Moura Units: A User Experience study for Baterias Moura factory

How to optimize the communication process among operational units, in order to analyze and solve the quality issues in a faster and more efficient way?

Context

Case study conducted for my journey in Awari’s UX Design Intensive course.

The Acumuladores Moura S.A., better known by the fantasy name Baterias Moura, is a Brazilian company from the state of Pernambuco, which manufactures electric accumulators for the automotive, nautical, logistic, telecommunications, no-break systems, and alternative energy markets.

The Problem

The operational Unit X of the Baterias Moura factory is responsible for the production process of plastic parts (lid, manifold and cases), through the injection molding process, using as raw material, a blend of polypropylene from recycled batteries and new material. The plastic parts produced are sent to an Assembly Unit, which assemblys the final product-the battery.

Today there is a communication problem between these operational units concerning the information of defective parts shipped:

• The complaint records come to the operational unit X spread over several platforms, scrambled and sometimes incomplete, which takes a lot of time to collect and analyze them in order to solve the problem and make decisions;
• Due to the time required to analyze this information, the Assembly Unit production line ends up suffering delays that affect the rest of the operation’s flow.

User Research: Understanding the problem from the users’ point of view

There are two distinct user profiles in this research, the employees from the Assembly Unit, who complain about the arrival of defective products, and the quality team from the Production Unit (Operational Unit X), who receive the complaints and analyze them to make decisions.

To understand the main pains of those involved in the operation, two research methods were used, according to the access I had with the plant’s employees:

1. Quantitative Research — Form conducted remotely through the Google Forms tool, sent to employees of the Assembly Unit. Although few had responded, it was enough to obtain the following information:

• The employees who make the complaints are Inspectors, with an average age of 46, most with a medium level of education;
• They were asked on a scale of 1 to 5 if they are fans of digital products, being 1- I use it as little as possible and 5- I solve everything by cell phone/computer, the answers ranged between 3 and 4.
• WhatsApp is the most used tool to perform the task of registering complaints about defective parts, where there is a group of employees from the two units. It is considered faster, easier to use, and is always at hand.

2. Qualitative Research — Personal interview with the Quality Coordinator of the Production Unit, with whom I had the most contact during the project and was able to better understand the plant’s operation, what information is needed to solve quality problems and other information below:

• The Quality Control team of the operational unit X gathers all the scattered information and manually fills out Excel spreadsheets for analysis and decision making, which generates waste of time and not value added work;
• Mistakes in the process conduction end up being more recurrent, due to the way in which information is collected;
• Charges for the delay in the production line of the Assembly Unit.
• Suggestion that the task would be centralized in a single platform, and the information would filled and stored fill a database automatically.

Personas

After analyzing all the information from the user survey, two personas were created, according to the two employee profiles:

Current process assessment

Carrying all the users’ daily routine information, I started analyzing the tools used by them (WhatsApp, Corporate E-mail, Microsoft Teams), to perform the task. The main points of opportunity for building a new experience were extracted from them:

• WhatsApp: Does not a database, complaint records get mixed up within the group;
• Corporate e-mail: falling into disuse;
• Microsoft Teams: Difficult to handle in the mobile version, application takes up too much memory space on the cell phone.

Jobs to be Done

Once the personas were created and the assessment was performed, the jobs to be done for both user profiles were created:

• When I receive information about defective parts, I want them to be centralized and complete in order to analyze them more efficiently;
• When the records of defective parts arrive, I want a database to be automatically fed with this information.
• When a complaint record is made, I want the platform to trigger key people to manage the issue.
• When I register a problem, I want to perform the task quickly and easily, avoiding to disrupt the flow operation’s.
• When I perform a defective product registration, I want a checkout page so that no information is left pending.

User Journey

In this step a flow of the path taken by the users to perform their tasks was created:

Sketches and Wireframes — Tangibilizing the product

After having all the necessary information in hand, I started the development phase with sketches, to get an idea of how the product would be like, which should be mobile (always at hand), light so as not to take up too much space in the memory of smartphones, didactic, and efficient:

Next, wireframes were created, so that the product could be tested.

The flow starts with common screens for the two different user profiles, and then splits into: Flow for the Assembly Unit to perform the problem registration and the Flow for the Production Unit to receive the complaint and take appropriate action, such as scheduling a technical visit to see the problem up close, for example. The flow of the Assembly Unit still counts with the notification of scheduled technical visit:

Usability Testing

The usability test was conducted with two people: personally with the Quality Coordinator of the Production Unit, and remotely with an Inspector from the Assembly Unit.

After the tests, a share icon was added to the Checkout page for WhatsApp, in case there was a need to internally discuss some specifics of the problem.

Visual Design

Typography
I used the Work Sans with 2 different sizes, as it is a simple and easy-to-view font.

Colors
The color palette is very close to the visual identity palette of Baterias Moura, in blue and yellow, in addition to neutral tones on the screens where the tasks are carried out, so that it does not divert the user’s attention.

Icons and Shapes
I tried to use the simplest possible forms, which brought lightness to the layout and universal icons for easy interaction.

Final considerations

Carrying out this project was very pleasant and important for my development, mainly because it was my first experience with UX Design. I would like to thank my mentor, Gabriela Pinheiro, for all the tips, directions and availability, to professor Heryk Slawisk, for the wonderful, lively and learning-filled classes, my classmates and everyone who makes Awari, you all were amazing and fundamental.

I did not limit myself to my little experience in the area, I tried to do my best to complete the project, the most important thing was learning and the process carried out to solve the problem. But this project does not stop there, I will continue to improve and refine the product.

As it is a case study with a real company, access to employees for research and usability testing was a little more difficult, but I believe I was able to validate and design a solution consistent with the needs raised.

Finally, it was very cool to see my project taking shape within the company, through a solutions inspired by it and developed to address the problem exposed.

Thanks for reading this far! Tell me what you think?!