Designing User Experience for Operational Excellence Tool to Ensure the Future Use
Vuoti, Mari; Howlader, Elena (2022)
2022
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022122231401
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022122231401
Tiivistelmä
In an environment of increasing competition across the globe and, as a result, the need to reduce operational costs, businesses are under pressure to continuously improve and minimise activities that do not produce value. Even though many companies strive for continuous improvement, some have better results than others in their quest for operational excellence.
The case company of this thesis is Neste, a leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel, and renewable feedstock solutions worldwide. Neste continually strives to improve its processes, functions, and ways of working both within and outside the organisation. Through the Excellence tool, the organisation aims to build a culture of continuous improvement.
For Neste, one of the main objectives of this thesis project was to help improve transparency in the process and ensure the future use of the Excellence tool. Gaining a deeper understanding of the tool's functionalities, identifying the pain points and strengths of the tool from a user experience perspective, and formulating improvement ideas are the main targets.
The theoretical basis for the study consists of operational excellence, learning organisation, systems thinking, collective intelligence, and balanced scorecard. User experience, usability and visual design theory were also analysed to provide theoretical support for the objective of this thesis.
As part of this research-based project, service design tools and methods were used within the framework of the Double Diamond by the British Design Council (2022), such as semi-structured interviews, personas, journey mapping, and workshops. The results were analysed using thematic analysis.
As a result of this project, the case company was given a detailed description of the current user experience of the Excellence tool. Solutions to the identified pain points and wishes were developed with the help of the users in a co-creative workshop. The company was also provided with a list of recommended actions to improve the user experience and ensure the future use of the Excellence tool. Based on the comprehensive literature research, suggestions were provided on how to create a foundation for operational excellence that users will be committed to using in the future.
The conclusion is that in order to build a successful user experience of the Excellence tool at the time of launch to ensure future success, the company must focus on building foundations of positive user experience, organisational learning and business unit-based balanced scorecard metrics. In addition to measuring success and ensuring strategic objectives, measuring the strategically appropriate things from each unit can also encourage and facilitate communication and make visible the expectations and the metrics by which each unit is evaluated.
The case company of this thesis is Neste, a leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel, and renewable feedstock solutions worldwide. Neste continually strives to improve its processes, functions, and ways of working both within and outside the organisation. Through the Excellence tool, the organisation aims to build a culture of continuous improvement.
For Neste, one of the main objectives of this thesis project was to help improve transparency in the process and ensure the future use of the Excellence tool. Gaining a deeper understanding of the tool's functionalities, identifying the pain points and strengths of the tool from a user experience perspective, and formulating improvement ideas are the main targets.
The theoretical basis for the study consists of operational excellence, learning organisation, systems thinking, collective intelligence, and balanced scorecard. User experience, usability and visual design theory were also analysed to provide theoretical support for the objective of this thesis.
As part of this research-based project, service design tools and methods were used within the framework of the Double Diamond by the British Design Council (2022), such as semi-structured interviews, personas, journey mapping, and workshops. The results were analysed using thematic analysis.
As a result of this project, the case company was given a detailed description of the current user experience of the Excellence tool. Solutions to the identified pain points and wishes were developed with the help of the users in a co-creative workshop. The company was also provided with a list of recommended actions to improve the user experience and ensure the future use of the Excellence tool. Based on the comprehensive literature research, suggestions were provided on how to create a foundation for operational excellence that users will be committed to using in the future.
The conclusion is that in order to build a successful user experience of the Excellence tool at the time of launch to ensure future success, the company must focus on building foundations of positive user experience, organisational learning and business unit-based balanced scorecard metrics. In addition to measuring success and ensuring strategic objectives, measuring the strategically appropriate things from each unit can also encourage and facilitate communication and make visible the expectations and the metrics by which each unit is evaluated.