Design Thinking Reflection: Use of Visualization Tool

Challenge:

I work as an engineering project manager and got an opportunity to use Design Thinking tools and  application during a recent project on “manufacturing nonconformance closure”.

The problem was that mail manufacturing plant received thousands of product quality nonconformance  from various sub suppliers, requesting for a deviation approvals to allow the deviated part and these  non-conformance forms were received by quality department in different forms, mails, attachments,  datasheets and required quality department to manually process everything and then send manually to  engineering and other departments for evaluation and approvals and then send back the  reports back  to sub-supplier with acceptance or rejection.

This was a tedious and manual process and sometimes took more than 3-4 weeks for a single quality  nonconformance to get resolved and this used to create a high manufacturing backlog and delay in  shipment deliveries and inventory cost.

The design challenge was to deploy a streamlined, connected and automatic workflow for quick receipt,  processing and disposition of these nonconformance in order to reduce downtime and waiting costs.

Selection of Tool:

This challenge required us to gather verbal, nonverbal feedback, interviews and mostly discuss current  state of process flow and generate common understanding of workflows, patterns etc. This make use of  visualization tool very important since it could be used starting from creating deep understanding of  issues to identify key elements, and bring different people together for a very visual and clear  understanding of future workflow map.

Approach and Application  of Visualization Tool:

We formed a cross functional team from different departments and some representation from suppliers  and customers and went about detailing / understanding the problem areas from various suppliers,  customers, quality, engineering and other departments via selected open questions and then used a  common workshop and used mind mapping approach to create patterns and down select core issues.  And we used Visualization tool as mandatory approach throughout the design thinking cycle in order to  effectively communicate and create common understanding. We used different colors to signify where  more delays was and bottleneck

We created simple flow diagrams like this as an example only..

NC

Supplier

Qaulity

Project

Engg

Mfg   Total

Once current state and potential solutions were formed, we used simple visual diagrams for each flow  activity and used that to get responses from different teams and down select the solution and test it

Even assumption validation and testing used create visual mock up models and color them differently to  show process flow and get quick responses from stakeholders and customers.

Analysis and Summary

Use of visualization tool is very effective approach and it can be used in any meetings, discussions,  problem solving, mind mapping, prototype and mock up verification and in any situation.

It is proven that our mind reads and understand visual images better than text and verbal so  visualization, simple illustration, drawing and continuous use of this builds everyone to be on the same  page and help ideate and solve problems very effectively.

I hope to use this more and more in day to day discussions and project problem solving areas in future  and probably have this tool as an enabler for each step or supplement tools used throughout design  thinking process.

