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My role

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Problems to solve

The aluminium refinery was struggling with poor employee engagement and morale, and faced ever-present risks to individual safety from the hazardous work environment. Most of the workers came from an engineering background, and used all the latest consumer technology at home. But when they came to work, they were compelled to struggle with antiquated green-screen computer systems several decades old.

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Approach

I jumped in at the deep end with some classic contextual inquiry and design thinking. The client's employees had never seen anything like it, minds were blown. They became enthusiastic collaborators in devising new technology solutions.

I did "ride-alongs" with workers around the refinery and ran workshops to develop "day in the life" journey maps. These illustrated the struggles and frustrations of operators, maintenance crews and supervisors. Participating in the compulsory random drug tests, including supervised urine samples, helped me develop a fairly profound empathetic. connection with the workers.

We co-created a variety of tech innovations and started piloting them around the refinery. The most promising of these was a custom mobile app.

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Insights

My research uncovered all kinds of procedural and behavioural quirks. Because it was so disruptive to return to the warehouse and wait for required parts, workers would create their own private stashes of equipment at secret locations around the refinery, and then eventually forget about them.

Hazardous events, such as toxic chemical leaks, were marked on a map on a whiteboard attached to a wall. This wall was in a narrow corridor and people would brush up against the whiteboard as they passed it, sometimes accidentally erasing the new hazards. There was no way for people out in the field to know what was on (or previously on) the whiteboard.

You could say the place was ripe for intervention.

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Struggles

An aluminium refinery in the middle of nowhere is not a standard environment for new technology roll-outs. The network coverage out there was so dire that we had no option but to install a new refinery-wide wi-fi service.

Many of the assumptions that you tend to make when designing a mobile app did not hold out there. Touchscreens? What if the user needs to constantly wear safety gloves? What if the environment is so dusty that it obscures the screen?

One of the most problematic obstacles was the safety requirement that workers are never exposed to distractions while moving around the refinery. Few things distract like screens do. This almost killed the mobile app project dead. Until I figured out that we could use the device's accelerometer to turn the screen dark whenever movement was detected. Meaning the workers could only use the app when stationery. Safety tick!

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Custom mobile app

I created a mobile app prototype and tested it on site in a variety of harsh conditions. In addition to coordination and communication features, the prototype gave employees a way of learning about new hazards at the refinery, and a fast, efficient way of reporting safety incidents.

We progressively added more features allowing users to remotely submit orders for parts and get notified when they were ready to collect from the warehouse.

We also digitised paper-based processes for conducting safety reviews and becoming certified in the use of specialised equipment.

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Digital twin

After the success of the mobility pilot, the client asked us for help with a grander ambition. They wanted to create a digital twin of one of their open-cut bauxite mines. A digital twin is a data-driven model of a real-world system or installation, allowing remote users to visualise operations and equipment status.

Using a process called photogrammetry, I created 3D models of a mine from aerial photos. I used MeshLab to refine and correct the topological scans, then created independent 3D models of the mine's vehicles and other machinery.
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Working with a team of developers, I integrated the landscape and vehicle models and made them accessible in an Augmented Reality experience via the HoloLens and Microsoft's Mixed Reality Kit. The virtual environment ingested real-world position and equipment data from IoT sensors on each of the vehicles. In this way, we could show real-time positions and activities of the vehicles in the digital twin.

Other designers working in the team developed a system for visualising metrics for production status and equipment performance. We integrated all of the data in an intuitive interactive system allowing users to zoom in on specific areas and interrogate performance and trends relating to the activities in that area.
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Impact

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Lessons learned

The main lesson --both for me and for the client -- was that design is a powerful problem-solving tool in almost any conceivable context. It is even more powerful in environments where it has not previously been proven. -- because it can unlock dormant reserves of creativity and innovation.

I also learned the unique value of shared enthusiasm in making things happen and breaking people out of their routines. The future-back mindset does wonders for making people believe that break-through improvements in their everyday working lives are achievable.



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