Great. Well, welcome everybody. I'm glad you're here. We have a, really a fantastic program for you today. I will start you off this morning. So good morning, everyone. For those who are not familiar, I'm Warren Kanders, Chairman and Cadre's CEO. I want to welcome you all to this year's Analyst and Investor event. I'm excited to be joined by our President, Brad Williams, our CFO, Blaine Browers, and our Vice President, General Manager of Global Armor, Jim Duncan, our Vice President, General Manager of Global EOD, Rob Reynolds, as well as additional members of our team supporting our activities today. We appreciate those of you who are here in person with us, as well as those participating virtually via webcast.
Today's presentation is focused on one element of the Cadre operating model, innovation, which is a key differentiator for the Cadre for Cadre and allows us to maintain our premium positions in our core markets as a trusted brand. In a moment, Brad will highlight in greater detail how innovation fits into the operating model. As most of you have heard me share previously, the operating model has been a driving force behind Cadre's outstanding performance since our IPO in November of 2021. We are exceptionally proud of how we have been able to deliver for our shareholders and expect the Cadre operating model to continue to drive enhanced executive execution and results moving forward.
Again, I thank you all for being here with us today and want to reiterate that Cadre is ideally positioned to capitalize on attractive opportunities through acquisitions and organic growth to further expand our platform and to enhance our market leadership over the long term. With that, I will turn the presentation over to Brad. Thank you again for being here today. Brad, over to you.
Thank you, Warren. All right. Thank you, folks, for being in the room today with us. Thanks for folks on the webcast. So I'm going to walk you through the agenda of the presentations, and then I'm going to go into the Cadre operating model in more detail. So first up, I'm going to spend about 10 minutes giving you an overview of the Cadre operating model. I'm going to talk about how innovation specifically fits into the operating model. Once I've finished up with that, Jim Duncan, who's our VP GM of Global Armor, will come up. Jim is going to talk about an exciting, innovative armor product that, you know, quite frankly, has been one of the most exciting products that we've had in the last three or four years. So, looking forward to Jim going through that.
He'll spend about 30 minutes on that presentation. At the end of the presentation, he'll take questions. About 15 minutes we have allotted for any Q&A, for the armor presentation. After that, Rob Reynolds, who's in the back of the room also, he'll come up. Rob is our VP GM of Global EOD. He's going to talk through ICOR Technology. For those who have been paying close attention to the story, ICOR was an acquisition that we made in the EOD space in January of this year. He's going to talk you through what the company's all about, products, and a little bit later, as we do our breakout sessions and hands-on sessions, you'll get an opportunity to drive a couple of our robots that we have here on site.
And then lastly, after Rob goes through that, I'm going to come back up. Blaine will be up here. And we'll open up the floor to questions. And we'll spend about 15 minutes if you have any additional questions, whether it's things that you didn't think of, about the first two presentations or just in general about Cadre. Okay? So that's the agenda. After that, the webcast will end. And then we're going to go have some fun instead of staying in this room, right? We're going to do some breakout sessions and get hands-on and do some demonstrations of, of a lot of our products. Okay? I do have to hit this slide, as you all, you all know. So forward-looking statements. I'm not going to read it to you.
You know, just want to point it out that, you know, we built, we'll be talking about innovation, products, any forward-looking type information. And just make sure that we abide by that. All right? All right. We went through this one. This is who's presenting today. So let's talk about the operating model. We're on slide four, by the way, for those who are on the webcast. Never fear. I think I've only got about 100 slides on the operating model. Okay? For those that have been around me and spent time one-on-one or myself and Blaine or we've met at investor conferences, you know I can talk about the operating model for hours. And that's because it's so important to who we are and what we do and our story. So here's the operating model. For those that haven't dug in, I'll break it down.
I'm going to stay high level, but I'm going to break it down a little bit more than typically what we do. So the Cadre operating model, what is it? All right? And you can see it on the screen. It's a behavior-based, leadership-centric operating way that enables us to create greater value for our customers and stakeholders. It guides how we work, innovate, solve problems, improve, and engage with each other, customers, and our communities. That last sentence is incredibly important to what we're all about. So I'm going to say it one more time. It guides how we work. So think about that. How we close our books, the schedule that we use to close our books, how we innovate, how we work in operations, how we run our monthly business reviews. It is the thread that goes across the entire company.
How we innovate, which I talked about. How we solve problems so these problems don't recur over and over and over again. How we improve, how we engage each other. That's important. There's a big cultural element to an operating model. And we feel like we've got a pretty special one here at, at Cadre. And then externally to our customers. So we just don't treat ourselves this way, but also to our customers and the communities that we engage with. So that's what it is. Let's talk about to the right side now. This is the operating model, the circle that you see on the right. We spent over a year working on how to build our operating model. Okay? Not on the pretty picture and how it looks and that side of things. We spent less time on that.
More of the time was spent on what goes into the operating model. That's one of the hardest pieces. There can be so many elements to it. And we wanted to make sure that we had a visual that was easy to walk people through internally at the company and then also externally. So here's how it works. Outside of the circle, pretty simple. Those are our, our values of the company: integrity, curiosity, excellence, empowerment. You're going to see those as a thread throughout today's activities for those that are here physically today. Inside the circle, these are six leadership capabilities that we feel are critical to getting to the excellence stage within a company. All right? And again, critical to getting to that excellence stage. And so you can see the six. I'm not going to go over those in detail.
But I do want to point out 2 of the 6 are people-related tools. That was important of us to make sure that those were front and center in our operating model: associate engagement and talent development. One of the reasons we wanted to do this type of event, you guys get a lot of exposure to myself and Blaine and Warren, but not to the rest of our leadership team. This is only about 25% of the leaders out of about 16 that are on our leadership team that are here. I think you'll be impressed with the, with the team. All right. Moving on a bit. Let's go to how we then execute the operating model. Think of the circle as the strategy, and then think of this as the execution.
That's one of the biggest gaps in operating models, in my experience. You guys know my background, right? Ingersoll Rand, Danaher, IDEX, right? Great things about those operating models. We spent a lot of time benchmarking other companies outside of those three. What we found is there's a bit of a gap. So typically, you'll be thrown a bunch of tools, and you're kind of there to fend for yourself on how to implement them, use the tools. You get trained on the tools. But how to sequence and then how they should be laid out is something that we feel like is a bit of a gap. So when we created our operating model, we wanted to tack on what we call the excellence maturity matrix. It's simply, you go from left to right. You start with the fundamentals, which you can see.
There's 7 tools in the fundamental step. For those that know these tools, these are 7 powerful tools that any company needs to really be, from a foundational standpoint, focused on. From there, you move on to the building capability stage. We do have ways to subjectively and objectively measure when someone is ready to go from fundamentals to that next stage. There is some subjectivity involved in that. We end up agreeing business unit versus the folks that lead these tools in the organization, are you ready to move on? Okay? Do a self-reflection. Building capability, that next step, I call it the layup step internally inside the company. Not as intense as the fundamental step, but very, very critical to what we do. When you look at that, there's really 3 themes in the building capability step.
There's new product development, which I'll talk about here in a minute. There are people tools, and there are lean principles. So the building capability step begins the lean principle side of things, which then feeds into the last step, which is our excellence phase. And that's really where we want to get to, is the excellence side of things. So for those that are here, you can, and online, you can see the excellence phase are really Kaizen tools, growth tools, and leadership tools. Kaizen is a very, very, very powerful tool. And quite frankly, in my career, it's been one of the most memorable tools at other companies that I've led, championed, sponsored.
It's a tool that begins to drive your operating model broad and deep within a company because you're starting to do Kaizens out on the shop floor, in carpet land, and work with individuals throughout the company to solve problems and put processes in place to just continue to improve again and again and again. So I'm excited at the point we get to the Kaizen toolkit here, which is that excellence phase. And then keep in mind, these tools, they continue. All right? We don't just complete fundamentals and then stop. Right? You master fundamentals, you go to building capability, and then you go to excellence. And it just continues over and over and over again. All right. So let's talk about our innovation side of things. So we have two tools that you can see on slide six that I have highlighted in green.
So Tollgate 0 and new product development process. So we'll talk about Tollgate 0 first. Tollgate 0, simply think of it as a litmus test for, is the project worth doing? Should we invest in that project? Or is it a, which a lot of companies all have, and we have them too, or is it a pet project that someone wants to do and they think it's going to succeed and you end up burning a bunch of time and money and resources on, and it's really not something that we need to be doing? So it drives that focus. So that's why we have Tollgate 0 at the beginning of the fundamental stage because it's important to make sure that our business units begin that process and get it ingrained in that culture upfront. It also provides that shared understanding.
When you think of new product development, it takes a lot of people to make that work when you commercialize a product: marketing, sales, category folks, product management, you name it. So a lot of work that goes into it. It really brings that common focus together to make sure that we're nailing that approach. Then new product development. So once something is approved by the Vice President, General Manager, and their finance lead within that business unit, at a Tollgate 0, then it gets birthed into the full new product development process. All right? So think of it that way.
So all an NPD process is, it's really important because NPD is very complicated and it's complex. Think of it as a way to outline criteria that you need to do and do it in a manner so that you'll have the best product to fit what's needed in the market and then optimize what also our shareholder value. All right? That's a way to think about it, to make sure steps aren't missed so that we have phenomenal products to uphold, which I'm going to close with in a minute, that trusted brand promise that we're known for out in the marketplace. So that's part of that discipline that we make sure that we put into that process. All right. And then, you know, and you'll see some of these.
So when you look at that NPD process and what we've done in the last couple of years, quite frankly, most of you guys probably have heard about these, you know, especially the ones that are in the law enforcement side of things. We've produced a new family of holsters called Vault. We've got a new 3D body sizing app. HyperX has been a great hit. Incog X is the holster of the year from Guns & Ammo. And then Jim Duncan is going to talk about Apex. All right? So this process that we use, Tollgate 0, new product development, that's what feeds these great products that we've seen go out into the marketplace. All right.
Before I turn it over to Jim Duncan, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to read quite a bit of this to, to keep me, keep me on track here a bit of this last piece. But what I want to tie this together with is remember what our mission is. Okay? It's together we save lives. All right? And I want you to think about that for a second. We're at 2,199 saves in our SAVES Club, 2,199. So men and women, first responders that have had their lives saved either using or wearing our products. It's pretty, pretty important, right? Pretty special. Think of their friends, kids, spouses, moms, dads, their families that are associated with those folks that they can continue to live on because of those products that they've been, been using and wearing. Gets you to think a little bit more for a second.
Everybody, think of an 8-year-old. Most people in this room should know some kind of 8-year-old, 7-year-old, 10-year-old, right? Think of that for a minute. Everybody got it? In the webcast, you got it? Think of that 8-year-old. So I'm going to talk about an 8-year-old little girl for a second and hopefully can get through this. So it's an 8-year-old girl and that had an experience years ago in the early 2000s. And her father was a first responder. And when she was 8 years old, they had to go through that traumatic situation. Her father, being a first responder, being an officer, and he was shot. And he was wearing body armor, and he was saved from that incident. Unfortunately, he couldn't go back to duty, and that was also very tough. That started from this shooting that happened.
So now let's fast forward, really quick to a few years ago. Okay? So now this same 8-year-old little girl is now grown up. She writes us a letter. Yeah, I said she writes us a letter, right? 8-year-old girl, traumatic experience. Father was an officer wearing our Safariland body armor, lives from the incident. And then she writes us a letter. And here's what she said.
I quote, "It is not lost on me that I have Safariland and all of its workers to thank for this special day because Safariland, I was able to have my father present on my wedding day because the work you do, he was able to walk me down the aisle and dance with me on my wedding day." So let me repeat, because the work you do, he was able to walk me down the aisle and dance with me on my wedding day. Pretty awesome mission. And that's how we feel about it. That's how a lot of our employees throughout the company feel that we have that duty. We have to make sure that we have these discipline processes and now the operating model framework to be able to use to deliver that brand promise so that first responders can trust us.
So think of us as not that company that develops a product that is just good enough. And there's some bad actors out there that make products that are just good enough. That's not us. We're not that company. So what we do is we strive for excellence, which you saw in the operating model. All right. Thank you guys for your attention. I'm going to turn it over to Jim Duncan, and he's going to continue this story, and he's going to talk about Apex. Jim?
All right. Good morning, everyone. For those that are not with us in person, please move to slide 10. Again, welcome. I think you're going to have a great day today. We're very, very excited for all that we have planned for you. So Warren mentioned innovation. Brad mentioned innovation. You know, sometimes it's an easy word to throw around.
Companies apply it to products, processes, and sometimes it's questionable as to whether or not something is truly innovative. The product we're going to talk about today, we feel confident, obviously, I'm just a little biased, is truly innovative. Before we focus on our APEX carrier system, we're going to go back in history. So for those that are looking at the screen, that tan carrier system that you see on the slide was developed in the 1970s. So 50 years of thousands of officers using it. It is the predominant design for concealable armor used today in law enforcement. It's actually changed very, very little. The carrier to the right, the blue carrier, the one that I have in person here on your left, it is almost a mirror image of that 1970s design carrier. So it says a couple of things: tried and true, very, very solid design.
A couple of limitations with it or opportunities for improvement that we've taken advantage of. As you go down the list, it uses a significant amount of Velcro and elastic. As we all know, Velcro, well, there's better Velcro today than 50 years ago. Velcro is Velcro, right? Elastic is what? A bunch of rubber bands. And those rubber bands always want to find home when they've been stretched and they've had pressure put upon them. So a couple of limitations with this carrier system. One, you put it on. It's got a front ballistic panel and a back ballistic panel. So it's a two-panel system. The front panel overlaps the back, and then it's attached on the sides with four-sided elastic and Velcro. It hangs on the body, though. So the weight of the system sits on the shoulders at the two attachment points.
So it's a four-point, four-point attachment system. So the entirety of the weight of the ballistic system is on your shoulders. Now, body armor materials today have gotten a lot lighter, but nonetheless, you're wearing this thing eight, 10, 12 hours a day. You do feel, you do feel the fatigue in the shoulders, something that every officer that wears armor will point out is inherently going to be an issue. The other limitation, the other limitation with the system is because you attach it with the elastic, putting pressure on that elastic, and that elastic is always trying to find a home. When you move in this armor, it will start to ride up your torso somewhat because, again, you've got the tension pulling back against stretched elastic.
Those of us who aren't the perfect, V-shaped torso, once it starts to come above your waist area, what's going to happen? The vest rides up. So you have an issue that we call ride-up in the industry. The vest will not go back down on its own at all. So if you're ever standing around looking at an officer and you happen to notice, you will see police officers constantly pulling down on their armor. One, it's uncomfortable when it rides up. Two, you do start to create a little bit more of a gap for your protected area. So again, tried and true design, thousands of lives saved. Not bad. But again, how can we improve on that, improve on that? A couple of other things. So your vest fits best on the day your size. So these vests are all custom sized.
You're put in it, right? The vest is made. And what happens if you, if that process starts and you're in the police academy? Most folks in the police academy, pretty good shape, right? Pretty lean. Waist is smaller. And then they go out on the street, as I did, 1 or 2 or 100 runs through the drive-thru. What happens? We start to expand a little bit. So what happens to that vest that used to fit you perfectly is you start having to move your attachment point because your girth has changed. Well, when the front panel overlaps the back, that gives you your side coverage to protect you against a ballistic event. You start to gain weight, you start to reduce that overlap by the nature of your body growing. Armor is typically, on average, worn for about 5 years, the cycle, right?
We all know what a body can do over the course of five years. It changes. This system is not very well built to adjust for body changes over time. And lastly, and then I'll move on, the other thing the system does, it depends, it puts the onus on the officer to attach the Velcro in the same spot every time to ensure they have the right overlap. So you do open itself up for potential human error where they don't close it the right way or as much. And then you've got, again, you start to, get in a situation where your overlap could be compromised. So, you know, solid design, nothing lasts for 50 years. That isn't any good. But the fact of the matter is there's a lot of areas to, improve upon it. What do we do about it?
We really sat down and said, "Okay, got this design tried and true. Where does it, where is it suboptimal in function?" Some of the things we talked about. And then we really took a lot of time in the NPD process in looking at the day in the life of an officer. So as we all know, it's not a sedentary job, right? Sometimes it's very dynamic when it comes to movement. It's not constant. They do the normal things that we do. They sit at a desk. They get in and out of a car. They do all that kind of stuff. But at times, obviously, it's a very dynamic job. So they're moving, reaching, bending, running, climbing, all those kind of things.
So we had to kind of look at what was out there from the concealable armor world and go, "What materials, structure, what can we change to really help support what an officer does in the day-to-day function of their jobs?" And we kind of started just popped in this title of officer athlete because in fact, at times, they do have movements similar to athletes, right? So the mindset changes to what can we do from an equipment standpoint to support them as they move through their daily function? Is there a way to have those panels articulate so they're not restricted by the Velcro and the elastic? Can we look at compression? Are there other attributes with materials or function that'll help make a product more supportive of what they do?
Moving on to slide 12, what became very clear to us as we looked at how armor's worn, how it's used, the materials, and what was out there, we could do a lot better. We also built upon the success of our HyperX system that Brad mentioned. Our tactical system, HyperX, has been hugely successful for us. It was launched a few years ago. We took a look at that and said, "You know, why has it been so successful?" Obviously, it has the right level of protection that inherently has to be there. But the other thing was we did a similar thing, and we looked at the function of the product as it sits on the officer's body. The HyperX has been successful because you've got extreme wearability relative to a lot of tactical systems on the market.
We devised a cummerbund system that allows for micro-adjustments. So if they're wearing different type of undergarment, weather changes, or whatever, the vest can adjust to fit close to their body, snug if they're moving through there, especially your tactical officers are very dynamic. We looked at how the shoulders worked on tactical body armor. Most shoulders were fixed. We went to an articulated shoulder design. So what it really came down to was, again, how does it move with the officer, the comfort when it was on? And then the other focus on that was significant weight reduction. So we took all of that, what we knew that could be improved in modern-day or, or current concealable armor, what we had found with our HyperX tactical system. And then we looked at athletics.
We said, "Okay, if the officers are athletes, what sport kind of aligns with what they do?" And we really looked really hard at football. You think about it, and the photos show back in the day, football pads were what? Big, bulky, away from the body. Prevailing wisdom at the time said, "That's how you protect against trauma." And while football equipment isn't intended to stop bullets, it is a trauma protection-type system. Well, over the years, what have we seen? Improvement materials, reduction in size, closer to the body, a lot of compression. So we started thinking, "Okay, do we have something there?" as we thought about the development of the APEX system. Compression became a big thought. Compression's not new, which I'll talk about, later on. But we looked at the materials today because, obviously, these, these products are worn every day. They're taken on.
They're taken off. It's got to be very, very durable, durable. So we looked a lot at the cycling industry. We've had a lot of good improvement with compression materials. So we took all that together, what we had seen in athletic, athletic performance, how those products have been improved. And what was born out of that was the Apex carrier system. We're now on slide 13 for those not in the room. Blaine, would you step up, please? So when we talk about innovation, it starts with the overall design. So the Apex system versus what's currently in use is a four-piece armor system. So you have a front panel. You have a back panel. But on your sides, you have a separate panel. It's 10 in in length and about 6 in high. It sits in a channel, and it allows for articulation.
Blaine, if I can ask you to turn sideways, it allows for articulation between your front and back panel. So these can move freely while still maintaining ballistic protection completely across the side of the body, okay? So what that does. Go ahead. When Blaine or an officer moves, however he moves, it articulates, it moves, it maintains coverage, but you don't have the elastic trying to pull those panels back into place. So he's not fighting resistance from the elastic. The other thing I failed to mention on the other slide with a lot of vests today, because of the way it ties into the torso only, when the officer does move, it can create gaps in coverage, meaning the ballistics can kind of lift off the body a little bit. It happens once in a while.
It's not a major concern or anything, but it is something that is suboptimal. With this type of a system, because of the way it moves, it doesn't make the-or allow for the panels to come off the body and kind of bunch up. So a lot of really good. So the articulation is the one of the main attributes of this system that is completely different. The other thing this does, we talked about how the body changes. So if I can get you to turn a little bit, right? Blaine's an in-shape guy, pretty lean, right? So Blaine right now has about 4 in of overlap front and back because he's got 10 in of ballistic material underneath these panels, right? So if Blaine hits a few drive-thrus right on the job, expands a little bit, he's got what we call stored coverage in this system.
So if he expands a little, his coverage is maintained. So you have a safety factor that stays in place with the design of this product. And again, without the restriction on the movement, he moves much more freely. So the articulation with the maintained protection is a huge component of our APEX vest system. Okay, one more time. We talked a lot about compression. It's also a big, big part of this. So again, you go from 4 points of attachment with pressure around the torso from elastic to a garment that is made with 2 different types of compression material. So the entire vest is pulling the panels into the body. What that does, it allows the weight of the vest now to be borne by his entire torso versus the shoulders, okay? Major, major improvement of what's out there.
It also helps, as we showed earlier, decrease any gapping that goes on. It essentially allows the vest to hug the body as opposed to hang off the body. Major improvement in how the vest is worn. The ride-up from the elastic pulling is completely gone with this product. We've got some quotes later for some officers that were present during our trials. So this vest doesn't ride up on the body. Blaine raises his hands and puts them back down. You won't, you won't see the vest jumping up and staying on the body, which is what you will see with a lot of armor that's done out there.
The other thing, and this is not consistent with everyone, because you don't have a ride-up, we have found that on some individuals, we can actually give them a slightly longer ballistic panel in the front and the back, therefore allowing for more ballistic protection in certain, in the front and the back of the body. So obviously, a really nice upgrade with what's going on. So thank you, Blaine. Absolutely. The other thing I'll point out was, as I mentioned, compression's not new. It's not a new thought, okay? Most of us in this industry already had a compression-based carrier. They're called a T-shirt carrier. So you take something, you know, a compression T-shirt, you build some pockets in it, you put ballistic panels in it. It would have many of the positive attributes that APEX does.
The challenge is taking it on and off, donning and doffing that product. Even when you're young and you have great shoulder mobility because of those ballistic panels, it's no easy feat. It's quite comical to watch somebody put one of those on or try to take it off. Imagine as we age as an officer, you don't have the shoulder articulation, the range of movement trying. So, previously, no one was ever to defeat that design flaw. We all have them. It's not a big seller. Typically, it's very, very deep cover assignments, executive protection-type details. They'll wear that. But again, not easy to don and doff. The great work the team did was designing a front opening design. So anyone can take it on and off.
The front panel is in a pocket, a subpocket within a pocket, and then tucks on from the right to the left, attaches with a small, tiny amount of Velcro at the top, and then the compression keeps it against the body. So that's kind of the great difference with the APEX. It's used by anybody who can zip a product on in a front opening-type environment. So, excellent, excellent result with the product. Quick overview. I've already touched on most of it. On the one shoulder, you've got the only spot of Velcro on this. It's about a 2in by 2in square. That's all it does is hold one piece of the top of the panel against the body. We talked about the four-piece floating architecture. We were able to extend the garment down a little bit lower because, again, because it doesn't ride.
It stays tucked in quite nicely. With the ride-up, again, it creates an issue with some vests. Also, it has a front and rear soft trauma plate pocket. Some officers elect to wear additional protection over their vitals. That can also be accommodated in this product. So feedback highlights. Again, we've ran through the function. This took about 2 years to develop. Extensive testing, customer feedback. First prototypes were worn by myself and the team. Frankly, I cleaned my garage one Saturday wearing this system, for about 2 hours. And the first 2 hours, I wore a different body armor system, bending, reaching just to kind of see how it fit on the body. So we all took the prototypes home over the weekend and said, "Let's use them." We did that.
Came back on Monday, smiles on all our faces saying, "Hey, we think we have something here." Obviously, that's not enough to lean into a new product. So we took it out to contacts we had at several major agencies across the country and put their folks in some. We were also careful to have this worn by many different types of police officers, bike patrol units, regular desktops, special units, deep cover. So we had great input from a lot of different types of officers doing a lot of different types of jobs. The major agencies, some smaller agencies, the quotes are outstanding. I forgot I was wearing this vest. Again, that weight issue is a real problem with current designs. Best female body armor I've ever worn.
The restrictive nature of current concealable armor impacts females, even more than the males due to the anatomical differences. Really a challenge. There's no ride-up unless fatigue. So I didn't make up the ride-up, quote. That's just the way, the industry kind of sees it. It's just become expected because, again, 50+ years of most folks wearing that type of armor. Great feedback, super exciting. So in conclusion, we do feel this is a highly differentiated product, very innovative. We really, we feel like we've solved some of the main issues and shortcomings with what's out there, which was our goal. Again, the pressure points at the shoulders, reducing fatigue, moving with the officer, not against the officer, eliminates that ride-up. The overlap reduction that occurs with fluctuations in body weight has been mitigated to a great extent with this product.
This product was launched in late January of this year at SHOT Show. We had a great response. We had a lot of samples there, great displays. Officers that were working the show came by, checked it out. Several tried to buy the samples on the spot and take them home. Quite comical. I'm still getting emails from some of those officers who are now trying to order their, their, their products. That was really, really cool. Had a great, had a great launch. What we're doing from education or the industry standpoint is we've targeted a little over 300 domestic law enforcement agencies. They have received invitations asking them to respond to our sales representatives in their area. And then they get a one-on-one or they can bring their team in, experience learning about the armor. So we have samples in their hands, show them, take them through it.
And then typically those are now turning into wear tests. So we'll fit one or two or more of the officers that are decision makers at those agencies, and then we start kind of the wear test process. So excited about that. A lot of activity. And then field shoot demos. You're gonna see a field shoot demo today, abbreviated. We're getting a lot of requests for the shoot demos because it is a new product. That's not a surprise. That was expected. They wanna see how it operates during a ballistic event. And so we're getting those lined up. Super excited. And the wear test activities got very positive feedback. So again, excited about the Apex concealable armor system, truly a differentiator. And I will turn it over for questions, please. Yeah. You know. Yeah. So if it's not broke, don't fix it.
It's fairly better how they look at that. It's very inconsistent. Okay. You do. We don't go into this kind of thing expecting the cycle to change from a time standpoint. That would be unrealistic. Will there be some? Yes. Is there a way to gauge who and how many? Some contracts are written where product's kind of locked in, right, for the life of the contract. Others can change mid-contract, so they just may shift over to something. Some agencies do complete buyouts of new armor. It's very inconsistent. So, but we don't go into this planning for the rate of that change to be impacting. Yeah. Cost variable. I mean, if someone's reordering the cost of going with this versus, I guess, you're still providing the legacy for people who want it. Or maybe I'm wrong. Yeah.
So, the price point of this is different from the current product, okay? The fact of the matter is, from a budgetary standpoint, we still feel that it's in the range that most agencies will be able to get into this product if they so choose. Any pricing differential that you're willing to share versus the incumbent systems that are out there? Like, what's the relative kind of pricing between the two? And then what do you think in terms of departments that are willing to adopt the compression system versus the traditional methodology that they typically use? Is this viable for 100% of officers, or is this looked at as maybe more of a higher-end solution? Yeah. So MSRPs, which are public price, prices out there, you've got between $125-$150 difference on this product, okay?
As far as the perception of compression versus other, again, it's a new way to wear armor. So that's why we are heavily focused on the wear test activity. The feedback has been very, very solid. Obviously, again, bias, but, you know, try to find areas of opportunity in this product versus kind of what's out there, I think, is very, very difficult. So, folks that put this on who've worn armor immediately notice the lack of weight on the shoulders. And when they move, they immediately notice a difference in the product that it doesn't ride up. So it's definitely an attention getter.
You were next.
Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Sorry, Jeff.
Once they've been through the test that you talked about, the wear test, the shoot test, what are you seeing in terms of adoption rate?
So for an agency that's done the test, say they're buying 100 sets of armor, what's the kind of breakdown between the new and the old?
It's, you know, it's gonna be kind of how I mentioned. They all buy very, very differently. So some would roll something like this into their current buying cycle. That's a likely scenario. They would just simply go, "Okay, now we shift to this with the next officer that needs armor." Some agencies that issue, all to new to their new officers, they might do a transition. So they will move to their current type of vest they're buying to something like this. So it's highly variable.
So a couple things on the, the price point being slightly different. And I'm, I'm just wondering when they make the decision, I mean, you're making a decision about life and death, obviously.
Why wouldn't they spend the extra $125-$150 for this kind of a solution that's so much more robust?
I can't answer that. I would find the money if I was back on the job. I do think it is a superior system in fit, form, and function, but every agency has to make those decisions. So, you know, I can't really answer why they, why they wouldn't. We, we feel it's a superior system. Again, we still sell our current updated material-wise. Other system we do quite well. It saved a lot of lives. We just feel that this has attributes that certainly support how those officers have to do their job.
Okay. And then also I realize it's sort of a probability or a percentage thing in terms of the, the sides not having as much or robust coverage.
And just wondering, I mean, how the industry thinks about that and how some officers think about that. Are there some that want more coverage on the sides where there aren't the plates in the front and the back?
So, all should want coverage, okay? There's a recommended amount of overlap. It is not a law. There's a recommended amount of overlap of 2 in. Armor should overlap 2 in on the side. Some agencies approve less than that. That's up to an agency issue. Some don't really have an opinion. We follow the recommendation of at least a 2in overlap. One of the design features of the more widely sold up-to-date vest is as you increase the overlap, if you think about the ballistic panels as they do overlap, because when the body, when the arm lays to the side, it creates a little bit of bulk.
So that's where you do get some officers that complain that actually have extra overlap. They feel like it's too bulky when they put their arms to the side. The other benefit of this system, you don't have that because when the front and back articulate over the side panel, it doesn't create additional bulk. So this is comfortable when you do put your arms on the sides versus some of the other systems. More comfortable.
Just remind us, what's the average base price? You said you're up like $125-$150. What's that? What's the normal price of the prior vest, you know, body armor price? About approximately.
Yeah. I can't really because we have pricing structures.
Okay.
Based on distributor size.
But is it like a few hundred going? I mean, is it?
It's, it's, it's highly variable. I can't really comment on that. Sorry.
No, no, that's fair. And then, so it sounds like maybe not disrupting the cycle so much, but maybe also future market share gains as the other vests come up on their 5-year warranty or whatever it is. You guys are probably better positioned to keep that business or maybe get new business. Is that kind of?
That's the hope for sure. Yeah. The hope we're gonna have market share gain and obviously retention, as we go forward. Again, tried and true product, 50 years old, no reason to go in and spend time improving that other than we were aware of issues, and opportunities where we could create a product that was going to help with safety, comfort, you know, differentiate in the marketplace.
And is the, you mentioned this is versus a pretty long and true and tried product.
Is the competitors out there also, I assume, trying to innovate and upgrade as well, right?
I'm sorry? We're patent pending. We have a couple points of patent pending on this product. Yeah. The competitors are always trying to iterate like we are on what's out there. This is an area, frankly, a lot of companies have not focused on heavily because you can tell how difficult it is. There are just certain elements of concealable armor. It's not obvious what you can do. And again, I think years ago when folks went to T-shirt carriers, understanding that that compression was a benefit, once that didn't work, I think a lot of folks just kind of backed away.
We came back and took another stab at it and really sat down with our design team and our engineers and said, "How do we solve for this?" Because we liked so much of what it did do. Originally there was a version A of this was worked on for a while, and then it went in the closet. It didn't, it wasn't gonna work through the NPD process. There were some issues with it. We dusted it off and pulled it out after some time and then focused on it. And the result is the APEX system. What else?
Officer day-to-day saying, like, "This is great. We want it. Does the higher-ups listen?" Who are you really selling to today?
Sorry? Repeat the question. Sorry. If you don't mind.
So who's the decision maker at the agency?
Who do you sell to and how, how does that feedback loop from, "This is clearly superior, it's comfortable, it's covered"? How does that work?
So again, every agency's different. So you may have an agency where the chief of police or the sheriff is, he's a gear person, he's focused. You know, they're always gonna want that certain level of safety. They're very concerned, "Hey, does this have the safety that is required?" Right? For obvious reasons. As far as picking product, sometimes it's a, it's a range master. It can be a committee. It's, it's different at each agency. And then what they generally will do with a new product, even one that's very similar to what they're in, they'll get you to wear test or use it or range test it or something like that.
Because again, given the nature of these kind of products, they have to know that they're gonna work. So it is different. Every agency kind of approaches it differently. Sometimes your larger agencies have committees, but you'd be surprised. So yeah. There's a POC that you kind of does the intake. So if a salesperson is out trying to bring something to market, they're gonna know who you call first, and then it'll kind of go from there. And every product is different too based on the level of use, impact, safety, and things like that. Yes, sir.
You offer a virtual fitting option?
I'm sorry?
You offer a virtual fitting option for the—
Yeah. The mobile-based ExpertFit system that we have, this is going live in very short order, so it will be available on our ExpertFit— Yes.
Yes, sir.
Hi, Jim. Hey. Thanks for your presentation. Sure. Just a couple of questions. First of all, if you have an agency that doesn't currently have a budget to a higher price point, can the officers contribute out of their own pocket, or can the officers purchase the product out of their own pocket at any time? And then the second question that I have for you is, as it relates to this product, can you give us a feel for what the ballistics protection is on this product versus some of your other products?
So I'll start with the first one. Again, agency-dependent. Some agencies allow their officers to upgrade if they so choose. So they'll say, "You have X amount to get your armor." Some agencies buy the armor for the officer, so that's an agency decision.
Some agencies are in an area where it's a cash, it's called a cash market or cash allowance. Those officers are given a uniform allowance, and it's to cover generally almost everything that they wear. So it could be uniforms, armor, some even include the firearm. So again, multiple ways for that to occur. You can't really speak to there's, there's any, you know, anyone. As far as ballistic protection, our ballistic packages today will work in this APEX system. So this, this system benefits from packages that are clearly pliable. They have a soft hand, right? Because it's going to conform to your body. So a heavier, a heavier, stiffer package is not gonna feel as great in this system on the body. It's just not built for that. But you don't have a difference in ballistic protection level.
We don't, we accommodate the carrier system with our current ballistic packages. I saw I could tell you were going for one more. No worries, man. It's more expensive to make. What's that? Is this more expensive for you? Obviously, it's pricing free. You've got, you've got a little more ballistic, material in this, in this, product. So that's where there's, any side, any cost differences from the ballistic material. What else? Cycle. Acceleration or not acceleration of that cycle, which I think maybe one of the questions was kind of pointing at that. Meaning the Apex carrier system is not gonna accelerate the five-year warranty replacement cycle typically that you see in the industry. No. It just won't. It, it won't happen, and, and you would not be wise to plan for that.
You know, you're always hopeful things do things, but the fact of the matter is from a business planning standpoint, you don't, you don't plan for that to, to move. It's too budget-dependent.
Yeah. Just on the manufacturing side, does this fit right into the legacy operation, or, are there other manufacturing?
No, it, it, it fits. Again, the ballistics are a shape and grade. The carrier system, while obviously impactful based on how it's used, fits into our kind of, kind of network of what we do today with our, our factories and our partnerships. So yeah. Yes, sir.
When you say the ballistic packages don't change, it's not that they, they can't take the, the armor from previous systems and use it in the new carrier, right?
No, no, no, no. Not at all. No. This is a 4-piece system.
Got it.
Even if it were not, your shape will change in what we call the grade.
That's what I thought.
So it has to be designed and cut for this type of a carrier.
So what doesn't change are the layers that make up the ballistic material.
Yeah. So your layup, we call it.
Yeah.
Your recipe, if you will.
Yeah.
Is identical. Got it. So yeah. Anything else? Awesome. Thank you for your time and your attention. Rob Reynolds.
Good morning, everyone. Just for the people that are online, I believe we're on slide number 19 at this point. So, my name's Rob Reynolds. I'm the token Canadian amongst the team with Cadre. Happy to be here. Amazing facility. We just don't have places like this back in Canada. I take care of the EOD portfolio of businesses on behalf of Cadre.
If you kind of take a look at EOD, for those who aren't aware, EOD is a military term for explosive ordnance disposal. So what that takes care of is, you know, bomb disposal, as you know, within law enforcement. On the military side, they call it improvised explosive device defeat. It also takes into account on the military side munitions disposal, so grenades, rockets, artillery shells. And then it also encompasses landmine clearance as well. So if you kind of take a look at the military uses, it's very broad. When you talk about law enforcement, very specific in terms of suspicious devices and the bomb squads that you know out in the field. Today I'm gonna talk about ICOR Technology, as Brad mentioned.
You know, we acquired ICOR back in January, and it's definitely an awesome fit within the capabilities that we have, and it's gonna help us grow the portfolio that we already have within the existing business units. I'm not gonna talk about girth and ride-up and the expanding bodies. If the robots change in size, it's by design, not because we went through the drive-through too many times. Just a little bit about the company. We're an international company. Although we do a lot of work in the U.S., and that's where our biggest chunk is, we do operate in 62 countries worldwide. So we are an international operation, and we do deal with all four corners of the world.
If you take a look at the previous owners and the team that we were able to acquire, although ICOR has only been in the marketplace since 2005, back in my military career, I actually dealt with the previous owners and their previous company they had, which was EOD Performance. So if you kind of take a look at the combined experience of the team, previous owners, and the team that they brought along with them, you know, they've got about 30 years there that there's a lot of good people that have stuck with it because of the brand. But also, as Brad said, together we save lives is really, you know, important from this perspective because when you start talking robots, you're putting a robot downrange in harm's way versus a human body. So they rally around that mission as well.
And there's a great team there that kind of is a very strategic fit with what we do. Founded 2005, and right now we've got about 570 end users worldwide, 430 of them being in the U.S. So when you kind of take a look at the markets, U.S. being probably the biggest market for this type of equipment, that was very attractive to us to be able to get such a good hold within that U.S. market. When you kind of take a look at 935 Ages Drive in Ottawa, Canada, there's a lot going on in that building. We do all of our R&D in-house. We have electronic mechanical design. So if you think of a robot, you've got mechanical attributes. So the track systems, the arms, the claws, the grips, all those kind of things.
But you also need to have some electronics and some software that's gonna drive all those as well. So we do all that in-house. We do our own software design. We have our own machine shop, so CNC, and basically it allows us to do precision manufacturing. It allows us to do our own prototyping. If you kind of take a look at a lot of the machine shops out there, they're dealing with a lot of high volume. In order to get small quantity volume, small volume prototypes through, you usually get pushed to the bottom of the list. So to have that capability in-house really helps us along in terms of innovating and moving the products forward. We also do our own production, so shop floor, warehouse. We have the machine shop. We do global logistics. We don't outsource any of that.
Then we have our quality team that takes care of it all. Skilled labor force. If you kind of take a look at the type of work we do, it's just not anybody that can do these kind of these type of functions. We're also ISO certified. Key customers, as you can imagine, when you look around the world, a lot of, a lot of increase in this capability post 9/11. So when you kind of take a look at who our customer base is, this is one interesting product that spans both military and law enforcement. A lot of the standard operating procedures in bomb disposal are common between both. A bomb is a bomb is a bomb, and the way you approach it and the way you deal with it is fairly common.
So we deal with a lot of major state police departments, federal agencies, US Department of State. We have a contract there that does a lot of gifting programs, for external customers that are building up capability. Same with the United Nations. There's a lot of missions abroad, third world countries, gifting programs through the United Nations in order to build up those capabilities in those countries. From a market perspective, as I've been talking about, we've got the EOD market. So, you know, that's the bomb disposal. That's where we came from. But as robots became more prevalent in other missions, we really saw a niche market in this area for us to address the needs of SWAT teams and tactical teams as well. So how do we take our technology and innovate it to different capabilities and different functions as well?
That's where we've had a lot of our success and a lot of our growth in terms of the number of robots that we've put out into the field. I wanna take a look at ICOR. Why were they a target for myself, and why did I bring that to the Cadre team? A lot of it is reputational. When you kind of take a look at them, robots are robots. A lot of them have distinct features, but a lot of them are similar. What makes ICOR different than the other companies that are out there? And a lot of it is based on excellent customer service. I'm gonna highlight that we've got a 24/7 emergency call line. And why is that important? One, we operate internationally.
If our call center was 8:00 to 4:00 Eastern Standard Time and an international customer called up, nobody, nobody would be answering the phone. More importantly, you know, here in New Jersey, there's a call, there's a suspicious device. It's 1:00 A.M. The bomb squad deploys. They turn on the robot. And with anything electronics, you know, you, you, you, you've got computers, you've got your laundry. Every time you have an issue, you have to call 1-800 and you talk, they talk you through and you get your machine running again. Imagine being on a call, you get your robot out, and there's something malfunctioning on your robot. I've got two options. I call and hopefully they pick up the phone, or I put the robot away, I put a bomb suit on, and I put myself at risk and go downrange.
So having that 24/7 capability, you know, when we talk about together we save lives, it's really to make sure that when you're downrange and you're doing something, somebody's on the other end of the phone that's gonna help you troubleshoot your robot so you can put a robot downrange versus a human life. Ease of use. There's a lot of complicated technology out there, and then there's a lot of simple technology. How do we build a very capable machine that meets the requirements of the teams while making it simple to function? If you look at U.S. Department of State, United Nations, we're talking about third world countries, not very educated, not very experienced.
How do we put a capability in their hands that they can pick up and have very easy terms where I can turn it on, I can drive it, I can manipulate with it, and it's not that technical and it's easy to learn? Ease of use is a lot important because a lot of the operators that we see, sometimes bomb disposal is a secondary task for them. So they might be a firefighter, but then when there's a call, they put on their bomb suit and they go do the bomb response. That means they're not working with this equipment on a regular basis. So if I'm not doing EOD training or bomb disposal training for months at a time, I need to be able to pick that robot off the shelf after three months and still be very proficient on it.
So that's where the ease of use comes in. We're known for quality and reliability, but I think the biggest thing for me when I kind of look at the market space, we've got a very capable robot that's competitively priced and very cost-effective. That's where we, we, we've hit our sweet spot is making sure we understand what our competitors are doing, where they're priced in the market, and making sure that we've got a good package that can meet the needs at a price they can afford because budgets are tight. When you kind of look at law enforcement budgets and military budgets, we need to make sure that we can meet their needs and fit within their budget envelopes. Robots aren't only the only things we do.
If you kind of take a look at the response vans here, there's a lot of equipment that feeds into the back of these. So I'm gonna talk today about our robot portfolio, but just for awareness, we also do what's called a hook and line kit. So robots can't get everywhere. So if the robot can't get everywhere, then I need to go do something. So there's a capability called semi-remote. So remote is robot, semi-remote is I go down. If I'm dealing with a car bomb and I need to access that car, the last thing I wanna do is put my hand on the car door, pull it open, and keep my fingers crossed.
So hook and line is a bunch of different tools, clamps, carabiners, ropes, pulleys, and those kind of things that allows me to go to the car, set up a certain device on the door handle, go back a safe distance, pull a rope, the door opens, and if something was to go bad, I'm still at a safe distance back. So a key component when I can't get a robot downrange, I need a hook and line kit. If I'm dealing with a suspicious device, I need to find it first before I can neutralize it. So stealth search equipment, that's where that comes in. I need to search for the device. I need to find it, call the bomb squad in, they take care of it.
And then there's an array of cables and reels and tools that kind of help the operators out as well. So ICOR is able to do all those in order to help fill the back of these response vehicles. I'm gonna talk a little bit, you know, Brad said innovation is the goal here. So I'm gonna do a little bit of a trip down memory lane where we're at today and then where we're looking to the future because it's a really interesting story of how ICOR came to market. The first time they came to market and they stood up in 2005, they didn't release their first robot until 2008. And why is that? So three years.
I remember the first trade show ICOR ever went to, and I was attending, and I walked by their booth, and all they had was a table with a survey and a suggestion box. And that was kind of the start. What does the end user want? What does the end user need? And where are the gaps in current technology that maybe we can get a differentiator and we can get a step up? So the first robot they brought to market was the Mark 3. And it's an EOD robot. It's mainly for bomb disposal operations. It's just under 200 pounds. It's what we call a medium-sized robot. There's three key attributes that we came to market on that were different than what other competitors were, were pushing out. First of all, it was the first robot that had two arms. So why is two arms important?
I can go downrange with a claw on the end of an arm. I can open a door. I can go in. I can move furniture. I can pull a carpet. I can do all these things. But when I find the device, I don't have any tools to neutralize it. So by having two arms, I can go downrange with a claw to manipulate and do what I have to do. But I also have on board what we see with these tubes right here, which are what we call water jet disruptors. So basically, this is mad explosively driven water that shoots into a device and rips it all apart so that the components get separated before a signal goes from a battery to a blasting cap.
So by having the tools downrange, I can now do those two missions with one trip downrange versus having to bring the robot back, reconfigure it, and then push it back downrange again. So that was the first innovation. Second one I wanna talk about is two-way audio communications. So if you think about a response, first thing that happens is the patrol policeman is on the ground. He goes in and they evacuate the area. They wanna make sure that there's nobody in that area when a device is there in case it goes off. Or if I'm taking a positive action on a device and something goes wrong, nobody's in the danger radius. However, people hide in their basements. They hide in closets. They wander into the area.
So two-way communications allows me to communicate with those innocent bystanders and get them into a safe area while the mission's going on. That was new to the market. And then the third was a three-speed transmission. So why is this important? Well, if you kind of think about it, if I'm driving a robot near a device, I wanna be going really slow. But if I'm 700 yards away and I need to drive a very slow robot 700 yards, we're wasting a lot of time on target. And two things could happen. I could have a timer device. So I'm on a countdown and at some point that device is gonna go off. So speed is definitely important. The other side is every time you close off a city center or an area and you evacuate, people get nervous.
So the whole mantra of bomb squads is how quickly can I return that area safe back to the community? So the least amount of time on target, you know, takes care of those two things. So by creating a robot that has a chain drive versus electrical and motors and whatnot, I can have different speeds. And these different speeds means I can drive fast downrange. And as I approach the device, I stop, change gears, go into slow mode because now I wanna be delicate with the actions that I'm taking. So the Mark 3 first robot to the market, you know, released those kind of three things. And that's what kind of created ICOR's little buzz within the marketplace. And that got us going. Then we started looking at other applications and what other markets we can go into.
So we came up with what we call a small-sized robot, our T5, about 150 lbs. For those online, we're on slide number 24 right now. So this is a dual-purpose robot for both bomb disposal and for tactical SWAT. And some of the key attributes here was as robots became more prevalent on the marketplace, tactical teams were looking, why am I sending somebody on the other side of a wall when I don't know what's there? So how do I send eyes and ears on the other side of the wall before I put a human life at risk in there? So in came, you know, the T5. Very capable robot. It's got an arm on it. It's got a claw. The claw can open doors.
It can get into those areas and do the things that it needs to do and see the things that it needs to do before that team enters into that area. Some of the innovations here was, you know, similar length of the footprint of the robot, but we made it a lot narrower. Why did we make it narrower? Because you'd kind of look at buses, airplanes, and those types of vessels where, you know, there's not a whole lot of area in the aisle. So a different footprint than the Mark 3 for a different application. As we all know, when you get on an airplane, you know, the aisles are fairly narrow, but where do things get stored? They get stored up top. So now I need reach. How am I gonna get some reach?
So, introduce the telescopic arm, reaches just under 9 ft in order to be able to access the overhead bins. Why do I wanna access the overhead bins? I wanna search them to make sure they're clear. Or if I find a device, I can either shoot it with a water jet disruptor or I could pick it up and I can take it off that airplane, take it to a safe removal place without putting a human life at harm. So those were the key aspects of the robot. We also included two-way communications, but for a very different reason. Two-way communications now, if I'm dealing with a SWAT response and I've got an active shooter or a hostage situation, I can now send a robot in to negotiate with that person and speak through the robot to that person versus sending in a negotiator.
So same technology, different application as the markets have changed and we see the different requirements. As time goes by, what we're seeing on the tactical side is T5 is great. It's a little bit bigger. It's a little bit more robust. It's a two-man lift. How do I get a small package that's a one-man portable backpack under my arm so that it's easily to deploy and I can get some results? So out came the Mini. So, you know, lower price point, so it's a lot more affordable so that you can distribute it to many different squads, but still very capable. A lot of competition in this area, but a lot of the competition in this area don't have a robot that comes with an arm or the arm comes as an accessory.
So the robot's great if you put it on the other side of the wall, but if there's a door to open, how do you access? So we made sure that, you know, these kind of things were standard in the offerings that what we put forward. NTOA, National Tactical Officers Association, they member tested and they recommend this robot to all the tactical teams that are members there. So that was a key marketing side for us. Get member tested and member recommended, and that's where a lot of the growth has come from. Also, the first robot where we started looking at presets. So if I'm gonna climb stairs, I gotta configure the robot to climb stairs so that it doesn't fall over, it doesn't roll over, and it don't compromise the technology that I have.
So, you know, you kind of look at a smaller-sized robot, 64 pounds. You think about stairs, right? If I've got a smaller footprint, it's gonna be harder to manipulate and manage those obstacles, going over a curb, climbing over a bunch of pallets, those kind of things. So how do we have a small robot that can expand its footprint in order to manage those situations? So if you kind of take a look on the 4 corners, you've got these flippers that can extend out as required and then fold back in when they need to. And it does 2 things. One, it extends the footprint to make climbing stairs a lot easier, managing curbs, those kind of things.
But also, if I'm gonna manipulate and grab something, it's gonna also increase my center of mass, my footprint, so that I'm a lot more stable when I'm starting to pull and push on things. So this robot here, the CALIBER Mini through the market, the SWAT side, we were extremely surprised on how it took up. And now that's created a whole new area for us to play in. So very, very happy with the success of the mini. So next thing, we've got a medium, we've got a small, and we've got a Mini. What's missing from the portfolio? And what's really missing from the portfolio is the workhorse. So on slide 26, we're looking at the T4. T4 is the largest robot in the portfolio, 770 pounds. So there's a reason why it's that big.
If you kind of take a look at car bombs, mainly designed, developed to address vehicle-borne IEDs. And what's so different about them? Well, you need a very capable arm 'cause you need to go in a window, you need to go into the floor wells of the vehicle. I need to get into the trunk. I need to get into the glove box. So I need a very dexterous arm that can do all those things. Once the arm is in the vehicle, though, I need a strong weight to offset at the back so that, you know, the arm doesn't flip the vehicle over.
The other thing in a car bomb situation is the last action you always do is you pull the car the length of the vehicle to make sure that, one, the wheels turn, two, there's nothing under the vehicle that you missed. So you also need a very strong, capable robot to be able to drag a car and push a car. So the innovation that we saw here was, okay, so I've got the two-arm version, which is weapons and claw. But once my claw goes into that vehicle, I lose eyes from all the different cameras that are giving me situational awareness on the robot. So we introduced a third arm that you see here with a pan-tilt-zoom camera that can enter the vehicle along with the arm and gives you overview of what you're looking at.
So I get a very precise view from the claw camera, which is only looking at a specific area. But how do I know what configuration my arm is in? How do I know what else is in that vehicle? So that was one of the key innovations here. The other innovation with this vehicle was our 3D real-time touchscreen. So moving with technology instead of, you know, rubber buttons to push, you know, touchscreen. And then when we talk about 3D, once that arm is inside of a vehicle, I don't know what angles the arm pieces are at. I don't know what angle the claw's at.
So on the screen of the command control station, I actually have an avatar of the vehicle itself that shows me what angle all the different articulations are at so that when I push, pull, move, I know that I'm gonna hit something or, you know, I'm gonna remove the arm from the vehicle and it's not gonna get caught on anything and tug that vehicle. Last thing you wanna do when you're dealing with devices is make some movements that are gonna change, you know, the type. Depends on the switching within the device you're dealing with. There's a thing called a Mercury tilt switch. So if the vehicle tilts and moves and the Mercury moves in a certain way, it connects the electrical connection, and then it's a bad day all along.
So I don't want to be moving that vehicle and touching that vehicle with the arm when it's inside or when I'm approaching it. So knowing the configuration of the arm at all times becomes very, very important. So some of the innovations there. So these were the legacy robots that ICOR built over time. So that's kind of the trip down memory lane that I talked about. And if I kind of move to slide 27, where are we at today? So the latest robot that we've brought to the market is what we call the Flex. So why do we call it Flex? Because it's a flexible robot that's 250 pounds. It's between a medium size and a large size. And why is that important? Because budgets, you know, are tight.
A lot of squads can't afford to buy two robots, a small one and a large one. So how do you get that hybrid robot that can do a lot of the large vehicle tasks and missions while maintaining a certain footprint? So that's where the Flex came in. So the size was very important in our design considerations. The other side of this is we really went to what we call a smart robot. We moved from analog operating systems to a digital operating system. And moving to digital now allows us to put so much more software and capability into these platforms. And with Flex, now we've designed and developed the architecture that we're gonna be able to carry on in future design and developments as well. What does it allow me to do?
Well, if I kind of take a look at it, when I'm using water jets, you know, it's not like a bullet coming out of a gun. That water that gets shot out doesn't go very far. It's effective in a short distance, but not a long distance. So I need to be as close to as possible to that device without touching it. So now I can put software in that allows me to gauge the distance of my water cannons in terms of the package that I'm approaching. It allows me to create, what we call presets. So if I want to set a preset where the arm will configure itself for a water jet shot, I can create that preset, hit preset number one, and the robot automatically will configure itself into that position.
For stair climbing, preset for stair climbing, I hit stair climbing, the robot configures itself to climb those stairs. So I can have those inputted by ourselves at the factory or end users can create their own presets as well, and we can set it up that way. The other thing that the operating platform does for us, when I'm on a mission, I go down range, I do what I have to do with the robot. I've got a lot on my mind. I got a lot of things to do. Last thing I wanna do is, you know, have to spend time manipulating the robot, packing it up, and everything else. I can just hit a home button, the robot folds itself back up, and it's ready to kind of put away. So all these technologies and softwares allow us to do these kind of things.
Then one of the things we're seeing in the marketplace is, you know, the gray-haired operators like myself are all retiring at this point in time. And who's coming in to replace them? The Nintendo generation, right? So, you know, you kind of take a look at Nintendo controllers, Bluetooth controllers. That's what a lot of these techs grew up on. So if they already have the dexterity of a Nintendo controller, how do we apply it to this robot so that when they come on board and start playing with it, they already know the controller down pat? Now they just have to understand and correlate what each button and action does within the robot. I kind of take a look at my two boys. I'm old school. I'll deal with the command control station. I grew up in the joystick era.
I'll use the joystick and the buttons. My kids, they'll pick up that Nintendo and they'll have that robot dancing and singing much quicker than I ever would. So those are some of the innovations with the current Flex that we put out to the market, and we're seeing a huge pickup on this robot. It's one of our best sellers at this point in time as well. But purely an EOD bomb disposal robot to do the missions that we've been talking about. So I think, you know, where we came from, strong, strong reputation for ICOR. We've got a market-leading product now in the Flex. And then there's also the future, right? So where are we going next?
And if you kind of take a look at where robotics are going, there's a lot of technology-based, and it all comes down to that operating system and the architecture. What we're seeing is a change in the robot market space where it's less about the mechanical attributes of the robots. It's more about the capabilities and what you can do with the software. And there's a whole bunch of buzzwords like GIS mapping, fly the claw, all those kind of things where it's all software-based, but those are what we're starting to see on, on some of the end users' requirements. And, and the market's shifting. We've got a very capable team that knows these kind of things and is kind of moving those directions as well. So common digital operating system, so the architecture, we developed it with Flex.
We're gonna be applying it to future, but it allows us to network our robots when they're down range. If I've got multiple robots deployed, they can talk to each other. So now I know I'm gonna take a positive action in sector A. Is sector B in a safe zone? Yes or no before I take that positive action. If I need to share video streams, if I need to share images, I can do that through them. If a robot and communications only gets me so far in terms of the distance that radio will speak, I can use a robot as a repeater station and double the distance that the robots can go down range. You kind of take a look at it as not just bomb disposal, but like a whole response.
You might have a couple of SWAT teams out there doing perimeter security with small robots. Typically, you know, a bomb maker, a trigger man needs to be fairly close and in proximity. So they can be looking at the crowds that are gathering and trying to track that person and find that person and sharing that information through the other robots as well back to the command station. So a lot on the ecosystem of multiple network robots and the architecture we put into the Flex allows us to do that. AI, machine learning, vision processing, you know, big buzzwords in the technology today. But if you kind of think of robotics, it makes a lot of sense. So, you know, picture this. I'm driving down range and through vision processing, the robot sees a door handle.
We all know that there's 100 different types of door handles, but the robot can now recognize the type of door handle that it's gonna come up against. Through AI, it can look and say, okay, that door handle requires me to configure, you know, the robot arm and the claw to be able to approach it at this angle and grab onto it a certain way. Machine learning, you know, I've opened it 5x, 10x, 15x . I've learned each time. Now I know how I need to turn the door handle in order for it to open and what angle I need to be in order to pull it. So the robot's gonna start learning from, you know, it's different. So that's real today. It exists.
So, you know, these are the kind of things that we're looking to the future and saying, hey, we need to keep up. You know, as we said, ease of use, you know, let the robot do the work for us, right? We're also kind of looking at optimized driver assistance technology. Big words to basically say, how does the robot become autonomous in certain situations or what we call semi-autonomous? So how do I load the robot up with sensors so that if I'm climbing stairs and the robot senses that its center of gravity is off, the robot itself reconfigures and makes the changes it needs to avoid tumbling down that stair? So the robot senses that, hey, I need to extend the claw further up because I'm a little light in the front and too heavy in the back. So the robot starts doing that.
The other piece, you know, GIS mapping. So where did that robot go? Well, that robot went here, there, here, and I can pin it on my screen so that I know that, hey, the robot cleared this safe passage for us to go, and we're gonna stick to that route and stick to that route only. And I can now share that with multiple different end users. I could also get to the point and say, hey, now I know where the device is. I hit a button, it records the GPS coordinates of the device, and that helps me with geolocating, and I can share that information. The big thing for me as a former operator is I finished my task, and now it's time for me to deal with other things. I need to deal with the on-site police. I need to deal with the commander.
I need to start, you know, moving the area back to safety and start repopulating that area. Last thing I wanna do is spend my time driving that robot back the 700 yards I talked about earlier. So because I mapped my track in, I just hit home. That vehicle turns around and it drives itself back to the command vehicle while I start dealing with other things. These technologies exist. They're, you know, just, they're new on the marketplace, but we're really looking at how we implement these into our future products. So, you know, as I said, trip down memory lane, what got us to where we need to be. We've got an excellent platform as we speak, but we're not gonna stop there. There's definitely a future if we wanna stay relevant. Where we fit into Cadre.
So I wanted to kind of share this because, you know, you take a look at a response management and, you know, talk about collaboration with, you know, Cadre capabilities. Phone call, somebody says, hey, I think there's a bomb, help. So the first people on scene, you've got your patrol officer shows up, they start doing perimeter security. They're geared up with all the Safariland gear. They've got TCI for comms. You know, they're using Cyalume Technology to mark different areas off. You know, there's a big capability there within Cadre. All of a sudden, we realize it's, you know, there's, there's, there's something in Building X. So I need to send the tactical team in to figure out what's going on in Building X. So all of a sudden, the tactical team goes in with a HyperX. You know, there's a Med-Eng TAC 6 suit there.
There's an ICOR Mini. They go in, and all of a sudden, they find out they're dealing with an explosive device. So now they got an explosive device. Now we need to render it safe. So now Med-Eng comes in with its equipment. I don't know other companies out there that have this amount of capability within one OEM to be able to do all this stuff. So I think from a product integration opportunity, Med-Eng, Safariland, ICOR, Defense Technology, there's huge opportunity for interoperability. Commercial opportunities, we're already leveraging Med-Eng and ICOR channel partners and our channels to market. I think with Safariland, our channels to the tactical SWAT market are definitely increased, and it gives us the opportunity for some combined marketing initiatives. Brad talked a lot about the operating model. Internally, there's a lot of opportunities as well.
We're really looking forward to, you know, changing our culture to continuous improvement, using the tools to make us more effective and more efficient. Synergies with R&D. You look at the capabilities we have here. How do we put it into other products within the Cadre portfolio? Common supplier base. And because most of these businesses are in the Ottawa area, we're just a stone's throw down the road. So how do we leverage shared services, finance, IT, HR, those kind of things so that, you know, we can make sure that we've got standardization across the businesses, but we also don't need to invest in individual teams in each of those different businesses as well. So just to summarize, you know, you can see there's a broad portfolio of different robots for different tasks and different applications.
Definitely a forward-looking R&D team looking at how do we remain competitive within the future. We're definitely cognizant of end user requirements. That's what has driven all of our development programs, but really need to continue to focus on ease of use. And if you kind of take a look at the world today, the world's firing back up again. You've got Ukraine, you've got Gaza. You know, there's definitely some conflicts there that are gonna need some of these capabilities, and we're already working with some partners on that front. But as I showed on the last slide, there's a lot of key opportunities with Cadre as well. So on that note, thank you very much. I'd like to open it up for some questions. First with the hand up here.
For the future for ICOR, when you think about the connected system open architecture, is the goal to make it open to any robotics or just ICOR?
So it can be open to any, like most of these systems are, OEM agnostic. So, you know, I had a one bullet up there that talked about customer-based IP radios. So we can have the robot communicate to an officer's radio. We could have somebody's body camera now networked into the robots. Like there, there's that opportunity. So not just on the robot side, but with a lot of the other technologies as well. So.
Then also too, for robotics, comms, all the computing space, how quickly that market changes, how does that complement or work with the Cadre operating model where you have the time gates first, you need to prove a market out, but that market might not exist, but you need to do the R&D today?
Yeah. So always a challenge. We see it in some of the other businesses that I have as well. By the time you design it, technology has moved forward. So that means that on the team, you need to have some very smart individuals that are keeping up with technologies, understand these, and are spending time with academia.
You know, when you kind of take a look at, you know, some of the platforms we play in, we spend a lot of time with R&D groups that are looking like 5-10 years out so that we understand the technologies of the future so that we can be incorporating them earlier in the process. But it does mean you have to, to, to resource up differently, component engineers, sustaining engineers, because unlike armor or bomb suits, you know, the, the material technology lasts a lot longer than electronics and software. So the model becomes a little bit different and you need to make sure you have the resources to be able to support that.
Thank you.
How bomb resistant is the ICOR, is the ICOR product itself?
So bombs are very, very different in nature.
You could have big ones, small ones, you could have ones with fragmentation, you could have ones with no fragmentation. So it's a very, very difficult question to answer. We do have what we call the Purple Heart Club. It's similar to the SAVES Club where every time a robot has taken a hit versus an end user. And we've got, you know, some customers who have come to us with stories that took a hit, just like your Timex watch, you know, takes a licking, keeps on ticking, and keeps going through. I think it comes down to the size of, like you said, the size of the device and how you hit it and what are the components of that device. Try and build in the max. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. So.
I think he was first. Yeah.
Thanks.
So, I just wanted to circle back if we could to kind of the software-centric component because it seems like we're at a place now where you have to keep innovating the robots, but you're a little bit more focused on software. So just wondering your strategy around that, how that plays into the whole AI theme. Yeah. And when we get potentially to where the robots can be more autonomous.
Absolutely. So you saw some of the key areas we're looking at for things like this, there's autonomous functions that you can incorporate. So I want the robot to drive here and then stop. And then at that point, I'll take it over.
If I'm gonna do a positive action on a device, there has to be a man in the loop, because you don't fire weapons where the robot decides, hey, I'm good to go, because you just don't know. So you always have to have a man in the loop. So that piece will never leave. What we're trying to do is implement new software that makes it easier for the operator to use, make the robot smart. You know, we've already on Flex incorporated what we call anti-collision software. So the robot will not do harm to itself based on the load and where it's going. So all of these things aren't necessarily to make a world where you don't need people like myself in my previous role anymore. You will always need that.
But how do we make it easier for the person to use, more capable, and let's see how smart we can make the robot, but you still need that human interface.
With the shift to software over the mechanical, does that, as you add capability, does that allow for additional revenue on that same robot, or does it make the customer wanna buy the better robot, you know, in two years, three years?
Both. As you can see from our customer base, you've got very uneducated, low level of experience, third world country operators that probably won't need or use that level of technology. And then you'll have others. So you can have your base level robot that does the base necessities.
And then as you see more, more sophisticated customers come along, that's where those become like a, a plus up in terms of your pricing. So some will come with the base capability at a certain price point, but as you can layer these on, you can go command a higher price point as well.
I would just add, I would just add that, you know, as we get into additional software opportunities, it, it does open that recurring revenue stream for us, just from having a software background at, at one point, support maintenance, becomes an element of that. And then also just upgrades that can be pushed out, to robots to give additional technology and, and upgrades versus like a mechanical upgrade, which can be much more difficult.
So, you know, whether it's ICOR, Med-Eng that Rob leads, or other businesses we have, you know, this, this really gives us that opportunity to do that.
Just a couple of questions. So first, about the military theater, how well tested are these robots for electromagnetic warfare?
Yeah. So good question. My background was military, and, you know, a lot of times where we have jamming capabilities prevalent, I can't drive my robot off of an RF signal. So there are some systems that we have where you tether the robot and you operate them off of fiber optic. So the robot will go downrange and you'll maintain all the capability you have, but you'll be tethered versus working RF.
Without going into how jammers work and all that, there's other things that you can do with jammers to reserve a frequency so that you don't take away the capability of certain products. But, you know, usually you need clearances to know a little bit more about those kind of things.
Are any of these operating in the Ukraine-Russia battle today?
Yes, we have delivered some robots to Ukraine, and that's definitely a growth area for us as well.
And I guess, just a second question, whether it's military theater or police agencies, we're seeing the use of drones pick up quite dramatically. That's gonna be true over the next 3-5 years for sure. How do you think about your robots operating within a drone setting?
Yeah, absolutely.
When I kind of talk about that ecosystem, and the architecture that's allowing them to be networked together, you know, we're starting to see drones not necessarily take over, but, you know, for me to deploy a robot out of the back of the vehicle, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of effort. It's a big chunk of material. If I can fly a drone over and say, yes, I have a device, I have to deal with it, go get the robot, or, yeah, no, we're good. All we need is an X-ray and we can go pick it up and take it away. You know, the robot is just complement, or the, the UAV becomes complementary to that. The drone becomes another tool in the toolbox that helps, you know, with that situation, with that tasking.
So I think more and more you're gonna see, you know, there was a concept I saw once where you had this, this, this larger robot that had drones on it, and the robot could deploy the drones as required on behalf of the, so I, I just think, you know, as technology goes on, you're gonna start seeing more and more interaction between drones, robots, and human interface. It could be one or the other. It depends.
Yeah, it depends.
Yeah. And there's different ways to do it. We could partner, we could acquire, we could develop the, the, the capability internally. At the end of the day, you know, mechanical engineers and electronics engineers putting software together. Yeah.
And keep in mind, Rob, you'd mentioned the word military and, you know, the ICOR business, you know, when you look at the product roadmap that Rob walked through, we top out, you know, there's military robots beyond, right? So our top robots, $400,000, if I remember right. When you get up in the $1 million plus robots, that's when you get into the, the large military contracts, which is not what we're playing. You know, we feel like there's enough runway within what we just walked through between EOD and, and SWAT or tactical teams like Rob walked through before you even get into the military side. So we're gonna continue to build out around that. And also the EOD bomb suit business is, is really where our strategy's at. Probably have time for one more question. Just a quick one. Yeah, Ron.
Who are the biggest competitors for you? Like, is it FLIR Endeavor or who, who do you bump into?
Yeah. So the robot market, you know, it keeps growing because you see a lot of people moving into that space because a lot of talk about robotics. Certain companies spend a lot of their time in the different markets. When you look at the military market, that's where you see a lot of the FLIR Endeavor. Mind you, that's kind of a long path and a long pursuit in order to get a large prize at the end of it. So you're usually competing against three or four within that. We're not that company that's gonna spend a ton of money pursuing something over a 10-year period to be one of five that might, you know, get the contract at the end of it.
We think that there's enough space where we're at on the law enforcement side, United Nations, where, you know, the flash to bang in terms of the procurement process is a lot quicker and less complex. And a lot of it's more off the shelf technology that already exists versus a military program where you're actually building and designing to their end requirements. So, you know, the needs are more outside of your own hands versus internal development.
So who are your competitors? Like, if we're just.
Our competitors definitely FLIR and their Endeavor, ICP. You know, there's a couple of homegrown robots in Spain, Aunav, another one in Poland that get a lot of federal funding to build up. Telerob in Germany is a good competitor in both military and law enforcement as well.
Thank you.
Yeah, you're welcome.
Thanks for the question, Ron.
All right. I think that's it, from an ICOR perspective. So thank you, Rob. Appreciate the EOD overview there. And I don't know that Rob mentioned it. He talked about his background. Rob is an ex Canadian EOD tech. So if you wonder how the heck did he amass so much knowledge in this space. So he's actually lived this side of things. Okay. So what we're gonna go into now, and we're a little bit ahead of schedule, but we're gonna keep it that way. So we continue to have the webcast going. Blaine and I'll be here to answer any questions that you guys may have around anything that you heard already, and we can field it with other folks in the room or anything else about Cadre that we didn't cover that you're curious about.
Any difficult question, we're gonna send those to Blaine 'cause he's got on body armor. He's fully protected. So you guys can zing those at him. But we'll open the floor up and then we'll finish up and we'll be ahead of schedule, which is good for those that are on site because that means you get more time to play, which we feel like is, based on the feedback we've been hearing is what you guys really wanna do. So we'll take questions now. Any questions in general about Cadre?
Thanks. For all of the opportunities for Alpha Safety, for bolt-ons, where do they need to be in the Cadre operating model for you guys to pursue it and say, okay, we have the core in place, now we can bolt on?
Yeah. So with Alpha Safety specifically, you're referencing, right? On the nuclear side.
Okay. So yeah, and we had some questions last night at dinner around Alpha Safety. So here's the way we look at Alpha and nuclear at the moment, right? So we acquired Alpha. We've got a really good funnel that we acquired. There's about 100 targets in that funnel. And what we've been spending time doing as an M&A group is going through that funnel and starting to filter out what we wanna set aside for now. First things we're filtering out and setting aside are service-type companies. Doesn't mean we won't acquire service companies in the nuclear space. We wanna stick with widget companies. We're innovators, we're manufacturers. We wanna focus there first. So that's being pulled and set aside in the funnel.
Second category of acquisitions that we're now looking at are obviously widget companies, but we're also looking for a footprint that would be internationally based. Okay. So we take the Alpha capabilities we have today, which are all U.S.-based. There's four facilities in Alpha in the U.S. Really good products, highly engineered, really good market share within what they're doing. But a footprint outside of that will then complement the strategy that we liked within Alpha, which is to also expand within the U.K., which is one of their target countries, with all the work that goes on in Sellafield, which is a U.K. disposal facility. And then also the other target that we talked about, I think we've talked about is Fukushima. So with both of those, especially with the U.K. starting now, we're gonna need a footprint as we go forward and do more work there.
So we've looked at those acquisitions to see if they have footprints in Europe so that then we begin to pull those up in the funnel and focus on those. So if we do that, we'll begin to scale Alpha beyond that. And then there's some smaller nichier type companies within nuclear. I went to the biggest show of the year two weeks after we closed on Alpha called the Waste Management Symposium. And, you know, just smaller close-knit industry. So I could see all four walls of the show, which is kind of different compared to what I'm used to. But there's a lot of different really good innovative companies out there, but smaller in nature. So once we get the scale with Alpha Plus, let's call it, that gives us the ability to then go back in and add these bolt-ons to it.
That's the way we're gonna approach it. That's where we're going at, at the moment. You're welcome. What else? Yeah, Larry. Yeah.
Just, just following up on the Alpha one, you, you guys said it's like a $3 billion market. I asked you this last night, but how much today can your products address? How much of that market can you address and do you need additional? Obviously, you're looking for additional products, but what? Yeah. Can you give us a little more color on that?
Yeah. That's, as I said last night, that's a little tough question for us at the moment. So we did a bunch of research, as, as we, you know, we have in a bunch of in-markets, in vertical markets. And nuclear was one.
We spent a bunch of time and dollars to really figure out that we want to go play in that space. And I know you've heard me tell the same thing a little bit last night, but this is the backstory for the rest of the group. So, you know, with that, what we've done is part of that market research was to give us the market sizings, that $3 billion-$6 billion that we've talked about, out there. And what we're doing, we have one of our M&A resources, Zach, that's working on taking all the Oliver Wyman information and then digging down into which product categories make up the three, which product categories make up the six.
And then once we have that information, we're gonna then start saying, you know, is it really $3 billion-$6 billion or is it $3 billion-$4 billion or is it $2 billion-$3 billion as we begin to hone in and really get our head around nuclear even deeper than what we have so far at this point. We love the macros, the three that we've always talked about, but now it's time for us to, you know, dig deeper and deeper and deeper to make sure we can identify which product categories go with that range. Yeah, Jeff.
Just wanted to kind of follow up on that. As far as the, maybe you can, you can speak a little more to the strategy for internal or organic innovation at Alpha, kind of where your focus is at this moment. Obviously you're looking at a lot of acquisitions too.
Yeah. So the focus at this moment with Alpha, I'll just say in general, and the word innovation on the end of that is integration. Okay. Step one, we have to stay very true to the operating model. If you haven't figured that out yet, we're pretty disciplined folks in, in the room. So that can be kind of boring 'cause we talk about the same stuff. But also hopefully you get a consistency there. So operating model is the first step. Okay. Actually, the first step is our first 100 and 120 days, which we talk about, which is immediately out of the gates, which is most of the stuff that, that, falls directly under Blaine, which is finance, accounting, tax, legal, compliance, all that fun stuff.
Well, not really, but, you know, all that stuff, right, that we do that Blaine and, and his team are absolutely phenomenal at. So that's step one. We are pretty close as of the last call. We do an integration call every week with the Alpha Safety team and Blaine's team. And the team then rolls up an update to me that says, here's where we're at with all that. Here's how we're doing. Here's where we need help. Here's maybe where we're behind. And things have been going really well with the Alpha Safety integration from that perspective. So that's number one. The second phase of that is then the Cadre operating model piece. And we're a little ahead of schedule there because the Alpha team is, I would call it a, a pretty sophisticated team that we acquired, which is great in terms of the management team.
So we brought in, brought in about nine of their leadership team. I guess it's been about a month ago now into a Cadre operating model bootcamp where we focused on the fundamental tools for one week with their team. And so that got them up to speed. It got them energized. They left excited. And they're implementing daily management, which is in all their facilities right now. So that's their first step. Second step, which we'll have, it's actually already scheduled. I saw it on the schedule. First monthly business review with them. We hired a finance resource that is from a familiar company that is actually in Golden, that's part of the team now that we have on board.
And she's working with them to show them how to do MBRs, monthly business reviews, how to do the financial side of things, et cetera, et cetera, to take their training and put it into action. Then the third piece that they owe a plan in the next three weeks is 80/20. So where are we at with 80/20? What's in quad four? I could spend all day on that and then figure out where do we go from there with 80/20. So that's our roadmap, guys. Any of those questions, I'll always answer it that way 'cause that's who we are and that's what we do. Yes.
As a follow-up to that, how does the integration with ICOR differ just being a smaller bolt-on rather than the full platform?
Love it 'cause there is a difference when you look at it.
Blaine, you wanna talk about that one since I've been answering all those?
Sure.
I was gonna let you handle it.
You know, every integration's completely different based on the business itself. You know, with ICOR, they came with a ton of backlog, right? Frankly, longer than desired lead time. So really out of the gates, the focus has been on operation and how we bring that backlog down and really get the lead times back to a normal level. That 120 days though is the same, right? We're still doing the integration on the back office side of the IT finance and accounting. You know, Alpha had a really bigger, more experienced management team. So they're able to tackle the operating model stuff much quicker, right?
We had them out in Jacksonville within the first, what, 60 days to spend time and go through the bootcamp. Brad's talked about it, lowering the operating model. Where with I-Corps, you know, our first priority is customers, right? So the operating model's really important, but if we don't have lead times that satisfy our customer or we have past dues to our customers, you know, that's secondary. Let's make sure we're serving our customers appropriately before we, we go there. So those are kind of the differences. And it's not really driven by the industry. It's more the, you look at the, the business situation, the management team, and then pick and choose. Hopefully that helps.
Yeah. And I would say we just started the, monthly business review tool that you saw in the fundamental section. So Rob, Rob owns, owns I-Corps. It's his responsibility, right?
So EOD, it falls under him. So Rob has done a really good job getting the team up to speed on monthly business reviews and getting those kicked off and getting those started. MBRs are a very, very critical part of staying connected to the businesses so that we understand how things are going. What are we doing to improve? 12-month rolling, productivity funnels, you name it. There's a standard playbook that we have within business review, monthly business reviews. So Rob has taken that step with them. And then the next tool that we'll end up implementing with them is daily management, which the issue or the challenge that that Blaine just talked about with lead times, daily management is a tool that will help begin to alleviate some of that pressure on them.
So, so far out of the gates, we've been using more brute force, I'll call it, instead of using daily management. Rob and his team have now been trained on daily management. We've been implementing daily management within the Med-Eng, bomb suit side companies up in Ottawa. So it's a nice fit where Rob, two miles away down the street, goes right over to that facility and spends time with them leading these tools, implementing them the right way, and creating that culture that Rob talked about around that. Okay. We've got 1 minute, 48 seconds. So what's left? All right. I'll try and leave us on a good one. But, you know, when you think about price, it's been a big part of the story. And, you know, a lot of that feels as if it's been due to you have this very broad customer base.
You know, as we talked about the armor opportunity, you know, very varied pricing across customers. So when you think about that and what that means for Alpha Safety, which just feels a little bit more of a niche market, maybe not as broad of a customer base, do you still see the same pricing opportunity in that nuclear market? Absolutely. The short answer is yes. I mean, different dynamics, right? To your point, there's more customer concentration than we have on the core military and law enforcement side. But, you know, I think it's, I was talking with someone the other night about it. It's extremely common, especially for a smaller business, right? And a lot of times the smaller business is focused either on a top-line goal or a bottom-line goal.
If you're a $20 million business, a $20 million business, and let's say it's, you know, Brad and, Warren and I, we're running the business and we own it. A lot of times they'll set that goal of, hey, we wanna make X, right? And that X at the bottom line allows us to, you know, pay for the vacations, whatever it is that's important to them. What that drives though is a, a fear of loss, right? Because if you're a $20 million business made up of $4 million opportunities, losing one of those is a real problem.
But the challenge, and I think what this operating model does and what we've done with, you know, the Cadre company prior to Alpha and acquisitions is really challenge those and take versus not approach it of, hey, we have to win, but let's talk more about the dynamics of the opportunity where our competitors sit. In a lot of cases, the information's public, right? You know, whether it's pricing information of who won, you can get the information from, you know, your customers, your end users. So kind of collating that information. And it's the same opportunity in Alpha. It's just a little bit smaller, and then also just kind of challenging. And sometimes you have to step out of bounds. And there's a bit of, if you're, if you haven't lost an opportunity, you haven't hit that point, right? So it's kind of challenging.
You don't, maybe you don't wanna lose 50, 50% of the business, but you'll push those opportunities up until the point where you start to feel that tension and then you can adjust it. And there's plenty of ways to grab information that allow you to correlate and not necessarily lose off the, off the bat, but just continue to push up. And it's methodical, as we've talked about, right? It's not, hey, go throw 10% out price out there and see what happens. It's really kind of inching up methodically, understanding the, the dynamics in the environment. But Alpha absolutely has the same opportunity. It's just a more concentrated approach to it. So we started with the operating model and we're gonna close with that. Okay. And for those that can't see, I slipped, I flipped back to slide 5 with the excellence maturity matrix.
You know, on this point of pricing that comes up, that's one thing that's missing from our maturity matrix that we're currently talking about, all right? Which is adding a tool called power pricing is the way we think about it because we keep repeating the playbook over and over and over when we have an acquisition. When we came in here to this company, like it wasn't really being done very well at all. And just that methodology that Blaine just mentioned to think through that, how do you apply pricing? What do you do? Do you bottoms up looking at last history of demand? You name it. I call that power pricing.
So what we're thinking of is adding, so if you see a change at some point, an eighth tool to the fundamental piece because out of the gates, that's where we wanna make sure that we're after, which is making sure that we're optimizing pricing for our value proposition of our products. Okay. All right. So that's it. That is the prepared presentations for today. So, you know, for those that are online on the webcast, really appreciate everyone attending in that time. For those in the room, hang tight. Don't get up and leave. We'll give you guys some directions on what we're doing next. So thank you guys so much for the attention.