Material Optimization Suite

Overview

The Material Optimization Suite (MOS) app was part of a strategic partnership with Apple focused on accelerating the design of best-in-class industrial applications for iOS. These apps also seeded a design system and an iOS SDK that let GE developers build iOS apps at scale.

The problem

Plant managers, our primary persona, needed better visibility into the materials required for manufacturing in their plant — and a way to act on that information while standing on the plant floor.

• Poor tracking systems in the plants led to significant waste
• It is very costly if materials are not ordered on time
• The source system contained data from every GE plant
• Users had to sort through a lot of irrelevant information to find what they needed
• Desktop experience only
• Users could not perform any actions in the existing application

The solution

We collaborated closely with a group of users to design a streamlined mobile application. The app delivers only what is relevant and lets plant managers act on items wherever they are.

• Mobile application let users work far more efficiently
• Provided the specific features users needed, showing only relevant data
• Enabled users to perform actions rather than just observe
• Enabled contacting team members through the app
• Create or adjust orders, change status, and snooze purchase orders for later reminders
• Search for purchase orders by scanning part barcodes on the plant floor

My role

As lead UX designer for GE's Digital Innovation team on this project, I worked with a lean team of UX designers to conduct user interviews and understand a day in the life of a plant manager. We ran several rounds of interviews and contextual inquiries to genuinely understand user needs.

We spent a week at Apple's Enterprise Design Lab with our users, the GE UX team, and Apple's design and technology experts. It was extremely effective at accelerating the build, and it strengthened our relationship with both users and product teams. In three days we had several fully fleshed-out screens and a functioning Xcode prototype.

Theming for the environment

I created a light theme for the app to accommodate user preference and improve usability across the different physical environments where it would be used.

Impact and results

• From a report to a tool. The previous system was desktop-only and read-only. Plant managers could see a problem but not act on it; the app let them adjust orders, change status, and snooze reminders from the floor.
• Signal instead of every plant's data. The source system held records for every GE plant. Filtering to the manager's own plant removed the search that stood between them and a decision.
• Barcode scanning closed the physical gap. Scanning a part pulled its purchase order directly, replacing a manual lookup performed while standing in front of the part.
• The cost underneath is downtime. Poor tracking drove material waste, churn, and late orders; a plant waiting on materials is a plant not running, which is where the real money goes. The design target was catching those conditions earlier, not producing a nicer report.