How The Hillman Group connects packaging engineering from concept to production with Esko ArtiosCAD

Managing more than 110,000 SKUs requires a connected packaging workflow.

Industry:

Hardware & Home Improvement

Products:

Headquarters:

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

As one of North America’s leading distributors of hardware and home improvement products, The Hillman Group supplies major retailers including Lowe’s, Home Depot, Walmart, Tractor Supply and thousands of independent hardware stores. With more than 110,000 SKUs spanning hardware, workwear and robotic kiosk technologies, packaging engineering plays a critical role in bringing products to market efficiently.

Chris Hoeting, Structural Design Engineering Manager at The Hillman Group, leads a five-person packaging engineering team responsible for structural packaging design, packaging standards, supplier collaboration and new product development. As the business has grown through acquisitions and expanded its product portfolio, maintaining consistency across packaging designs, materials and global suppliers has become increasingly important.

Our collaboration using ArtiosCAD is really critical for us to have a single point of truth. We manage all the dielines and work hand in hand with our graphics team.

Chris Hoeting, Structural Design Engineering Manager, The Hillman Group

Connecting design, graphics and collaboration

At Hillman, packaging engineering extends well beyond creating structural packaging.

Packaging engineering requires close collaboration between packaging engineering, creative services, product teams, and suppliers. Using Esko ArtiosCAD, structural packaging designs become the shared foundation for graphics, renderings and production-ready packaging documentation.

By working from the same files throughout the design process, engineering and creative teams can review packaging concepts earlier, visualize how graphics will appear on finished packaging, and align before production begins.

Hillman’s team also creates realistic 3D visualizations and mockups that help internal stakeholders—and retail customers—understand packaging concepts long before physical samples are produced.

Our customers now completely expect to see those 3D mockups before approving a design.

Chris Hoeting

Creating digital visualizations early in development helps the team evaluate concepts, communicate ideas more effectively, and reduce back-and-forth with suppliers before production begins.

Designing packaging that stands out

One recent example involved Hillman’s Deck Plus brand.

The team needed to develop packaging for a handrail bracket system that securely held multiple hardware components while allowing customers to interact with the product on the retail shelf. Using ArtiosCAD, the team explored multiple structural concepts, created 3D visualizations, and produced a series of mockups before finalizing the design.

Those visualizations became an important part of the customer review process, helping retail stakeholders understand how the finished package would function and appear in store before manufacturing began.

Bringing better packaging design into hardware can help products stand out in the aisle.

Chris Hoeting

Improving communication across a global supply chain

Hillman sources products from more than 20 countries, making clear communication with suppliers essential.

Rather than sharing only structural drawings, the packaging engineering team uses ArtiosCAD together with Esko Cape Pack to communicate assembly instructions, case-fill layouts, palletization requirements, and pack-out information through clear visual documentation.

These digital assets help suppliers understand packaging requirements before production begins while reducing unnecessary clarification and improving consistency across manufacturing partners.

It’s really important to have visuals—not just the dielines—but to show how the different elements go into the boxes, how they get packed and how they get palletized. Especially when English is a second language, it’s incredibly helpful.

Chris Hoeting

The same visual documentation also supports Hillman’s internal operations by helping distribution center teams understand how products should be packed and assembled.

Standardizing packaging engineering

As Hillman continues to grow, the company is using ArtiosCAD to create greater consistency across its packaging engineering organization.

The team has customized title blocks, reporting, material libraries, and company-specific standards while building reusable packaging templates that can be applied across future projects. These standards help employees and contractors work from the same design practices while maintaining consistency throughout the organization.

Results

Today, The Hillman Group uses Esko ArtiosCAD to:

Looking ahead

For The Hillman Group, packaging engineering is about more than designing structures. It’s about creating a connected workflow from concept through manufacturing.

By combining structural design, visualization, supplier communication, and packaging optimization within a single digital workflow, the team can collaborate more effectively, communicate more clearly with global suppliers, and support the continued growth of one of North America’s largest hardware distributors.

Hear the Hillman Group’s full story in our recent ArtiosCAD webinar.
Watch the webinar