OPERATIONAL TRANSFORMATION • PRODUCT DESIGN • OMNI-CHANNEL EXPERIENCE DESIGN • IMPLEMENTATION • CROSS-FUNCTIONAL INFLUENCE • RENEWABLE ENERGY • DESIGN LEADERSHIP
Cutting operational inefficiency by up to 84% across U.S. wind farms
Redesigned materials management at scale—launching digital tools, streamlining processes, and saving $3M+ across operations.
Context & Problem
A Renewable Energy business’s onshore wind portfolio (5 OSA sites) faced inconsistent materials management practices, leading to inefficiencies, increased costs, and avoidable downtime.
Materials management encompasses the processes involved in running the day-to-day operations of a warehouse, including:
receiving goods
organizing the warehouse space
managing inventory
Materials management doesn’t live in isolation: it integrates with other critical business processes like Procure to Pay (P2P) and Work Management (WM).
Critical processes relied heavily on manual data entry and minimal digital support, complicating vendor payments, inventory management, wasting time, and lowering morale.
My Role
The business had never worked with a service or product designer before. I came in for a Discovery Phase to understand the current state, envision a future state, and propose and a recommendation
My proposal secured a year of funding (during a divestment announcement!) for a Design and Implementation Phase.
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Service Design LeadField research
Journey mapping
Insights / Research Playback
Opportunity identification
Workshop facilitation
Future state service blueprinting
Prototype creation: storyboards, mockups
Co-Creation Research
Survey development
MVP Recommendation
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Product Manager, Lead Product Designer, Transformation LeadRequirements definition
Product design and usability testing
Process design
Cross-functional collaboration
Change management and training
Insight: a wholistic view of managing materials in a reactionary business
I led contextual research with 3-high volume wind farms, procurement, maintenance engineers, finance, and technology.
Challenges:
Wind operations is reactionary – it’s difficult to plan for what’s going to break.
Old systems and funding freeze put a glass ceiling on how modern we could be
I mapped how parts move across a site—from identifying a part is needed, to using the part, to managing day-to-day warehouse operations—and uncovered friction across roles, differences between sites, and wins for the teams.
We identified 183 pain points across people, process, technology, and data, and prioritized those at a face-to-face workshop with operations, procurement, and work management.
“Techs run astray. Then parts go missing.”
Selected Solutions in the Materials Management Transformation
Parts Out: Streamlining Checkout, Return, and Parts Consumption
Challenge from Discovery:
Techs are not motivated to return parts or don’t always log what they take
Techs don’t always return parts - tired or forget them on their truck
Introduce controls on the warehouse without slowing down operations
Difficult to read handwriting on inventory relief log
Constraints:
Need clean data for scanning checkout
No budget for new tools
Techs doing work are third party contractors - no credentials for our systems
Solution:
Create a Digital inventory relief log in Microsoft Forms
Create a power automate workflow to add part info
Leverage that to consume parts
Add in better shop labels and signs for triggers
Parts In: Digital Goods Receipt Workflow
Challenge from Discovery:
Difficult to identify the part
Different suppliers don’t always include all of the information
Synchronize with P2P process and back and forth with the office and field teams
Constraints:
No image upload
No scanning
Limited functionality with current tech stack
I defined requirements, worked with architecture to define platform, then create UX flows, high fidelity mockups, and managed a team of 3 UX designers to support initial build and define MVP.
Training and Handoff
Created training sessions and onboarding materials
Co-led interactive all-hands rollout to 15+ ops staff
Designed “quick reference” guides for part checkout and returns
Created online training hub for documentation and sustainment
Constraints
Techs are busy. Not a lot of attention to give
Small screens
Solution:
OUTCOMES
Lead Technician
“If this is what all of the processes will be like, we’ll be in a good place.”
Operations Manager
“You’re making this exciting. I want to use this app!”
Site Coordinator