One Press
Background
One Press is a daily-use tool for plant operators, production planners, and department heads at Volkswagen shop floors (4 in EMEA, 1 in South America and 1 in China) to manage and streamline manufacturing processes. It supports machine monitoring, order tracking, error reporting, and production planning, ensuring efficient oversight and smoother operations across the production floor.
Challenges
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Error reporting and documentation: Plant operators avoid logging minor errors due to the time and effort required, resulting in unresolved recurring issues.
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Monitoring overload: Operators must continuously monitor machines, document outputs, and ensure quality, often using multiple screens and tools simultaneously resulting in high cognitive load
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Production replanning: Frequent machine errors, shortages, and maintenance force planners to constantly adjust schedules, causing inefficiencies and stress.
Goals
The key goals of this project were:
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Simplify Error Reporting: Make logging quick and easy to ensure all faults, big or small, are consistently recorded.
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Reduce Monitoring Overload: Consolidate tools and data to streamline monitoring and lower cognitive load for operators.
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Enhance Production Planning: Automate replanning and anticipate disruptions to minimize manual adjustments and delays.
My Role
Product Designer, Hexad GmbH
Duration
6 months, February 2023 - July 2023
My Tasks
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Collaborated closely with Product Owner and Product Manager to gain deep understanding of Production Management System tool
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Research - User Interviews, Persona Creation, User Journey Mapping, Insights generation, Information Architecture creation
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Design - wireframing and ideation, regular design reviews and critique sessions with the team, creating high fidelity visual designs
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Conducted Usability testing and iterated the design based on user feedback
Research
Onboarding Sessions
User Interviews
Industry Site Visit
We started by getting acquainted with the tool through an onboarding presentation - it covered everything from how it's used on the shop floor and key terms to the existing designs. We also had onboarding sessions with the client's product owner. But to truly understand the challenges people faced day-to-day, it was prudent to see things for ourselves. Since the plant operators were more comfortable speaking in German, I collaborated with my Project Manager and a designer colleague, both native German speakers, to conduct the interviews. They visited two different shop floor locations to observe OnePress in action and speak directly with plant operators, department heads, and production staff, while I participated remotely.
Understanding more about the users
Through our research, we gained a deeper understanding of the users, the functionality of the One Press Tool, and the challenges they faced – from error recording to production planning gaps. With this information in hand, we began the process of analyzing it to extract key insights. Our next step was to create Personas and map out their User Journeys to better visualize their experiences and pain points.
The main users of One Press were: Plant Operator, Production Planner and the Department Head
Persona - Plant Operator, involved in Error logging and documentation
Insights
Based on the research we generated some key insights that we categorised as follows:
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Inefficent error handling
01.
Operators avoid logging minor errors because the process is slow and adds to their workload, often interrupting their primary tasks. This results in gaps in error tracking.
02.
Recurring small issues accumulate, eventually leading to larger machine breakdowns that could have been prevented if earlier faults were documented.
03.
Planners and managers lack visibility into these smaller errors, making it harder to identify patterns and proactively address root causes.
Lack of centralised data
04.
Operators handle multiple responsibilities – monitoring machines, logging errors, and ensuring quality – often across several screens and tools. This constant task-switching increases mental strain
05.
Performance data is fragmented, with different plants and departments using separate reporting systems, making it difficult for managers to get a complete view of production health.
Reactive Production Planning
06.
Operators lack real-time visibility into upcoming production orders, making it difficult to prepare machines in advance. This often results in rushed setups, delays, and a higher chance of errors during order transitions. The operators react to situations rather than plan.
07.
Planners frequently adjust schedules due to unexpected machine errors, material shortages, or maintenance delays. This manual replanning disrupts the production flow.
Communication and Escalation Gaps
08.
Issue escalation often relies on phone calls or emails, leading to delayed responses and fragmented communication, especially for minor but recurring issues
Defining Focus Areas for the MVP
The client initially approached us with the main challenges they were facing. As we gathered insights, we uncovered additional pain points that were closely connected to the original issues. This process gave us a deeper understanding of the users and their needs. In close collaboration with the client, we defined the following focus areas to prioritise for the MVP.
1. How might we make error reporting faster and easier for operators to ensure small issues are consistently logged?
2. How might we reduce the effort required to track and document errors?
3. How might we provide operators with real-time visibility into upcoming production orders?
4. How might we streamline monitoring by consolidating tools and screens into a unified interface?
Design Explorations
To begin the design explorations, we looked at the existing OnePress designs. While we aimed to develop new and innovative solutions, our initial focus was on small but impactful design changes. This would help minimize the learning curve for users and make implementation smoother. We also spent time researching best practices in data visualization and drew inspiration from dashboards of other successful platforms.
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Some of the design explorations done during Ideation phase
Usability testing - 1
We started with initial design reviews using low to mid-fidelity wireframes, working with Product Owners who knew OnePress well and stayed connected with users. This helped us get quick feedback early on. Once we felt confident in the direction, we created high-fidelity wireframes for usability testing with actual users. Testing in high fidelity was important since the designs used different colors for data visualization, which played a key role in how users interpreted the information.
We conducted moderated usability testing at two plants – one on-site and the other remotely. A total of five Plant Operators and two Production Planners participated in the sessions. The following designs were evaluated during the testing process.
Dashboard
For the usability testing, we used a mix of open-ended questions and task-based activities. We asked users to think out loud as they interpreted different sections of the dashboard, giving us insight into their thought process. Alongside this, we gave them goal-oriented tasks to complete by navigating through the designed user flows, helping us see how easily they could accomplish key actions.
Street Overview
For this part of the testing, we wanted to see how users understood and interacted with the Street Overview for machines. The focus was on whether they could clearly see the current and upcoming production orders and if they knew how to take the right actions when needed.
Operators can view upcoming orders and prepare machines in advance by selecting Vorrüsten. To reduce confusion, the current and next immediate order are clearly separated from the rest of the upcoming orders. This helps operators focus on what’s immediately relevant while still being aware of future tasks
Prototype used for the testing
Error Reporting
For the usability testing, we used a mix of open-ended questions and task-based activities. We asked users to think out loud as they interpreted different sections of the dashboard, giving us insight into their thought process. Alongside this, we gave them goal-oriented tasks to complete by navigating through the designed user flows, helping us see how easily they could accomplish key actions.
Insights from Usability Testing
4 out of 7 participants were satisfied with the overall design. They found the visual representation of key information on the dashboard clear and easy to interpret. The error recording process was seen as simpler and more efficient compared to the previous workflow.
However the testing also revealed some important and interesting issues to further work upon.
1. Production Orders
4 / 7 participants were unsure how select
the next order
5 / 7 participants couldn’t clearly understand the order statuses and were confused between terms Nächste (next) and Kommende (upcoming)
2. Error recording
3 / 7 participants highlighted grouping of stillstands to save time and effort of recording similar errors
5 / 7 participants mentioned that error levels could extend to more than three, cascading dropdown might not be the most optimal solution then
3. Other Points
2 / 7 participant (Planners) expressed the need for easy access to pages with the full history of previous orders, standstills, and shifts.
3 / 7 participants suggested that along with already present information, having a direct error report button will help users take quick actions.
Refining the Design
Production Order
Since most of the issues were identified in Production Order and Error Management, we prioritised starting the Design refinement process with these areas.
The design shows the workflow of a production order, starting with Laufzeit, followed by Order Ends, then the Pre-selected order shows up, the machine is prepared (Technisches Rüsten), and it loops back to Laufzeit, showing the smooth progression of tasks in the process.
Error Recording
The updated design simplifies the process by introducing a hierarchical structure with clear selection levels and fields for additional context, ensuring better scalability and usability for recording complex errors.
Usability Testing 2
We conducted another round of usability testing with 9 participants - 8 Plant Operators and 1 Production Planner. The testing was done onsite, with two Product Owners (native German speakers) trained to conduct the sessions and take notes. They were provided with a detailed task document and note-taking template. After the testing, participant feedback on the designs was collected via a questionnaire.
Outcome
7 / 9
participants completed the tasks successfully
8 / 9
participants could understand Production Order Statuses
7 / 9
participants said that the workflow was intuitive and clear
Suggested Areas of Improvement
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Ability to pause or stop Production Orders, with critical cases requiring Production Planner approval.
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Pre-selection button made permanently visible, as some participants missed it when it was on hover.
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Option to view errors organized in a folder structure for better grouping.
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Addition of more relevant filters to the Error Management page.
Impact
The redesigned error recording flow was implemented across two shop floors, in Emden and Hannover. Following the implementation, there was a 27% increase in the recording of granular-level errors, enhancing data accuracy and insight into operational challenges
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