An industrial revolution in the making

An industrial revolution in the making

A smartphone replaces a 25,000-euro machine — and makes the factory smarter in the process.

A smartphone replaces a 25,000-euro machine — and makes the factory smarter in the process.

The glass fragmentation test is an industry standard that determines whether a batch of tempered glass meets safety requirements. The process was entirely manual: a worker breaks a test sheet, counts or weighs the fragments, scribbles results on a sticker, photographs it, and files it away. Every two to three hours. Every time glass thickness changes on the line. Glaston came to us in 2019 with a proof-of-concept that used a smartphone camera to automate this test. We took that idea from demo to shipped product — twice. The result, Siru, is a free app for iOS and Android that uses computer vision and AI to run the fragmentation test in seconds, log results digitally, and sync them to the cloud. In two phases across 2019 and 2020, we designed and launched versions of Siru that address both the European and American glass safety standards. What had been a slow, subjective, paper-based process became fast, precise, and traceable — without adding a single step to the production line.

Year

2020

Industry

Manufacturing

Scope of work

/

UX & Product Design

Timeline

2019 – 2020

A smartphone replaces a 25,000-euro machine — and makes the factory smarter in the process.

The glass fragmentation test is an industry standard that determines whether a batch of tempered glass meets safety requirements. The process was entirely manual: a worker breaks a test sheet, counts or weighs the fragments, scribbles results on a sticker, photographs it, and files it away. Every two to three hours. Every time glass thickness changes on the line. Glaston came to us in 2019 with a proof-of-concept that used a smartphone camera to automate this test. We took that idea from demo to shipped product — twice. The result, Siru, is a free app for iOS and Android that uses computer vision and AI to run the fragmentation test in seconds, log results digitally, and sync them to the cloud. In two phases across 2019 and 2020, we designed and launched versions of Siru that address both the European and American glass safety standards. What had been a slow, subjective, paper-based process became fast, precise, and traceable — without adding a single step to the production line.

Year

2020

Industry

Manufacturing

Scope of work

/

UX & Product Design

Timeline

2019 – 2020

Designing for the production floor

The app had to work in a factory that runs 24/7. Once a batch of glass is fractured, the test window is three to five minutes before secondary cracks form. There was no room for tutorials, onboarding flows, or extra taps. Siru launches directly into camera mode with real-time AR markers guiding the user to position the phone correctly — every time, without instruction. We visited the Glaston-Rakla factory to observe the process and interview the workers who would actually use the app. Their pain points were clear: counting tiny fragments by hand is tedious and subjective, manual notation on stickers wastes time, and the data disappears into folders nobody reads. The design addressed each of these directly. Glass thickness, order number, and notes are entered in the app. Results sync to Glaston Cloud within seconds. When factory connectivity fails, the phone's GPU handles processing locally. For Phase 2, Glaston and we reconvened to support the American standard — a different method that requires weighing the largest fragments rather than counting them. This meant redesigning the core user flow from scratch. We brought a more immersive interface, dark mode, and a refined experience that built on everything we'd learned from the first version.

"A customer said they've been trying to achieve something similar for the last 5 years without success. They were concerned to buy a 25k€ measurement device but now they have the same thing for free." — Ville Patola, Data analytics lead at Glaston

Results that speak for themselves

Siru launched at Glass Performance Days 2019 to immediate international interest — including positive feedback from PhD researchers and existing Glaston customers. That reception validated the concept and led directly to the Phase 2 collaboration. The numbers tell a straightforward story. A test that took 48 minutes of worker time per day now takes one. A measurement problem that competitors were selling 25,000-euro hardware to solve is handled by a free app. The app launched with 900 active users and was being used roughly 30 times per day from the start. The platform is built to grow. Integrations into broader manufacturing data systems are a logical next step, and the foundation we built — cloud sync, local fallback, structured data output — supports that evolution. Glaston and we continue the partnership forward from here.

48 → 1 minute saved per day per tester. 900 active users at launch. ~30 tests run daily. The European standard fragmentation count and the American fragment-weighing method are both supported.

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Let’s talk.

Have a project in mind, need expert insights, or simply want to explore how we can help you? Get in touch with us today.

Nordkapp

Have a project in mind?

By submitting, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.

© 2026 Nordkapp

Let’s talk.

Have a project in mind, need expert insights, or simply want to explore how we can help you? Get in touch with us today.