Project Details
Requirement
A large amount of copper production and recycling of other metals happen at this manufacturing plant. This manufacturing plant acts as a gateway for collection of all the metal scrap and distribution of their products. They collect computer waste, mobile waste, electronic waste and similar scrap to recycle, in the process several trucks enter and exit the plant’s premises, so keeping a track of the materials and the trucks become a challenge. It becomes very difficult for the plant employees to track, organise and manage all the unloaded material’s life cycle in the yard. What makes it even tougher is the unloading of materials at the wrong designated areas by various truck drivers who enter the manufacturing plant’s gate from different countries. All of these creates a huge material management chaos within the company.
Business Goal
The business wants to focus on building a transformational design solution that will strategise and help in managing the materials, tracking of trucks in the premises and help the truck drivers with language barriers at the plant’s entrance so they can understand clearly where to unload the materials.
Exploration
Users of the Product
At the manufacturing plant there are many trucks which enter and exit at random times in the day, if the truck driver is an employee of the plant then the in house operations are much smoother but does not waive the difficulty of organising and managing all the materials at the premises. Whereas, the issue becomes more serious when the truck drivers are not employees but they are from different geographical locations who drive hundreds of miles to deliver materials to the plant. For instance, the truck driver who just arrived is a Russian and does not understand German, so all the instructions and information communicated to him at the plant’s entrance is not understood which just leaves him to unload the material at any visible empty slot possible as told by his previous Russian company scrap dealer. When this situation occurs, the plant’s employees hit a tough time to locate, organise, manage and process the materials.
Recalibrating the Users
The design solution focuses on helping two major category of users- the truck drivers and the plant’s material manager. The strategised solution is designed to help all the truck drivers in assisting where to unload or pick up materials irrespective of understanding the regional language. Also, it largely helps the the material manager to track and manage materials in the yard. Additionally, it enables the material manager to sit at his/her desk and digitally assign tasks to the truck drivers, manage resources more efficiently, and clearly manage all the processing of the materials stagewise and more.
Research
Predominantly the research took place in the manufacturing plant, at the yard. During the field study the company’s staff showed around the manufacturing plant for us to understand briefly why certain things are organised in a specific manner. After the field information session a group of employees that consisted of daily plant workers, plant managers, plant's safety manager and others were intensively interviewed for understanding their routine and pain points in more detail. These inputs helped to understand, draft, and build a design solution appropriate for the plant from the scratch.
Design Process
The entire innovation driven design thinking and solution took place at the conference halls available at the Plant. This was a very favourable idea as the end users were just a few steps away and always available for any sort of inputs and clarifications. Major focus was to find out what are the main user problems, who are the real users, and their pain points, this led to defining the real problem definition. Building personas, user journeys, brainwriting, card sorting, brainstorming, idea shaping and idea selection followed through in the design solution. Personas helped us to connect and empathise with the users pain points. Also, Card sorting helped us to understand the logical thinking process the users undergo while performing a specific task. To increase the practicality and effectiveness of the design solution, it was implemented on a digital device- tablet. Tablets provide freedom of movement, appropriate display area and can also be used for continuous assistance in cases of confusion or emergency.
Solution
My Role
I was responsible for requirement elicitation, interaction with users, conducting interviews with users and the Plant managers and understand what kind of realistic user centric solution needs to be in place. Worked towards keeping the overall digital solution as straightforward yet intuitive as possible. First a few sketches, role-plays and mockups were created and executed in a strategised manner. Then, the wireframes were designed and reviewed by the relevant department employees of the Plant. Later a clickable prototype was developed with the references from wireframes.
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Result
Design frameworks with a few strategic pointers along with design solution was presented to the audience, which was much appreciated. The strategy for material management and truck tracking solutions were exceptionally favoured by the Head Plant Officer as it involved real time practical solutions, needed moderate financial support, and it brought more transparency within the system. However, the company intends to implement the proposed solution after obtaining a few legal and state permissions, legal advices and the safety quotient of their employees.