Rolls Royce aviation often faces a backlog of non-scheduled parts that are a crucial component of the nozzles in turbine engines. This delay in the supply chain process makes it a challenge for the engines and kits to reach their customers on time.
This is a problem because Ryan, our primary stakeholder, managed the procurement of these parts manually, and tracking these parts to bring them in on time is a huge hassle.
Since exploring IoT and the technicality of the solution was completely new to us, we assigned each member a specific task to get work done efficiently.
While everyone had at least some contribution in another role, it helped to have defined tasks. Discussing any roadblocks each week was very helpful too!
We simulated the tracking system by programming the Arduino kit. The video exhibits the three variations of the stock status in the bin based on three different bed-levels: 0%, 50%, 100%.
Tracking orders
Depending on the availability of the parts, orders can be placed in advance to avoid their shortage.The app shows where the order has reached to determine in how long it will reach the dock at RR.
Providing meaningful insights
The analytics are used to provide some meaningful insights to stakeholders to help them keep track of part usage.
Real time bin status
The real time status on the app interface determines whether the capacity of a particular non-scheduled part in the bin is full, half, or empty.
Let's Deep Dive into how we actually used the design thinking process to arrive to our final solution!
DESK RESEARCH
As exciting as exploring this space may sound, the team had little to no knowledge of the work we were getting into.
So, in order to be prepared for the upcoming field visits and interviews, I conducted some secondary research that helped me understand:
1. The different aspects of warehouse management
2. How some big industries that get a lot of inventory manage it?
3. How does technology play a part in making inventory management less cumbersome?
CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY
We conducted contextual inquiry through a field visit to the Rolls Royce warehouse at Tibbs Avenue. This helped us to get a visual understanding of the bins and how everything is placed at the warehouse.
USER INTERVIEWS
The on-field visited was followed by in-person interviews that allowed to talk to some key stakeholders involved and understand how they're being affected. An interview protocol was formulated in such a way that would help us gain an in-depth understanding of:
1. Narrowing down roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder and identifying the key stakeholder.
2. Understanding the current work process and its inconsistencies.
3. Whether the current process needs to be simplified or not?
4. Our constraints while designing a solution.
DEDUCING THE CURRENT PROCESS
After coding and analysis of the data we collected through the research, I narrowed down the process flow after deducing two key scenarios:
1. Sufficient Stock
2. Insufficient Stock
USER PERSONAS
To keep track of every stakeholders frustrations and goals, we documented them in the form of personas. This helped us keep an overview of them while designing the user interface.
EMPATHY MAP
We mapped out how we could empathize with our key stakeholder - Ryan. We noted what he would think, feel, say, and hear in different situations that exist in the process.
KEY INSIGHTS
Through all of this synthesis and analysis, we narrowed down the following key insights:
1. There was no real-time tracking of the non-scheduled parts.
2. Everything was being handled manually by the Material Requirement Planning Controller (MRPC) or Ryan.
3. Absence of a standard process in the warehouse.
4. There was a huge communication gap between different stakeholders while managing the inventory.
5. Often, there were backorders leading to unintended wait times and sometimes extra parts were sold off to accomodate for parts that were needed.
NARROWING DOWN DESIGN GOALS
The synthesis of data was followed by working towards what the actual proof of concept would look like, and what key features on our mobile app would help overcome the issues our stakeholders were facing.
The main objective was to make our final solution: desirable, feasible, and viable.
VALUE PROPOSITION CANVAS
A Value proposition canvas is a framework that helps ensure a product is designed around the specific needs of a customer. A few intensive brainstorming sessions resulted in customer profiles and VPCs of all our personas.
Below, I have highlighted the customer profile and value proposition of our primary stakeholder - Ryan.
Once we had an idea of the final solution and the proof of concept at hand, I designed low and high fidelity prototypes to show real-time tracking of inventory to stakeholders through a mobile interface.
This was helpful to them for the following reasons:
1. Gave an overview of bin capacity for specific inventory items
2. Tracking of inventory with an option to place and cancel orders
3. A simpler to for the stakeholders to communicate
4. Provided analytics of the inventory that was being used
VIEW PROTOTYPESIMPLIFIED WORKFLOW
We proposed the following simplified workflow to our stakeholders:
VISION-BASED IOT SYSTEM
The non-scheduled parts are placed in the different bins. The proximity sensors are placed on top of each bin. These help us keep track of whether the bin is present or not, and subsequently help us determine the quantity of the non-scheduled part in that bin -empty, half or full.
For our vision based solution, another possible approach would be using image processing using open cv technology. This would have helped us get real time data at a more granular level.
This way we could set different threshold values for each part and that would have ultimately increased our efficiency. In turn, our data analytics would have been more accurate to determine timely availability of these parts and avoid any order issues.
Pros: More accurate, hassle free
Cons: time-consuming, expensive to implement
We had two employees from Rolls Royce evaluate our final presentation. This is what they had to say:
"Coherent and simple visual design."
"The research was thorough and the final solutions were feasible and easy to implement."
