StartProto as a whole consists of many different features that aim to solve problems for a variety of users within the manufacturing industry. That said, I am going to narrow the focus of this case study onto a smaller feature set that was most impactful for numerous user types.

How might we allow Routers/Managers to build complex routings and documentation for the production of parts within their shop, while also allowing Operators to participate in amending said documentation as they are encountering new valuable information throughout the production process.

Before designing the product, we had to first start by understanding the users that we were designing for. Tim(CEO) and I traveled to Ram Precision(Manufacturer) and shadowed/interviewed the different users over the course of multiple weeks. During this time, we got to see what their day to day responsibilities looked like as well as discover many different pain points that the users experienced. Prior to StartProto, there were many bottlenecks, communications troubles, and overall inefficient work flows taking place due to the siloed nature of each users position.

Given the information we gleaned from our time at Ram Precision as well as other continued research, we set out to design features that would solve the countless issues that small scale manufacturers face every day.

Tim and I worked collaboratively to ideate a robust feature set and workflow to streamline the routing process, track work happening in the shop, and improve communication between management and operators.

We then broke the features up into more manageable pieces and planned a series of sprints for me to tackle the interface design. I then started designing a series of low fidelity wireframes using the work flow we mapped out as a guide. Using these wireframes, we validated our decisions with our users along the way. We went through many iterations of each feature.

We designed a modeling systems that allowed users to map out step by step how parts are to be build in their shop. These models are then used to drive work through the different Operators/stations. The parts that the Operators are processing are tracked through the system giving a new found transparency that allows the Managers/Routers to better predict bottlenecks and properly forecast delays in production. These tools and insights allowed Ram Precision to increase there work capacity by 35% over the course of only a few months with the product.

Above you can see the routing interface that allows Routers/Managers to build out the parts step by step and assign the steps to the appropriate Operator/resource. Below is the Operator's view showing the jobs that need to be done. These jobs are sorted either by the Manager manually or automatically sorted based on the scheduling feature.

I also designed the Operator Interface to be responsive so that the Operator's can use the product on tablets or phones so that they can move around the shop freely while still having access to all of the valuable information in the system.