Value Diagnostic Tool
This product technically belongs to Siemens Energy, but when I was working on it, Siemens Energy was part of Siemens AG and was operating under Siemens Gas & Power division.
Siemens Gas & Power division had multiple consultation tools which they used to get a Siemens-provided solution/proposal that would prove best to a power plant to improve its efficiency.
Value Diagnostic Tool is such consultation tool that calculates the value potential using the power plant’s parameters for anomalies & provides recommended solutions & best practices from Siemens.
Usually, this tool is used by the sales team when they are bidding for new work or consulting with an existing customer.
My Role: Individual Contributor
Duration: June 2018 - August 2018
Platform: iPad
Design Tool: Adobe XD
Problem
Siemens Gas & Power’s sales team was using MS Excel-based application to provide consulting solutions to their customers. It involved a lot of MS Excel knowledge and file maintenance.
There was a need for an application that can be used on iPad and can be used offline as well since it’s very likely that there is bad or no network inside the power plant.
Challenges
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The transformation from Existing MS Excel application.
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Digitalization was missing in the existing solution.
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There was no Central storage and version control in thethe existing solution, which was a must-have for this newproduct.
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The new solution should have better distribution,scalability & extensibility.
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Since the product would contain sensitive data for bothpower plant and Siemens, Information security was alsocrucial.
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The very specific requirement of having the applicationfor iPad.
Journey
For years, Siemens Gas & Power division’s sales team was using a tediously complex application in Microsoft Excel to gather and input data from power plants and use some meticulous calculations to provide a solution to improve the efficiency of the power plant.
This was a pain point for the users since they would have to carry a laptop always for such meetings, and also they would need to have deep knowledge of Microsoft Excel. There was no central storage for the files, everything was either on e-mail or stored on different computers.
Hence, the Siemens Gas & Power division’s sales team started this project with our UX team to digitalize their approach for consultation. This whole project had a very tight timeline, but we took the challenge.
We started with the workshops with the users to understand their existing solution, and worked our way to the new requirements. The wireframes and realistic visual designs were run through the stakeholders every alternate day.
Once the visual designs were ready, we ran the usability test on a clickable mockup in Adobe XD. Iterations were made based on the outcome of the test and design specifications were handed off to the development team.
This project won the “Best Digitalized Solution” award at Siemens in 2019.
Process
Design Guidelines
I followed the Newton Design System designed and maintained by the Brandville team of Siemens AG.
The design system is more specifically designed for the sales & marketing website of Siemens, but can also be used for Siemens web applications with minor tweaks.
User Research
From the workshops with users, we found out their goals and frustrations with the application. It also got us insights into the usability issues with their existing solution.
Goals:
1. Historic / Data analysis
2. Offline consultation & bidding
3. Impress the customer to drive sales
4. Achieve value-focused discussions around KPIs
5. Position themselves as Advisors
Frustrations:
1. No way of saving multiple proposals automatically
Usability Issues:
1. Flexibility
2. Visualisations
3. Categorisation
4. Learning curve
Conclusion
The Value Diagnostic Tool proved to be a good fit for Siemens Gas & Power division’s sales team, considering their requirement. It ticked all the boxes for them, it was easy to use, could run offline on the iPad, and distribution of the solution was also easy once the iPad is back on the network.
