[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":72},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fx5ipknylh4re":3,"$f3rgaptijhbudo":22},{"slug":4,"category":5,"date":6,"headline":7,"lead":8,"image":9,"imageAlt":10,"body":11,"figures":12,"source":19},"export-starts-at-the-first-product-design","COMPANY","2026-10-13","EHOSS in Export.sk: export starts at the first design of a product","Export.sk interviews founder and CEO Viktor Kvachan on building products that travel — why everything stays under one roof, when a one-off solution becomes a platform, what nine factories in China brought home for LASERCUT, and why exporting a machine is hardest after the sale.","\u002Fimages\u002Fnewsroom\u002Fkvachan-hall-portrait.jpg","EHOSS founder Viktor Kvachan in the production hall, looking into the camera, a braced steel panel and a white machine frame out of focus behind him","Export.sk, the Slovak portal on international trade, interviewed Viktor Kvachan, founder and CEO of EHOSS and a member of Rada slovenských exportérov, the Council of Slovak Exporters, for its Our Exporters section. The interview, by Filip Šandor, is translated here in full.\n\nEHOSS brings its own development, automation, software and manufacturing together under one roof. What advantage does that model give you in developing your own technology and preparing it for foreign markets?\n\nThe biggest advantage is speed, control and the ability to respond to what the market really needs. When development, design, automation, software and manufacturing are split between several outside suppliers, every change means a new round of communication, new deadlines and often compromises as well. We try to keep as much of that process in-house as we can. In practice it means that the designer, the automation engineer, the software team and production work on one product at the same time. If testing shows that something needs to change, we can move the change quickly from development straight into production and then test it again.\n\nFor a foreign market that matters even more. It is not enough just to develop a product. It has to be standardised, documented, serviceable and ready for repeat production. That is exactly why we see our own engineering and manufacturing capacity as one of EHOSS’s main competitive advantages.\n\nYour solutions grow out of specific problems in real operations. What decides whether an individual technical solution can become a standardised, scalable product for a wider market?\n\nWhat decides it is whether the problem exists repeatedly across a large enough group of customers. Every individual project can produce an interesting technical solution, but not every solution has the potential to become a product. In development we therefore follow three main questions: whether the problem recurs on several markets, whether we can solve it in a standardised way, and whether the product can be manufactured, installed and serviced without starting from scratch with every customer. If those conditions hold, individual know-how can gradually turn into a platform.\n\nThat is also how our product architecture comes about. Today EHOSS develops two main technology lines — LASERCUT, a digital manufacturing platform, and HORSESTABLE, an ecosystem for the modern horse stable. Our goal is not to make as many unique machines as possible. The goal is to create technology that can be configured for a particular customer but can also be built repeatedly and scaled on international markets.\n\nOne of EHOSS’s main areas is technology infrastructure for modern horse stables. What potential do you see for automating this segment in Europe, and what decides today whether customers are willing to invest in new technology?\n\nHorse stables are among the areas where many everyday processes still depend on manual work. Preparing forage, handling bedding, feeding, cleaning, caring for the horses and processing waste are tasks that repeat every day and take time, people and a consistent standard of work. That is exactly where we see a great deal of room for automation. So we do not see HORSESTABLE as a single machine but as an ecosystem of several technology platforms — FORAGE.PRO, BEDDING.PRO, FEEDING.PRO, CLEANING.PRO, MUSCLE.PRO and REUSING.PRO. Each of them handles a different part of the operation, but the shared aim is to reduce routine tasks, increase control over the processes and make the whole stable more efficient.\n\nWillingness to invest, however, is not decided by the technology itself. The customer needs to see a clear economic or operational effect. What decides it above all is the return on investment, the labour saved, reliability, ease of servicing and whether the technology can fit into an existing operation without unnecessary complication. At the same time, pressure is growing in Europe for more efficient use of labour, for energy efficiency and for more sustainable handling of by-products. In our view, that creates very good conditions for further automation of this segment.\n\nOn a recent business trip to China you visited nine manufacturing plants. What new technologies and ideas did EHOSS bring back?\n\nFor us, the trip was not only about finding a particular machine or supplier. What interested us most was how modern manufacturers are organised, how they connect automation with logistics and how they handle the speed of introducing new technology. Visiting nine plants gave us the chance to compare different approaches to automation, production management, quality control, materials handling and the organisation of workplaces.\n\nThe strongest impulse was the degree to which the individual processes are integrated. Manufacturing looks less and less at the individual machine and more and more at the whole flow of data and material — from the order, through planning, to production, inspection and dispatch. That view matters a great deal to us in the further development of LASERCUT too. So from China we brought back not only contacts and technical ideas, but above all new reference points for how we can digitise our own production further and reduce the number of manual interventions across the whole process. We don’t want simply to copy everything we saw. Our aim is to pick the principles that make sense for our products and for the European manufacturing environment, and adapt them to our own model.\n\nYour strategy counts on expanding production capacity, further digitalisation and then international expansion. How will you choose priority foreign markets, and what do you consider the biggest challenge in exporting your own technology?\n\nWe don’t want to choose a market on its size alone. What matters to us is a combination of factors: the number of potential customers, their capacity to invest, the availability of local partners, logistics, service options, legislation and, above all, whether customers in that market are already actively looking for automation. For HORSESTABLE we are naturally interested in countries with strong equine infrastructure, professional stables and a developed equestrian sector. For LASERCUT the choice of market is different, because it is a digital manufacturing platform and its potential is much wider across industrial sectors.\n\nIn my view, though, the biggest challenge in exporting a technology product is not the sale itself. It is the ability to support the customer over the long term. If you sell a machine into another country, you have to be able to provide installation, documentation, spare parts, diagnostics and service. That is why we want to build international expansion step by step and together with local partners. For us, export does not just mean ‘selling abroad’. It means building a system in which we can give a customer the same level of support in Bratislava, in Normandy or on any other European market.\n\nWhat do you think decides whether a Slovak technology and manufacturing firm can move from a good product of its own to lasting success on international markets?\n\nA good product is only the beginning. A company can have very good technology, but if it cannot build the product repeatedly, deliver on time, service it and finance its growth, its potential on an international market stalls very quickly. In my view it comes down to a combination of three things. The first is standardisation. The product has to be flexible enough for different markets, but it must not become a new project with every order. The second is control over the key know-how. A company has to know what its real technological advantage is, and it has to protect and develop that part. The third is local presence and partnership. When you export physical technology, a website in English is not enough. You need partners, service, trust and an understanding of the particular market.\n\nSlovak firms, in my view, have very good technical know-how. The challenge more often is turning that know-how into a brand, a product and a business model that make sense outside the home market as well. That is one of EHOSS’s main goals today. We don’t want to be a company that only makes technically good solutions in Slovakia. We want to build products that are made in Slovakia but designed for the international market from the start. So for us, export doesn’t start at the border. It starts at the first design of the product.",{"8":13,"12":16},{"src":14,"alt":15},"\u002Fimages\u002Fassembly\u002Fstall-controller.jpg","The finished stall panel on the box frame, reading the mare Quisquillosa's box — temperature and humidity inside against outside",{"src":17,"alt":18},"\u002Fimages\u002Fassembly\u002Flaser-console.jpg","An operator at the laser's console, the cutting plan on screen",{"name":20,"url":21},"Export.sk","https:\u002F\u002Fexport.sk\u002Fviktor-kvachan-z-ehoss-export-sa-zacina-uz-pri-prvom-navrhu-produktu\u002F",{"items":23,"total":71},[24,29,53],{"slug":4,"category":5,"date":6,"headline":7,"lead":8,"image":9,"imageAlt":10,"body":11,"figures":25,"source":28},{"8":26,"12":27},{"src":14,"alt":15},{"src":17,"alt":18},{"name":20,"url":21},{"slug":30,"category":5,"date":31,"headline":32,"lead":33,"image":34,"imageAlt":35,"body":36,"figures":37},"new-eshop-ready-made-metal-products","2026-08-18","LASERCUT.PARTS opens an e-shop for ready-made metal products","Five products that were custom-order only until now — welding tables, steel staircases, container superstructures, sheet metal racks and machine base frames — can be ordered straight off the page.","\u002Fimages\u002Fwelding-table.avif","Two EHOSS welding tables standing in the hall, the nearer one's slotted steel top on its braced frame and levelling feet","Five products that were custom-order only until now — a welding table, a steel staircase, a container superstructure, a sheet metal rack and a machine base frame — can be ordered straight off the page. There is no enquiry to write first and no account to create.\n\nNothing in the catalogue is resold. Every piece is cut on the same CNC fibre lasers that run custom work and welded in the same Bratislava workshop, load-bearing structures in structural steel under a protective base coat. Material grade, thicknesses, dimensions and weight are printed in the parameters table on each product page rather than quoted on request, and every item ships with an assembly drawing, a parts list, a material certificate and a warranty card.\n\nThe welding table is the largest piece in the shop: 3000 by 1950 mm of work surface at 880 mm, a 10 mm top in S355J2 with 182 fixture slots cut into it, six levelling feet, 755 kg on the scale and 1000 kg allowed on the top. It ships assembled, which means a forklift or a crane at the far end. €2438.21 excluding VAT.\n\nThe steel staircase is the one product with no price on it, because no two are the same building. The reference flight runs 4500 mm long and 2800 mm high over fourteen steps at 180 mm, a metre wide, with a 1000 by 1000 mm landing and 500 kg\u002Fm² of load. It is 5 mm S235JR, hot-dip galvanised, so it goes outside as readily as in, and it arrives part-assembled to be finished on site. Send a drawing and the price comes back by e-mail.\n\nThe container superstructure is a 6037 by 2430 mm frame, 220 mm deep, in 3 to 10 mm S235JR, carrying 2000 kg on 5 mm load-bearing members with a 165 by 165 mm mounting base drilled at 125 mm centres. It weighs 652 kg and ships flat rather than assembled. It is the piece that turns a container into technical or storage space. €2161.79 excluding VAT.\n\nThe sheet metal rack is the small one: 1500 by 1600 by 1769.5 mm of S235JRH hollow section in 2 to 3 mm wall, eight bays — four a side of the A-frame, 1380 mm wide at 310 mm spacing — and 115 kg. It is where offcuts stop being a pile on the floor. €373.17 excluding VAT.\n\nThe machine base frame, 1680 by 680 by 162 mm, seats and levels process equipment: production machines, packaging and cutting lines, automation cells, assembly stations. It spreads the load and holds position under running gear, and it ships assembled. €649.59 excluding VAT.\n\nEach product page is built so that nothing has to be asked first. A gallery of production and finished shots, and video on some of the products. What the piece is for and how it differs from ordinary workshop work. The operations it is designed for. The parameters table, down to surface finish, load capacity, weight and unloading requirement. And the documentation — assembly drawing, parts list, certificates, technical data sheet — to download or on request.\n\nOrdering takes three steps. Choose the quantity and add the product to the cart, which shows the subtotal and the VAT. Enter the address and choose between collecting the piece in Bratislava and having it shipped. Pick card or bank transfer and confirm. An order number follows, and an e-mail carrying the confirmation, the production date and the payment details.\n\nThe pieces are bulky and heavy, so there are two ways to get them. Personal collection in Bratislava costs nothing to ship and the slot is agreed by phone. Nova Post takes oversized items to the address rather than to a branch, with the transport priced from the address and the shipment dimensions and confirmed by e-mail before dispatch. Payment is by card through the Tatra banka gateway — Visa, Mastercard, Google Pay, Apple Pay — or by transfer against a proforma invoice, in which case production starts when the money is credited.\n\nEverything in the shop can also be built to a drawing. Under the configurator on each product page sits a Request a quote button, and the form behind it takes the file directly: DXF, DWG, PDF, or a photograph of a dimensioned sketch, several at once, over an encrypted transfer. Contact details arrive pre-filled for a signed-in account. Quantity, material, deadline and surface finish go in the notes.\n\nThe enquiry carries the product name and code with it, so the answer comes back about the exact piece it was opened from. That is also how to ask for a standard product in different dimensions — open the enquiry from the product closest to what is needed and say so in the notes. It commits to nothing: a price arrives by e-mail and orders nothing.\n\nCustom cutting works as it always has. Upload a DXF or DWG, choose the material, the thickness and the quantity, and the price appears instantly. The shop is the other half of that — the things we have been building to order for years, made available without the enquiry that used to come first.",{"2":38,"3":41,"4":44,"5":47,"6":50},{"src":39,"alt":40},"\u002Fimages\u002Fshop\u002Fwelding-table-detail.jpg","The welding table in the hall, a welding power source standing at the edge of its slotted top",{"src":42,"alt":43},"\u002Fimages\u002Fshop\u002Fsteel-staircase.jpg","A galvanised steel staircase with a grating landing, installed on site",{"src":45,"alt":46},"\u002Fimages\u002Fshop\u002Fcontainer-superstructure.jpg","The container superstructure frame, lifted in the production hall",{"src":48,"alt":49},"\u002Fimages\u002Fshop\u002Fsheet-rack.jpg","The double-sided sheet rack from the front, four levels of arms each side of the A-frame",{"src":51,"alt":52},"\u002Fimages\u002Fshop\u002Fmachine-base-frame.jpg","A gearbox and electric motor seated and levelled on a machine base frame",{"slug":54,"category":5,"date":55,"headline":56,"lead":57,"image":58,"imageAlt":59,"body":60,"figures":61,"source":68},"ehoss-in-forbes-horse-engineering","2023-08-11","EHOSS in Forbes: horse engineering, a new industry started in Slovakia","Forbes Slovensko interviews founder Viktor Kvachan on the category EHOSS is building — sixty million horses, a market near $300 billion, and a stable read as an industrial process with inputs, outputs and losses.","\u002Fimages\u002Fnewsroom\u002Fkvachan-workshop.webp","EHOSS founder Viktor Kvachan standing in the machine hall, arms folded, the CNC machines behind him","Forbes Slovensko ran an interview with EHOSS founder Viktor Kvachan on 11 August 2023, under the magazine’s BrandVoice banner. The subject was a category that did not exist in Slovakia before the company set out to build it.\n\nHorsetech is the familiar half of it: cameras that watch a box, sensors carried in tack and rugs, the software that reads them. Horsemanship is conservative and has taken the technology slowly, but each generation takes more of it. Horse engineering is the wider claim. It treats the stable as an industrial process with inputs, outputs and losses, and asks what the rest of the economy can take from it — energy, fertiliser, feed science, and the standards that govern all three.\n\nThe path to it was not equestrian. Kvachan spent two decades automating businesses, a good number of them farms with stables of their own, and turned that experience on an industry he had wanted to fix since seeing the conditions horses lived in in his grandfather’s village. The team formed in 2021.\n\nThe scale is the reason the category is worth naming. There are around sixty million horses in the world and an industry valued near $300 billion, almost none of it engineered — which is what leaves room for it to grow several times over once energy, environmental science, feed quality, safety and comfort are treated as problems with technical answers.\n\nWhat owners ask for has changed with it. The newer generation expects the stable on a phone, and owners are not satisfied with the quality of stables or hay, or with the way their animals are fed. “Creating the Aesthetic of Equine Life” is the company’s way of saying that this means safe breeding and a healthy horse rather than a well-photographed one: better hay, nutrition adjusted per animal, and everything happening in the stable visible in one place.\n\nTwo platforms carry that today — one for feeding the horse, one for disposing of manure — tested in the company’s own stable, with its own horse, alongside partner stables in Slovakia and abroad. Behind them sits an EHOSS laboratory analysing hay, water, feed and manure, which is what lets the platforms be tuned to measurements instead of to habit. A stable monitoring system covering both the environment and the horse itself is the next piece, and transport — horseboxes and trailers — the problem after that.\n\nManure is where the industrial argument is easiest to see. The Bratislava region alone holds eighteen equestrian clubs and a little over a thousand horses. Put a year of that through biogas and it comes to roughly 500,000 cubic metres of gas — about €250,000 at the tariffs of the time — with organic fertiliser left over for the fields the feed came from. The same platforms cut hay losses and put sawdust and straw back into bedding, and they shorten the work in the stable while they do it.\n\nKvachan places all of this inside the European green energy and food strategy and the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: an industry that creates jobs in the regions rather than in the capital, and one that needs public institutions, schools and funds at the table if it is to reach its full size. The company is open to all three.",{"4":62,"5":65},{"src":63,"alt":64},"\u002Fimages\u002Fnewsroom\u002Fstall-display.jpg","A panel on the stall frame reading the mare Quisquillosa's box — temperature and humidity inside against outside, and a UV cleaning cycle running",{"src":66,"alt":67},"\u002Fimages\u002Fnewsroom\u002Fteam-stable.jpg","Three of the EHOSS team with the company's own horse in the instrumented stall, the measuring grid printed across the walls behind them",{"name":69,"url":70},"Forbes.sk","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.forbes.sk\u002Fehoss-equine-engineering-connects-science-and-technology-in-the-world-of-horses\u002F",3,1792578146683]