Joy of Use in the Morning

Sustainable fault management in Bosch Rexroth’s ActiveCockpit

Good morning?

Disruptions in plants quickly lead to costly delays. That's why planners, supervisors, technicians and team leaders come together for the morning round in manufacturing plants, to discuss how to handle disruptions that occurred overnight, for example.

Some bring their notes on handwritten cards, others collect them in an Excel spreadsheet, and others keep everything in their heads. This mix of methods can make joint decision-making and clear documentation more difficult.

Bosch Rexroth AG

Bosch Rexroth is a globally leading supplier of drive and control technologies and part of the Bosch Group. With products and solutions for factory, mobile and machinery applications, the company drives the connectivity of people, machines and the environment in Industry 4.0.

UX Research

UX Design

UI Design

Prototyping

All in one go

With the user interface, maintenance managers in the plants can perform their role as moderator of the morning round much more efficiently than before. They can assign individual disruptions to the responsible people simply, directly and with a personal touch. Entering a due date also makes organizing and prioritizing disruptions easier. All disruptions, data and employees come together on one screen, in a smooth animation flow.

Behind this is a simple but powerful shift in perspective. Instead of noting names on fault cards, the people responsible receive the cards themselves. This shift in perspective puts people at the center, noticeably increasing their identification with their tasks.

What contributes even more to guiding attention are well-dosed animations. They support users in building mental models and increase the joy of use as well as efficiency in workflows.

From scenario to solution

Initial solution ideas are quickly on the table. Why not introduce a proven system like Scrum or Kanban, where individual disruptions take center stage and are carried through a process by the responsible people? The challenge with this scenario is that it would only create a low level of identification among employees with their tasks, because the so-called "carers" would have to be passively assigned to a disruption instead of actively taking care of it.

From analog to paperless fault management

First as a wireframe, then as a pixel-precise screen mock. In interaction design, we preserved the proven analog concept and carried it step by step into digitization. The visual form of communication quickly made it clear that the concept works.

Overview is a matter of perspective

Just as maintenance managers want to find all employees and disruptions clearly laid out, the people responsible for fixing them also need all the information they require. That's why they get a different, personalized view including a schedule – on their desktop computer or, if needed, on an iPad.

Staying organized

Through the interface, the people responsible can leave their comments and solution know-how on disruptions. This makes solutions quickly, centrally and securely available to everyone.

Good morning. And good day.

Motion design brings joy to the interaction and brings the interface to life. With this software, maintenance managers and the people responsible for fixing issues hold a tool for stress-free, efficient fault management in their hands – one that not only does its job, but feels good while doing it, for a great start to the day.

We had a short project runtime with international partners. That's why good communication was especially important to get results out quickly. Centigrade delivered scribbles and wireframes at short intervals, giving us the perfect visual basis for decision-making processes. The company then provided developers with all the necessary assets, precisely tailored to their needs.