How could a digital tool reduce the time it takes Koerber maintenance technicians to troubleshoot and repair a fault in order to reduce machine downtime?

01. Understanding the problem & identifying the opportunities

To better assess the business opportunities a tool could bring I spoke to key stakeholders in the customer service department. I realised If a tool could help technicians reduce machine downtime, it would effect OOE, or ‘overall operations effectiveness’; a key factor considered by customers when buying machinery.

To understand what factors slowed or expedited machine interventions, I held user-interviews with 11 technicians and department service personnel. What emerged was a pattern of complex interdependent issues. 

02. Assessing problem is most critical, and communicating with project team

To get clear insights as to which problems were most critical and when they occurred, I organised the painpoints uncovered in the user interviews on a time-line. I produced personas, a user-experience map, and a service blueprint, to help me capture my research findings and communicate with the stakeholders and project team. What emerged was a pattern of complex interdependent issues. 

03. Conceptualising a solution through ideation

A hypothesis emerged: if we could build a tool to surface patterns around symptoms and root causes in existing intervention reports, we could improve preparation and on-site troubleshooting.

I held an ideation session to help generate ideas for a tool, using a “How Might We” list as a jumping off point for facilitating several rounds of “Crazy 8s” design sketching sessions. Using dot-voting to refine ideas, we created a host of paper prototypes which established a core concept for a data-mining tool.

04. Testing using storyboards and wireframes 

To illustrate the new user experience, I created a storyboard and then produced a set of wireframes to demonstrate the functionality associated with key user-stories. I used these tools to test the concept with users and stakeholders.

In order to make the practical knowledge of the technicians a company asset, I created a user-feedback functionality to “upvote” insights, and capture novel intervention data onsite along side a smart search functionality.