Every plant manager had the same training, and they were all stuck at the same wall.

My Role

I was the UX Strategist on DPM, and I worked at three altitudes on the product. I built the Production Dashboard and Action Tracker myself, concept through hi-fi handoff, and set the design direction for the remaining modules, where I directed 4 UI designers who executed them. Alongside that, I designed and led the research strategy: on-site deep dives at two plants, remote usability testing, and prototype reviews. We contributed to the shared PTC design system.

The stated problem: manufacturers stuck around 60% OEE, chasing an 85% goal.

The deeper problem: OEE could tell them that they were losing productivity, but not where.

OEE is a percentage, measured after the fact, and everyone had the same Six Sigma training, so they were all optimizing the same visible things. The real constraints stayed hidden. In a plant with a hundred machines, maybe ten are actually throttling throughput, and teams were routinely pouring effort into the other ninety, which never moved the P&L.

They didn't know what they didn't know, because their tools couldn't show it to them. What DPM brought was real-time data that surfaced those hidden bottlenecks, plus a common unit, lost hours, that let them be ranked by impact and acted on.

at the source

data to insights

Rather than working from secondhand data, I mapped the plant floor processes end to end, and turned a co-development partnership with Rockwell Automation into real access, running on-site deep dives at a live plant along with continuous remote SME interviews. That research produced personas grounded in the real roles, and a journey map of the continuous improvement lead's week. The map ended the same way every time. They could name how many hours they were down by, but they couldn’t understand where the hours were going, or why.

They could measure the loss but couldn’t locate it or prevent it.

They didn’t need another dashboard that showed them failing

A report wasn’t enough. I designed dashboards, but not ones that simply report failures. DPM ensures accurate data goes in and locates where the loss hours are going, it then lets you act on the cause, and tells you whether a corrective action worked.

Below are the Operator Dashboard (to ensure production data is accurate with a human in the loop), followed by 3 drill down screens that surface various levels of detailed loss insights.

Find the loss. Assign the fix. Prove it worked. Scale the fix.

Users can now assign a fix and track to see if it closes over time. Action tracker closes the loop when the data confirms the fix.