Crown Automation Monitor

2021 - On going

A web-based tool that empowers & informs supervisors of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) through live fleet monitoring and fleet performance insights.

Project Overview

Crown sees the need to introduce a solution to aid individuals responsible for running an AGV operation and reducing reliance from on-floor personnel.

Role & Team

This project is run in collaboration with multi-disciplinary teams, with me being the sole designer responsible through each stage of the design effort- from initial research all the way to hand-off.

The need for a solution

As customers aim to reduce involvement from floor personnel in their automated vehicle operation, the task of monitoring and maintaining AGV activity now fall onto the so-called 'AGV Supervisors'. These individuals have to split their attention across multiple AGVs at a time and are 'scored' on how well the AGVs perform.

A customer-facing UI was not initially seen as a necessary part of the solution. Through research I was able to convince the project team and stakeholders that the solution requires some form of user interface for an AGV Supervisor that address their needs in looking after the operation. It was then added to my responsibility to lead the effort in designing the customer-facing UI, as an addition to Crown's 'InfoLink' fleet management platform.

The effort

I am part of a larger effort to deliver a suite of automation products consisting of the AGV fleet, a server to manage fleet activity, and a web-based user interface for users to monitor and keep track of AGV activity. Needless to say I have to keep a very close communication with the engineering teams throughout the project in order to understand the technical limitations and rally the team to keep pushing boundaries where necessary.

My contribution as the sole designer in this project spans across the whole life cycle of the project which is still in development at the time of writing. These are some of the design, research, and product efforts I was involved in:

  • Conducting initial research

  • Defining user types

  • Defining MVP & future features

  • Cross-discipline negotiation & presentation

  • Prototype creation for testing

  • User interface design & hand-off for production

A rough outline of the project

Discovery during the pandemic

Due to the project start coinciding with the pandemic, we weren’t able to get real-life customer feedback to inform what the product needs to be and who the end users are. However the show must go on- we reached out to the sales team for materials from past customer visits and used them to extrapolate critical information to inform the project.

The findings highlighted the importance of telematics and B.I. solution for AGVs, and also allowed us to create a rough composite of the user types, workflows, and critical functionalities of the solution (all of which are validated at a later stage of the project). These findings were presented to the wider team, and later distilled into MVP requirements in a workshop that I facilitated.

  • Expected user worfklows (+internal Crown set-up & support)

  • Workshop – sifting through potential features for MVP and future release

  • Expected workflow touchpoints per supported Crown platform

Defining MVP features

My presentation of research findings to the team highlighted the needs of an AGV Supervisor in looking after the AGV operation, and therefore the opportunity in a user interface to address those needs.

Together with the project team we were able to define a list of requirement and features not only for the server and AGV fleet itself, but also for customer-facing UI. These are seen as broad items which would later be fleshed out through exploration and testing.

Getting to know the users

Before starting on concepts, we were able to visit an existing Crown customer in North America to witness an active AGV operation in person and assess assumptions from the initial research. This particular customer runs their operation using ‘hybrid’ AGVs comprised of Crown trucks as the base vehicle with a system & server provided by our automation partner.

This visit allowed us to better understand the routines our end users along with their needs and motivations, which we then use to inform the concept directions.

‘AGV Supervisor’ (or ‘Specialist’)

‘Operations Manager’

Initial concepts

With a better understanding of the users I was able to start iterating on wireframes for the initial concept. I then applied the Crown ‘look and feel’ to the more promising iterations, and further prepared them for testing.

Dashboard – a collection of widgets that capture actionable AGV performance metrics, and digestible at a glance

Live Map – real time view of fleet movement, activity, and most importantly AGVs in need of attention

Order Queue - list of orders that are waiting in the queue (Pending) and orders currently underway (In Progress)

Reports - feature allowing users to export raw AGV data in CSV format for custom reporting needs

'Colin' Design System applied to achieve Crown look and feel

Interactive prototypes of initial concept later used in testing

Gathering User Feedback

Moderated sessions were then conducted to test the viability and usability of our initial concept. This was done by observing 10 individual participants perform contextual tasks using a highly interactive prototype of the concept.

Due to difficulty in recruiting users with the relevant background we made the deliberate decision to turn to Crown’s ‘Automation & Emerging Tech’ team instead. We were comfortable with treating them as proxy for customer users as these individuals spend day-in, day-out working very closely with customers on-site and are therefore attuned to the intended user’s workflow, pains, and needs.

Moderated sessions conducted over video call

Through analyzing the test feedback we were able to identify issues that hinder the usability and experience when interacting with the product. Due to time and resource constraints, we had to identify key issues to prioritize for the MVP and save the rest for a future release.

Key issues prioritized and addressed for MVP

Issues to be addressed in a future release..

The Automation Monitor.

After multiple rounds of iterations and review we were able to finalize the Automation Monitor App MVP design, which we then handed off for development.

Real-time highlights of fleet status & activity

The Live Map is designed to support different levels of engagement in a monitoring workflow: a real-time map view of fleet movement and activity for hands-on monitoring approach, and curated fleet metrics that are digestible at a glance which summarizes current workload, utilization, and AGVs in need of attention.

Key monitoring information called out on both map and drawer

Insightful 'Alarms'

Alarms call out individual AGVs in need of attention. The distinction between different types paint a mental picture of what the problem is, the severity, and what set of recovery action needs to be done on the AGV before the user leaves their monitoring station.

Distinction of alarm types allow users to start troubleshooting the problem before reaching the AGV

Actionable insights - at a glance.

Data presented on the dashboard allude to known KPI, ROI, and acceptance metrics often used in measuring the success of an AGV deployment. Data is visualized in a way that highlights improvement opportunities, and current state of AGV performance against the target.

Deliberately chosen metrics on the widgets present an overview of AGV performance and highlights improvement opportunities

Springboard to optimization

Widget drilldowns provide detailed information and context into a particular metric to help users plan their next set of actions in order to optimize the operation.

Productivity drilldown helps users understand order time consistency, and highlights any irregularities to look into

Intervention drilldown breaks down leading causes of productivity loss to help users identify 'low hanging fruits' for optimization

Filter & sort functionalities are put in place to help users manage the naturally 'noisy' utilization breakdown view, in order to understand the make-up of fleet activity over time

To sum it up..

The InfoLink Automation Monitor is still in development and scheduled for Field Test in North America in late 2023. Server and UI functionalities are being built one piece at a time which requires me to be on call to help with any developmental hurdle encountered along the way.

While my involvement isn't over at the time of writing, working with multi-disciplinary teams in developing this product has really honed my cross-functional negotiation skill and empathy towards business values- both for Crown and the customer. Looking back at the effort there were moments where I'm proud to have stood my ground, yet also ones where I could have been more flexible in my thinking. All of these are learning that I will look to apply in future projects.

Have a peek at my other work!