Real-time Manufacturing Insight
Overview
The design of the production insight application, addressing the lack of visibility, is crucial for the digital transformation aimed at enhancing manufacturing productivity and overall efficiency. As a UX designer, I collaborated with Hanon Systems, working alongside manufacturing experts, a solution specialist, a project manager, and another designer, to digitize their production system.
Role
User Research
Prototyping
UI Design
Team
Project Manager
1 solution Expert
2 Industry Experts
2 UX designers
Tools
AXURE
SAP BUILD
Challenges
The client wanted to be able to digitally evaluate equipment effectiveness to get better insight into the plant’s performance.
The client wanted a predictive machine maintenance solution to improve maintenance activity scheduling and minimize equipment downtime.
Benefits
Maximize cost efficiency by reducing operational desk work and the time spent moving between shop floors and office buildings. Overall, there is an increase in productivity and efficiency, which helps the client to serve their customers more effectively.
The outcome was the deployment of digital solutions to monitor the real-time performance of the production line and to gain useful insights to enhance productivity.
Human-Centered Design Approach
With the human-centered innovation approach, I went through the entire process, starting from user research, which included a Design Thinking workshop and field research, to the design and user testing phase.
Explore Workshop
I conducted the Explore Workshop with key stakeholders, including:
Chief Information Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer
Vice President of Product Group
Global Manufacturing Planning & Strategy
Manager of Global IT Applications and Global IT Planning
Operations Director and Operations Manager
The goal was to identify current business challenges and priorities for the digitalization of the client’s business and manufacturing systems. I facilitated participatory ideation sessions to conceptualize potential process and UX solutions.
Current Challenges
I moderated one of 5 groups to identify current challenges and stakeholder relations in the current production process. I utilized my proficiency in visualization to help the participants in the group visualize the as-is production process using SAP Scenes, a visual prototyping tool.
Key insights from group exploration of the as-is process
No data accuracy and human error
Lack of data visibility in real time and
Lack of data about machine status
No way to predict machine breakdown
Absence of maintenance knowledge management process
Different levels of automation among plants
See the workshop artifacts
DISCOVER
User Research
After exploring and prioritizing the current business challenges in the Explore Workshop, I conducted field observations at the pilot plant and carried out ten intensive user interviews as part of the user research process.
Field Observations
“The Manual System for Production Management"
"The Manual Management of Machine Downtime”
User Interviews
“The tasks at each level are goal-oriented for product volume, quality, safety and cost reduction, but...”
— Interviewees' common sentiment
Users’ unmet needs and sentiments
Business Development Manager
“We need to reduce manual data gathering and reporting which causes time loss, lack of visibility and inaccuracy from human error.”
Plant Operation Manager
“I need more OEE visibility in one place, and the details of equipment tracking for machine breakdown time minimization”
Maintenance Manager
“Now we rely on the information that people provides, but fact based Maintenance activity management with reliable data is very required.”
Production Manager
“To keep production performance high, I need to manage safety, OEE and quality more efficiently and effectively”
MFG Engineer
“If I can have quick reporting tool for OEE, Scrap from last day/week machine events, it will improve my productivity so much.”
Plant Operation Manager
“Sometimes I face lack of time for desk work because of back and forth between shop floor and office.”
Production Manager
“My schedule is fully booked across shop floors, work centers, and different levels of meeting and thus I have less availability for some issues.”
See who interviewees were
Persona
I identified four target users: an operation manager, a production manager, an operator, and a maintenance engineer. I created personas that include users’ main pains and needs.
What are real problems?
Drawing insights from the workshop and user research, I identified three primary issues in the current production process: data visibility, predictive machine maintenance, and data accuracy.
Lack of Visibility
In-factory workers were limited to manual methods for monitoring the status of machines, which led to delays in maintenance.
Less Productivity
The lack of a predictive system for machine downtime made it challenging to meet production goals.
Less Data Accuracy
Since line and production managers handled production manually, report generation was time-consuming and often resulted in reduced data accuracy.
Goals
How might we increase manufacturing productivity and efficiency by integrating data?
Connect Data
Combine all the data from all production units to get the live machining data and production order data.
Visualize Data
Design a production solution that can help employees monitor the real-time performance of the production lines and gain useful insights to enhance productivity.
Accurate Data
Create a system that ensures data accuracy and generates dashboard instead of analog reports.
Prototyping
What were the solutions?
The initial design underwent multiple iterations with user input. The feedback for the original concept was generally positive, and one significant suggestion involved aligning the visualization of production KPIs with those of the plant's.
Plant Insight
for Operation Managers
Production Insight
for Production Managers
Machine Insight
for Operators
Engineer Assignment App
for Team Leaders
Maintenance Management App
for Maintenance Engineers
The Design Solution
The design principles of the solution for five target users:
Easy to consume: Ensuring the solution is user-friendly and straightforward.
Insightful information: Providing meaningful and relevant data to aid decision-making.
Accessibility of data: Ensuring data is readily available and easy to access for all users.
Plant Insights
Production Insights
Machine Insights
Maintenance Management
A. Plant Insights
Plant Level KPI Dashboard
B. Production Insights
Production KPI Dashboard
Line Downtime List
Machine Downtime List
Machine Insights in Real-time
C. Machine Insights
Dashboard of Machine Status
Downtime History & Manage Downtime
Manage Downtimes & Create a Downtime Report
Create & Downtime Report
User Test
I created a clickable high-fidelity designs prototype and did a virtual user test through SAP BUILD, the cloud-based prototyping and co-design tool, to gather further user’s detailed feedback and comments before finalizing the design.
Reflection
Through the entire digitalization process of the manufacturer, I was able to understand the actual concerns and barriers from the business and stakeholder perspectives.
I was able to understand from a systems perspective how stakeholders with different roles in the factory's product manufacturing process are interconnected and can impact each other's work. Additionally, I could see how the level of advancement in the production system can significantly affect the quality of life for individual employees.
Outcomes
Real-time OEE visualization & downtime reasoning
Increased overall productivity and efficiency, effectively meeting customer needs
Empowering operators to make real-time decisions to tweak production
Appreciation
The SAP design-led innovation approach went beyond the technology to embrace the entire innovation process, which included a detailed discussion about the business and what we were looking to achieve.
Robert Oh, Chief Information Officer, Hanon Systems
With better data about the health of our equipment, we can improve the way we schedule our maintenance activities and minimize equipment downtime.
Zsolt Karikó, managing director of European compressor operations, Hanon Systems