Visualization

Challenge

I am a team member from the research and development department in the company  producing food. The company is implementing a project to introduce a new food product into  production. For this aim, the marketing department has offered several options that could be  interesting to customers. From the point of view of the market, these products are equivalent,  so the task of our group was to determine which of these products is preferable from a  technological point of view, based on the proposed recipes. We should consider such indicators  as complexity and volume of costs for changing the existing technological scheme. Also, it is  necessary to take other factors into account, such as technological and other risks when  launching a new product, not previously known. In addition, we are limited in the budget for  the purchase of new equipment.

Selection

The technological scheme is a rather complex and ramified sequence of different equipment,  for example, for mixing, heating, separation, etc. For simplification understanding it often uses  a visualization tool, that is, a schematic diagram of the equipment, the principle of operation,  the sketches of the sequence in which it is used. Therefore, for the development of the new  scheme, I also decided to use visualization to simplify the process of developing the  technological scheme with the team. Visualization will help to easily change the scheme and  see how these changes will affect the overall work.

Application & Insight

I started with a schematic representation of the equipment and products available to us on  separate cards and the construction of an existing technological scheme from them. With the  help of this scheme, I was able easily introduce the affairs to my colleagues and explain our  further goal. In addition, we supplemented the classic images of equipment with notes on their  costs and possible technological risks, so that later it would be easier to assess the profitability  of the scheme.

Further, for each of the potential products, we made the technological schemes of these cards.  Using the sketching we could also think about the logistic in our production plan. It was very  simple and convenient, the big advantage was that all team members could work together. The  simplicity of the schemes made it possible to quickly evaluate the cost and risks of the scheme.  In addition, due to visibility and a teamwork, it was possible to figure out how to improve the  existing scheme.

So by applying visual tool our team not only was able to find the best solution for launching  new product but also suggested some improvement in existing scheme which was used for a  long time. This is considered as a quite impressive result.

Approach

The use of this method can be defined as effective. Next time, too, we will use this tool, since  visualization is something that is critically lacking in the design of technological schemes.  Perhaps it would be good idea to combine this method with the mind mapping, for a better  understanding of logistics and financial issues.

