FLSmidth | STAR
Digital logbook | A tool to aggregate asset data for faster issue resolution.
Field research | Data Strategy | Requirements definition | UX architecture
Background
To drive value in a changing market, FLSmidth tasked STAR's Insights and Strategy team with an intensive field study, shadowing plant managers and technicians to uncover the operational pain points hurting performance in cement plants and mines.
The research revealed a critical gap: machines provided sensor data, but the "human layer" of qualitative knowledge was missing, lost at shift handovers or trapped in paper logbooks.
For any AI-driven benchmarking platform to be meaningful, that expert knowledge first had to be digitised and structured, balancing technical requirements against the harsh physical realities of the plant floor.
Solution
A Digital Logbook, designed to make capturing field data effortless for technicians. Voice-to-text logging and barcode scanning let workers log incidents and tag them to specific assets, building a digitised maintenance history for every machine — critical for rapid issue resolution and asset-health benchmarking, while giving managers a transparent, accountable view of how issues get resolved.
Impact
Field research revealed a compelling unmet need and a clear, high-value opportunity. With a strong impact-to-effort ratio, the proposed solution promised significant operational gains at minimal development complexity — an easy prioritisation decision for the product pipeline.
My Role
I led the engagement and orchestrated the cross-functional effort. I designed and led the field research across customer sites, ran the analysis that surfaced the core unmet needs, and drove the development of the resulting solution spaces, from raw field observation through to prioritised opportunities.