Nutrien AIMS
Company engineering-inspection compliance
Nutrien Ltd is a Canadian crop nutrient producer and distributer for agricultural customers worldwide. The AIMS system provides transparency of the health of their sites with 3rd party inspection companies. Inspector examinations determine if sites are allowed to continue business or will be subject to Canadian penalties.
User feedback
Three types of engineers were the primary users (electrical, structural, mechanical). Inspectors needed a simple mobile process to facilitate their work, but engineers need extremely in-depth detail history of components with flagging system for feedback and replacement.
The problem
1.0 version was an antiquated, nearly legacy system that could not support cloud needs and modern features. Client stakeholders wanted to skip some user research. Design system was half-baked. Electrical engineers needed out of scope additional features independent from other requirements.
The solution
Research was broken out by user, presented to stakeholders in user journeys. Essential functionality was built out for electrical engineers needs (back logged excess needs) AIMS 2.0 was built with immediate needs for their site locations, as well as flexibility for future improvements.
User flows
We took each user and determined the primary tasks they perform, frequency, and qualified essential needs vs nice to haves. Since their current system didn’t have easy mobile/tablet interactions, this was a vital fix for SCs and Inspectors as they are always walking around sites. Other tasks that were not-essential were added to backlog for future release.
User research
Three main personas use the AIMS system. Two of them are internal Nutrien users (site coordinators and supply chain managers). This required different permissions and configuration ability between them. The third persona is an external inspector who has less time in the app, but equally important checks to go through their flows. When I joined this project, the site coordinator was about 80% validated, and I finished out the remaining.
My role
While working for Hitachi Vantara, this was a typical consulting project. Travel to work at the clients location was required for first 2.5 months. My BA and Tech Dev joined me onsite. I was the Lead and only UX for my time on the project, which was for about 5 months total.
Activities
UX/UI Lead, User persona contribution, in-person user interviews, information architecture, content writing, designed user flows, wireframes, prototypes, usability testing, hi-fi designs
Stakeholders
1 Lead UX Designer (me)
1 Business Analyst
1 Technical Developer
1 Front end developer
1 Back end developer
Results
- AIMs 2.0 provided data re-sync if users go into underground sites with no wifi access
- Dashboard was improved upon to feature sites inspections and repairs for any user to view
- Responsive design gave the SCs and Inspectors improved usability on devices
- Inspection time decreased by over 30% on average after 2.0 release