Inside Our Work With Milwaukee Tools: 3D Configurators and a 15ft Robot

Case studies rarely capture how varied a long running client relationship actually is, so this week we are looking back at our work with Milwaukee Tools, one where the deliverables have ranged from e-commerce infrastructure to a physical robot the size of a small building.

The core of the work is the Bolt-On 3D Web Configurator, a custom built API that lets Milwaukee's partner retailers embed interactive 3D models of tools directly on their own sites, with a direct add to cart option. Customers can rotate and inspect a product in 3D without ever leaving the retailer's page, which matters for conversion in a category where people want to see how a tool actually looks before buying.

Alongside that sits the Milwaukee Online Hub, an immersive 3D environment we built collaboratively with five partner agencies to showcase thousands of tools in a single browsable space. Coordinating a build like that across six agencies, each responsible for different parts of the catalogue and experience, is as much a project management exercise as a design one.

Then there is Packatron. Built from Milwaukee's own Packout storage boxes, Packatron is a 15ft robot that has toured as a physical centrepiece at events across the UK and Europe. It is the kind of build that only makes sense once you have seen it in person, a giant, functioning robot made entirely from the modular boxes Milwaukee sells to tradespeople, standing in the middle of a trade show floor.

We also produced the Packout Radio and Red Hex Drill Bit animations, shorter pieces built for social and web use, showing the same product family in motion rather than as a static render.

What ties all of this together is range. A configurator API, a multi agency 3D hub, a physical robot build, and short form animation are four completely different disciplines, and Milwaukee has needed all of them from us over the course of the relationship. That is the kind of brief we like best, one where the client trusts us across formats rather than boxing us into a single deliverable type.

If you want to see the full breakdown of the Milwaukee work, including more detail on the configurator's technical build, it is on our site.