company:
customer:
length:
dti digital
Not available
3 months
research goal
Understand who are the users that access the Performance report, their characteristics and daily activities to collect pain points and opportunities that help in developing a new value proposition suitable for the new feature proposal.
overview
Initial context
The Customer Portal Reports was created by our stakeholders vision attacking pain points assumed by by their previous experiences with customers from an International Refractory industry . Due to the complexity behind performance report content as is today, the team felt the necessity of investigating the real value they deliver today to end users as well as their goals and desired outcomes.
The main motivator for this research was the lack of understanding of who are the personas currently accessing the portal. In addition, there is no connection between he available information and the easy access of it by end-users. Moreover, due to the conglomerate of reports inside the same feature, there are some problems with extent data loading time and poor user experience while navigating from one topic to another.
Today the feature counts with 8 modules: Summary report, Equipment stats, Consumption Stats, KPI dashboard, Action plan, Costs overview, Stock info and Month-end report. All modules have specific functions and delivery data according their purpose. The high complexity of them together with the high data loading time were indicators of understanding better the value proposition delivered for each one of them.
Timeline
Timeframe July - August
Plan
Research
Analyse
Consolidate
The problem space
Plan
Performance report: as is scenario
Summary report
What is
Executive summary;
Cluster and resumed of management information;
Quick visualization.
Jobs to be done
Follow up of contract information;
Follow up of main KPIs;
Comparison of updated information with capabilities agreed with company
Value proposition
Undefined
Equipment stats
What is
View of performance and campaign status;
Technical information;
View of key performance indicators in group of MRK or one in specific.
Jobs to be done
Follow up of contract information;
Follow up of main KPIs;
Comparison of updated information with capabilities agreed with company
Value proposition
Undefined
Consumption stats
What is
Consumption information of the hole company;
General and broader view;
All material usages in company.
Jobs to be done
Follow up of consumption;
Stock coverage;
Follow up of full view of equipments.
Value proposition
Undefined
KPI dashboard
What is
Every site has their own KPI plus performance and specific consumption;
Customized KPIs.
Jobs to be done
Follow up KPIs
Value proposition
Undefined
Action plans
What is
Creation of action plans
Jobs to be done
Follow up of action plans and responsible of them;
Management of action plans.
Value proposition
Keep track on actions related to material and/or equipment aiming to keep/improve customer relationship.
Cost overview
What is
Running cost;
View of costs, without consideration of contracts.
Merge with month end report information
Jobs to be done
View of actual costs;
Analysis of price per consumption;
Follow up of full view of equipment.
Value proposition
Undefined
Stock info
What is
View of daily, weekly and monthly stock;
View of warehouses, historical view;
View by type of material.
Jobs to be done
Manage the stock levels;
Follow up of material movements;
Check information of warehouses;
Value proposition
Undefined
Month-end reports
What is
Contract view;
View of information outside the contract;
Discounts;
Jobs to be done
Follow up items that aren't in the contract;
Check what was contracted and what it was done;
Value proposition
Undefined
Analyse
Functionality resemblance
After completing the interviews, the product team discussed the main points found in conversations with external and internal users.
We found that some pain points referred to other solutions of the company and would be sent to the respective projects. Regarding other pain points, opportunities and insights were classified into two main activities.
The first activity was to aggregate what was a pain point that already have one functionality to solve it n the Performance report and the second one is to mapping the others pain points and transform them int new opportunities.
Inventory
Trials
Action plans
KPIs
Campaign status
Specific consumption
Heats per shell
Consumption
Research
The approach: key research questions
The product team decided to conduct an exploratory survey to understand the real opportunities for performance report functionality. Due to the fact that this report was created based on some customers requests, without a structured research, it was decided to ask questions about users' routines, activities, analyses, and also what their main problems were in order to explore opportunities.
The initial objective, in addition to understanding the current scenario of users, is to identify the main personas that will be affected by the changes and also how we can improve performance report to deliver value for each type of persona.
09
customer interviews
16
people interviewed
03
different languages
Key questions:
What types of decisions do you make in your daily life?
What kind of activities related to equipment performance do you carry out?
What are the information and data that you need the most in your daily life? Which ones do you monitor daily and have a higher frequency of review?
Opportunities and pain points
After classifying the pain points and opportunities into similar categories, all of them were clustered and rewritten into a single point to facilitate the division of what could be prioritized and attacked by the product team.
This second classification model was based on similar pain points or opportunities. By aggregating all of them, the team was able to identify the most important issues to address. This process was important to ensure that the team could focus on the most pressing issues and deliver the most value to the users
Customer does not provide information
It is difficult to capture customer information due to confidential data and they do not share this information in RHIM systems.
Performance and analysis needs
There is no predictive way to explain low performance in advance.
Various tools
Lack of a single tool that allows tracking information, conducting analysis, and preparing reports.
Cost and profit
Customer having access to cost view is detrimental to RHIM strategies.
Action plans
Due to constant problems and the risk of market loss, they seek continuous improvements and need to make action plans, but they are long-term/reviewed with clients/or do not receive proper attention.
Report
Need for consolidation and creation of monthly and weekly reports in non-automated ways.
Manual process
A lot of information is processed manually and they spend time performing tasks.
Data processing
They have to analyse process data daily to understand what is happening in the plant.
KPIs
KPIs are not preventive and only analyze more closely when there is a problem.
Equipment information
Equipment information is outdated and they spend a lot of time controlling it.
Inventory
They spend a lot of time monitoring and managing inventory, or collecting data from those who manage it.
Rounds
They do not have real-time data, so it is necessary to do rounds or collect information from those responsible to obtain “floor” information (process).
Incorrect information
Information inputted can contain human errors or may not be updated.
Historical information and control
They need updated historical information that is easily accessible to adapt to the market and strategies.
Need for visual inspection
It is always necessary to resort to visual inspection to have more certainty in decision-making because the information does not translate important points.
Company's value chain
Another crucial point in the reformulation discussions was how to apply the E2E value chains defined by the company within the Performance report. For this, we also had to understand how each type of value chain behaves in order to apply the concepts within the reformulation.
Perfomance report
TCO Performance
Standard value
Comodities
Speed supply
Supply reliability
Solution engineering &
Technical assistance
New
General value proposition:
“Provide transparency to the customer on aspects related to contract management in general.”
The new distribution of the performance report will be called Contract Management Toolkit and will consist of 5 pilar modules that can vary depending on the type of value chain the client falls into. These modules are: Material management, Services management, Commercial management, Performance management and Action plans.
Furthermore, we observed that the main characteristic that made it difficult to define the performance report by users is the lack of understanding of the difference between performance data and process information.
Therefore, it is important to reiterate that in this new consolidation, Contract Management Toolkit will not be a system and will not necessarily serve for instant decision-making. Furthermore, it will not be the tool where the user will negotiate the contract, it will only provide visibility regarding terms and actions present in the contract.
Contract Management: Material Management
Everything related to the refractory itself, also where they can see the consumption.
Value proposition
Provide transparency of consumption and stock data of refractory materials
TCO Performance
Standard value
Speed supply
Supply reliability
Opportunities, pain points and necessities
Empower the user
Open orders
Inventory management
Consumption management
Develop necessary KPIs
Required data
Refractory consumption
Refractory stock
Minimum coverage index
OrderBook
Personas
Logistics, stock controller
Internal store resident
Customer procurement people
Contract Management: Services Management
The operational side of the data collection, it has information of refractory installation, demolition, recycling.
Value proposition
Provide transparency of the services performed by the company
TCO Performance
Standard value
Supply reliability
S. E. & T. A
Opportunities, pain points and necessities
Capture important / required information
Develop necessary KPIs
Empower the user
Inventory management
Required data
Quantity of equip. being installed, in operation and demolition phases
Action plans
Personas
Plant technician
Logistics
Resident, On site company's employee
Contract Management: Commercial Management
It is the monetary information related both customer and RHIM and also the contract per se.
Value proposition
Provide transparency of data surrounding company's contract closures
TCO Performance
Standard value
Commodities
Opportunities, pain points and necessities
Understand contract closure
Understand refractory cost variatrion
Empower the user
Develop necessary KPIs
Enable TCO analysis
Required data
Contract type
Negotiated contract rate
Heats quantity, steel production, consumption (in contract and out of contract), prices, currency.
Cost variation over time
Contracted versus actual cost
Contract rate versus actual rate
Personas
Contract manager
CSR
Sales person
Commercial / supply chain customer
Technical marketing
Contract Management: Performance Management
It is everything related to the performances of both material and equipment.
Value proposition
Provide transparency of company's material and equipment performance data and processes data
TCO Performance
Standard value
S. E. & T. A
Opportunities, pain points and necessities
Material performance analysis
Develop necessary KPIs
Equipment performance analysis
Trials
Required data
Heats per shell, MRK average campaign, average campaign per equipment, average campaign per equipment region, steel production, reason for closing campaign.
Comparison of projected and actual performance
Specific consumption
Action plan
Personas
Contract manager
Plant technician
Resident, On site company's employee
Contract Management: Action plans
It where the user control the action plans, following 5W2H methodology for services, performances and etc.
Value proposition
Provide transparency of the actions generated in the other pillars.
TCO Performance
Standard value
Commodities
Speed supply
Supply reliability
S. E. & T. A
Opportunities, pain points and necessities
Unified view of action plans to all modules
Required data
Compiled action plan
Personas
Post research
Results and insights
Key findings
Customer's information is challenging
Obtaining necessary information to prevent any problem is a complicated task. Many clients refuse to provide important information to plant technician, and often they try to obtain it by talking to other employees on site.
Customer has problems to share information because for them some are confidential.
There are also problems when inputing sources with this information because some users reported that they do not feed RHIM products with some customer information.
Mobility for everyone but in one place
One of the most important tasks of users' daily routine is to collect information about processes to understand how performance was. This collection is mostly done by going to the factory and the information is written down on paper or other tools to save the information. Many feel the lack of a solution that would facilitate the information collection process, whether automated or some integrated mobile proposal.
Some users use WhatsApp groups to save this information, being able to access it from wherever they are.
In addition to having a need for mobility, there is also no single source to monitor process and performance information. The history of information as well as the various consumption tools cause more rework and access problems.
Agility in information
It was found that users need information in an agile and practical way to make accurate decisions. Currently, the necessary information is not easily accessible to various types of users.
One user mentioned that the company's information had not been updated since March of this year.
Moreover, because many processes are not integrated in the cloud and are archaic, it ends up hindering activities because it is necessary to collect information and/or replicate it more than once.
They only see everything if there's a problem
Users monitor the information daily, but only conduct a deeper search when there is a problem or if any material/equipment has poor performance. Additionally, they only collect and monitor information in a general way.
Many interviewees make reports to report performance failures in order to raise awareness among clients of the causes.
Regarding performance information, customers are more interested when there is a performance problem or when it is necessary to change the focus of action.
There are also scenarios in which even after investigating the data thoroughly, a satisfactory answer to the problem is not found, as performance variables do not always come exclusively from refractories.
Performance and processes information
There is a misunderstanding among users regarding process information and performance information. Process information is what helps to understand whether the material or equipment had positive or negative performance.
Furthermore, those concepts also mix up for users, so it is necessary that the solution is well explanatory about what that information is and what it is used for.
Additionally, there are different types of personas that will analyse information from various factors. Some will try to understand what caused that negative performance, while others will only want to see the numbers and have explanations of what happened.
Action plans
Action plans are often not closely monitored by customers as users would like. However, they use action plans to guide the improvement of equipment and materials and even as material tests.
Material information
Some users use inventory information to extract information if performance is positive or negative. These data may not be conclusive, but it can be understood that more accurate information can help prevent low performance.
Insights
Material comparison
For tests, there is also a possibility of a functionality that compares results based on rounds to assist in the comparison of each materials and the choice of which will be the final product to be applied in order to have a product that better fits the customer's objectives.
Material recycling
Currently, there is no way to know if there is material waste or not. This is necessary to better act on the choices of definitions and equipment that will have better performance.
Trials
Tests of a new product or equipment are also crucial activities in the daily lives of users. One must detach from other activities to understand how this information can be contained within one of the five pillars.
Predictive information
There is also a scenario where performance information is not preventive, meaning that it does not inform users before a problem occurs so that they can perform low-performance prevention activities.
Next steps
Dive deep in each pillar
It is necessary to perform more research activities to validate the initial concept and investigate which information is missing or excessive in each pillar with end users. There is also the necessity to available the necessity to understand if the actual Contract management meets needs or not.
Effort and value validation with development team
Understand with the development team the effort and value for each pillar and thus be able to create a roadmap with the definitive order of each step to be tackled.
Validations with end users
Validate each pillar with end users in order to understand if the proposed value is being delivered by the new functionality model. Also study and analyse access data, KPIs, to also corroborate with the value analysis. It is important to note that data will be collected before and after the implementation of each new pillar to prove or disprove the final concept.