đFactory of the Future
Magna New Mobility is a division within Magna International - a Tier 1 Automotive Supplier and Fortune 500 company.Â
While all the other divisions of Magna focus on the manufacture of car parts, New Mobility challenges the automotive industry with innovative technologies.
One of these efforts is Unified Factory, an internal application suite that optimizes decision making across several points within Magna manufacturing plants.Â
These solutions save each individual plant over $2M+ per year!
đ´The Problem - Poor Utilization
From early conversations it became clear that many manufacturing plants were seeing poor utilization across several points of their processes.Â
The two biggest areas that kept recurring was material movement and freight: forklifts being in use only ~70% of the time, and freight trucks being only ~80% full.
These two areas are what the applications whose design I was involved in - SmartPick and SmartFreight - tackle.
The two biggest areas that kept recurring was material movement and freight: forklifts being in use only ~70% of the time, and freight trucks being only ~80% full.
These two areas are what the applications whose design I was involved in - SmartPick and SmartFreight - tackle.
đ˘Our Solution - Automating Decision Making
Each app within the Unified Factory Suite focuses on a specific point of the manufacturing process.
SmartPick
Material Handling Equipment (MHE) picking tool. Installed on a tablet and mounted right on the forklift - this application manages forklift operators' flow of tasks and helps guide them through the facility. Tasks are created by either the site manager, or automatically by the system as it determines necessary. Then, tasks are automatically pushed to the forklift truck deemed best fit, based on criteria such as location, previous tasks, traffic, and others. Operators can create a queue of tasks which they will continuingly work through. By always having a next task ready, and the system identifying the most efficient truck to take the task - decision making is automated, and MHE optimization is improved to ~90% - saving $150k per truck.
SmartFreight
Freight truck scheduling tool. Trucks not filled to their capacity is a direct waste of money - but figuring out how to do so can be difficult. SmartFreight utilizes an internally built algorithm to determine the best way to schedule incoming freight shipments in such a way to ensure trucks are at, or near capacity. This means less trucks can be used for the same amount of product, leading to direct savings of $4k per truck saved, per line, per week. Many facilities have 10 or more lines, growing to nearly $2M/year, at just one site. That is real dollars saved.
âď¸Research, Design & Marketing
Developing a Design System
From reviewing Magna International's global brand standards and comparing them to existing mockups designed by UX contractors - there was a very clear mismatch.
The UI design of SmartPick and SmartFreight were completely out of alignment with the visual identity of Magna -Â largely due to the fact that they had no design system.
The UI design of SmartPick and SmartFreight were completely out of alignment with the visual identity of Magna -Â largely due to the fact that they had no design system.
To resolve this, I created an entire Figma design system by translating that information already present in the global brand standards.
This includes components, text styles, color styles, and documentation. Verified by corporate designers for accuracy, this became the toolkit for all Figma designs.
This includes components, text styles, color styles, and documentation. Verified by corporate designers for accuracy, this became the toolkit for all Figma designs.
User Research: Personas & Journey Maps
Before jumping into interface design, I took findings that the team had previously done and turned them into the following persona and journey maps.
This helped me, project management, and other contributors to better understand the context of who the users are and what they need to do with these new products.
This helped me, project management, and other contributors to better understand the context of who the users are and what they need to do with these new products.
Prototypes
With a proper design system in place, and a thorough understanding of the user and their requirements - I started getting into the visual interface design.
This varied slightly between SmartPick and SmartFreight. The UX contractors already had put together a prototype for SmartFreight, but it was in the completely incorrect visual style. Therefore, I completely designed the application from top to bottom using the new UI Kit. On the other hand, SmartPick I started from scratch, working through levels of fidelity.
This varied slightly between SmartPick and SmartFreight. The UX contractors already had put together a prototype for SmartFreight, but it was in the completely incorrect visual style. Therefore, I completely designed the application from top to bottom using the new UI Kit. On the other hand, SmartPick I started from scratch, working through levels of fidelity.
SmartPick
SmartFreight
Internal Marketing Collateral
Magna is very decentralized - meaning each manufacturing plant is allowed to make certain decisions themselves and separately from the larger company.
This includes which software and programs the use for material handling. This means that we had to "sell" this solution to our own plants to get them to try out these new products in a pilot.
To help with this effort, I created the following sales/marketing collateral one pagers for Sales to bring to potential partners.
This includes which software and programs the use for material handling. This means that we had to "sell" this solution to our own plants to get them to try out these new products in a pilot.
To help with this effort, I created the following sales/marketing collateral one pagers for Sales to bring to potential partners.
