01 | Process
Research & Analysis. User Interviews. Specification. Stakeholder Review.
02 | The Challenge
The Actyx team launched their pilot product in 2018. Based on the users feedback, they have decided to bring UX expertise onboard to make a number of changes and improvements to their initial offering.
Actyx product set was designed for factories accounting for a few standard production lines and flows. It was supposed to resolve a number of typical challenges, which many factories are facing daily.
Those challenges included transitioning into a fully digitalised format of work, use of IoT, AI and machine learning to monitor task completion, consumption of materials, production of goods and waste, correct article labelling, control over theft, retention of accurate time records, etc. Actyx planned to deliver a software that would capture, learn and predict causes, occurrence patterns of various faults and delays which impact production flow on a shop floor. However the scope was too big to be delivered at once. And the feedback to the pilot product required action.
At that time the Actyx team did not have an in house expertise in product and experience design. I was asked to review their solution in the Lab environment and onsite, to interview the factory workers and management in a number of UK- and German-based factories, and to recommend a solution.
03 | The Solution
After a few months of intense work, which included extensive travel to the factories, research and study of the manufacturing process and user interviews, the Experience Map for Industry 4.0 was delivered.
This unique document provided the following information:
- View over commonalities and differences between different production lines in the manufacturing process.
- Typical and exceptional user roles within the observed workflows.
- Points and timelines of interaction between the identified user roles
- Flaws within the existing processes, caused by faulty 3rd party software or by absence of relevant software and hardware.
- Flaws within the existing processes which are causing excessive waste of materials and people hours, and which are driving the production costs.
- Flaws within the existing processes, which have occurred as a result of poor communication, collaboration or poorly structured process
- Actionable solutions to the identified issues within the typical manufacturing process.
- Notes and caveats to the proposed solution, specifying how the solution should apply in a case of different manufacturing settings.
The recommended solution contained evidence of the discovered issues, analysis of the issues in terms of their causes, severity, commonality, frequency and effort required to resolve those issues both by the Actyx team and their clients.
It is important to note that solution design is never a one way street. Effort and dedication are required from both the product developer and their customer in order to solve the problems.
04 | Skills & Software
Adobe Creative Suite. Trello. Miro.
Experience & Product Design, Solution Design, Service Design, Information Architecture, UI Design, Research, Ideation and Concept creation.
05 | The Result
The client was very pleased with the depth and extent of the research and the recommended solution. The Experience Map helped the in-house team to understand the problems they have to solve for their customers and outlined the scope of changes and improvements the team has to make in order to deliver the right products.
