing and manufacturing ventilation equipment, and its customer base splits in a way that shapes everything about how the product has to be sold. "Our main clientele consists of designers and installers," Napp explains. "Designers select the products they need for their projects, but it's typically construction companies that make the purchases." Layered on top of that is a product range split between standard items and a much larger customizable catalog, and it's the customizable side that causes the real friction. "In larger projects, we're talking about potentially hundreds of these products being involved," Napp says. Navigating that many choices and running the price calculations by hand ate up a serious share of the sales department's time, which is what pushed ETS NORD to start asking how to simplify the ordering process in the first place.

Where the idea came from

The answer wasn't invented from scratch, it grew out of work ETS NORD was already doing. "As a company, we've been placing a strong emphasis on digitalizing our processes for some time now," Napp says. "We already have several product selection programs, or iQs, in place." What was missing was the same kind of tool for the noise suppressor line, so ETS NORD brought in Wabric to build it. "Recognizing the need for a similar tool for our noise suppressor product line to expedite the selection process, we reached out to Wabric," Napp says. "That's when we partnered with Wabric to develop SILENCERiQ, a tool built specifically to answer the question of how to simplify the ordering process for silencers."

Three audiences, one application

The brief Wabric received wasn't just "build a configurator." It had to work for three different people with three different jobs. "From Wabric, we wanted a web application that would cater to the needs of various stakeholders," Napp says. "It had to satisfy the sales department, installers, and designers alike." Getting that right meant mapping how each of them would actually use it before writing a line of code. "When developing such an application, it's crucial to carefully consider the entire customer journey, how different parties would utilize the application to streamline their tasks," Napp says.

For sales, that meant preparing quotes and generating technical printouts fast enough to keep orders moving into production. For installers, it meant running noise control calculations for ventilation systems and picking suitable noise suppressors without guesswork. For designers, it meant being able to choose the right noise suppressor quickly, without the selection process becoming a project of its own.

Building it in stages

Napp is candid that a configurator like this doesn't get built in one pass. "Configurator development is a lengthy process, and in the initial stages of the project, not all challenges can be anticipated," he says. "Therefore, we divided the development into stages." The team started small: a web-based configurator for the simpler, rounded noise suppressors first, then extended it to the more complex configurable square-shaped units, where far more choices had to be accounted for.

What came out the other end was a configurator that starts with the physical reality of the room, not the product. A user enters room volume, room absorption, decibels, and noise source, and SILENCERiQ returns the noise suppressor types that fit, with further narrowing by material, dimensions, or connections available from there.

Getting the data to actually move

Building the calculator was only half the job. "Simply having the application isn't enough, it's crucial to have data exchange between different software," Napp says. That's what drove the integration with MagiCAD: a plugin built into both AutoCAD and Revit that lets a designer pull up the SILENCERiQ web configurator without leaving their design software and select the right noise attenuator from inside the project they're already working on.

A second integration closed the loop on the commercial side, connecting SILENCERiQ to ETS NORD's own webshop through an API. Selected noise attenuators flow straight into the online store, where pricing is calculated and orders can be placed directly, no re-entry required.

What changed once it shipped

Ask Napp what actually improved, and the answer is speed born from not re-typing the same information twice. "Previously, we had to configure the attenuator in one software and then manually input the information into another software," he says. "Such manual work can lead to errors." With everything integrated, that risk mostly disappears. "Now that the software is integrated, the product can be configured in the same place, data can be automatically transmitted for price calculation, and then the product can be directed straight to production."

The scope has grown since the first version shipped, too. "Today, the SILENCERiQ configurator is capable of calculating an entire project quote for the customer based on product information," Napp says. In his own summary of what the tool actually did for ETS NORD: "The configurator has fundamentally changed how we simplify the ordering process, making it faster, more accurate, and more user-friendly."

The full breakdown of how this fits into ETS NORD's broader product data and ERP integration is in the SilencerIQ case study.