Covestro, 2023
Position: Product Manager, UX, Research
Overview: Design digital platform to standardize processes and data from various laboratories.
Problem being addressed: Various chemistries, laboratories and geographical locations use different processes, data structures and recording methods.
General responsibilities: Research, UX strategy, customer interviews, initial design, communication
Some industries have embraced digital technology fairly quickly and can do so easily. The chemical (and many science-based) industry is NOT one of those industries due to the complexities of, essentially, everything that goes on inside and outside of the laboratories. This gave rise to many independent solutions where scientists and technicians wanted to be more efficient and embrace available technology. This was typically using Excel to manage lab data. With some companies having hundreds of labs and thousands of scientists, using "home grown" solutions over a 20-30 year span, the digital ecosystem had become quite messy.
The attempt at digital and data standardization had been tried many times at Covestro (and previously when they were Bayer MaterialScience). Most science companies have Electronic Lab Journals (ELJ) for labs and Inventory Management systems, normally provided by SAP.
In this particular case, the ELJ had become the most centralized component to help lab efficiency but it was only good for certain types of chemistry. This meant that many labs still used Excel due to its flexibility. The over-arching goal of this project was to create and end-to-end (E2E) system that could fix many of the issues that were created over the past 20 years.
I executed a number of interviews with lab workers - both Lab Heads (Chemists who are normally, if not always, PhD holders) and the Lab Technicians who go through company training and are the foundation of the lab. Chemists may come and go but some Lab Technicians have worked in the same lab for 30 years. Although there are no obvious relationship problems to speak of, the more I researched, the more I uncovered problems with the older technicians - they did not want to change. Many of them were still using pen and paper to record data. Only some of them were entering that information into the ELJ or Excel files.
So what started as digital project, soon turned into a change management project. The goal soon became to understand how to build an easy-to-use, digital tool that even older colleagues would be willing to use and to make onboarding successful.
I decided to design a digital workplace that would work a little like social media meets a modern project management tool - but adjusted to be able to handle the heavy duty science and chemistry processes. I wanted the design to be streamlined but still have all of the needs of the Lab Head and Lab Technician could be met and be only a click or two away.
