Screenshot of various screens of the new CloudSoft Platform
Digital transformation

CloudSoft

Our client has multiple sterilization sites across the globe, and audits are performed on a frequent basis to ensure health and safety standards are met. But many of their processes are outdated and inconsistent, and maintained as tribal knowledge.

Prototype available on desktop!

Role and contributions

Solo designer for enterprise digital transformation

Myself, a Business Analyst, Product Manager, two tech leads and a team of developers — were challenged with building an all-in-one platform to digitally transform our client’s business.

Screenshot of Figma user stories and screen flows for the CloudSoft scheduling tasks and subtasks
Work-in-progress of the various user tasks involved in the Scheduling module.
Getting to know the users

Identifying multiple, cross-functional needs

We had a few different users to solve problems for, which would be tackled in different modules of the entire application suite.

Schedulers

Technicians, scheduling orders to be approved for processing in radiation cells

Managers

Operational success managers, overseeing site ongoings and performance

Administrators

IT professionals, administering the tool on a daily basis

Understanding the problem

Outdated processes create risks in operational efficiency, unreliable onboarding among employees

After a couple of rounds of interviews with our users, we found a few of our top problems…
01

Site efficiency

Difficulty gleaning insights on site efficiency and performance at a glance

02

Onboarding

Inconsistent processes and onboarding practises across sites

03

Auditing

Inefficient auditing, and outdated paper trail work order approval processes

Design decisions: Incorporate familiarity

Leaning into complexity: sophisticated, technical processes in a niche industry

One of the big changes we made to the interface was going from a calendar component to a custom design. Our original concepts relied on conventional calendar components as a foundation to the solution. But it wasn’t enough to provide technicians with the granularity needed for tasks at hand.

💡

Schedulers design the schedule for processing work orders. They accommodate work order dose range requirements to meet a regulatory standard for sterilization, considering the irradiation source decay. It ultimately affects how long a work order should be irradiated for to meet required dose specifications.

We originally used a calendar (weekly, monthly, and agenda views). It confused schedulers - they wanted context up-front to better decide on work order sequence.
A screenshot of the most sophisticated feature of the CloudSoft Platform - the scheduling tool, featuring the waiting list and detail entry drawer
I designed a custom scheduling tool, providing familiarity to schedulers, allowing them to see more data in a table-like view and chronological timeline.
Shipped

Pilot app deployed to 11 international sites

We shipped two modules for the application suite:

  1. Administration module — allowing IT to configure users, sites, and log irradiation sources

  2. Scheduler — providing a seamless integration with data automatically flowing in from Oracle databases, and allowing schedulers to create and send their schedules for approval within one tool

A collage of the two modules shipped for the CloudSoft project: the administrative tool and the scheduling tool
Featuring the Suggested Cycle Time feature (top right), which allows the user to more accurately select one of the most crucial properties when scheduling a work order, by automatically finding historical work orders that were processed within similar parameters, and providing a suggestion based off of it.
An annotated design document of the operator output that ultimately is created from the scheduler's work, which is sent for approval and brought onto the floor to direct work order processing
A crucial part of our solution was an Operator Printout, which is a tool production floor employees use to load work orders in the proper sequence. We redesigned it to emphasize work order items names, load and cycle times be easily legible for use in a highly dynamic and physical environment.
Lessons learned

Challenges and perseverance during difficult times

Our latest iteration of designs are continuing to receive exposure to a pool of our target users. I’m excited to report back more of our findings here soon!

Pre-existing client relationships

Delicate relations existed between client and company prior to my arrival. The project scope and timeline remained rigid, forcing us to even more carefully prioritize with our limited resources.

Limited time for feedback

Due to project-pace-to-scope ratio, finding the right times to solicit design feedback were difficult; I employed various methods to ease participation in this crucial activity.

Low design maturity

The level of design maturity on both client and company side were low, creating friction when advocating for effort to be spent on research and design.

Overall challenging project

Although it was a very difficult project to navigate, I grew the most from it. Now from these learnings, I have a chance to excel working on my next big project! 🌞

Remote audio file collaboration