Reflections of Marcelo Caroline related to Visualization

Challenge

As responsible for the IT department in the company, I have constant challenges related to the  interpretation of needs and technical requirements of the business for the development of  solutions that create value and are easy to maintain. This challenge has increased as new process  automation needs arise, new needs for analysis of large volumes of data, new digitization needs  sometimes brought by business areas and sometimes fostered by the IT team.

Specifically in this case, my team and I were asked to develop an App that facilitated the recording  of mechanical, electrical, civil problems, etc. found in our hydroelectric and wind power plants, with  the objective of allowing the analysis, comparison and centralized prioritization of the solutions to  be applied in the power plants using the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) method.

Departments interested in this solution were: Local Maintenance, Health Security, Safe end  Environment, the centralized area of Projects Engineering and IT.

Selection

To facilitate the understanding of the various departments involved, I chose to use visualization  tools to translate the document of requirements, spreadsheets and other documents collected with  the requesting areas.

Because meetings are remote, using the Microsoft White board in combination with scanned paper  drawings seemed like a good choice because of the ability to make changes and even new drawings  in real time as solutions were discussed. Later we were able to prove that the use of the White  board was a good choice.

Application

Even before the app's development, the customer areas were already doing problems management  in a precarious way using forms and a giant Excel spreadsheet. In the spreadsheet were all the rules  of analysis and prioritization of solutions by project and maintenance engineers.

The first meeting was organized to allow everyone to come forward and report their role in the use  and development of the solution.  Then, the maintenance area demonstrated the form (in Word)  and the worksheet where they recorded the problems. They also demonstrated the current process  of problem analysis, application of the Ishikawa method (Root Cause), search for similar problems  in the knowledge base (in Excel) and finally prioritizing the application of the solution. In this way,  my team was able to clearly understand the need of the business and thus prepare a document  with the primary requirements of the new App.

We then made some paper drawings demonstrating the normal activities of maintenance  professionals and the suggestions of screens of the App with the various stages of the process. We  also designed the phase of analysis of problems with research to the knowledge base, division of  the problem into several probable causes, access to other important bases for validation of  previous equipment conditions and finally the screen of prioritization of the resolution action in the

backend of the system. We present the various drawings and screen suggestions of the system to  the requesting areas that confirmed the understanding. We then set out to develop front-end  prototypes of the App according to the specifications and validated designs.

Insight / Approach

The use of visualization to demonstrate the understanding of the entire process has promoted  greater collaboration of the requesting areas. Once a visualization of the problem is clearly  understood, we start to discuss deeper aspects of the problem and how the App should be  developed to cover the needs. The use of drawings has also helped to increase the contribution of  engineers on the necessary actions of mitigation and resolution of problems since it also allows  them to present drawings of the solution in the App itself. Additionally, we develop graphical  reports with the results of root cause analyses, resolutions applied and gains obtained with the use  of the method. This has further fostered the imagination of user areas in search of digital solutions  that facilitate their work.

