Vehicle Management System

HONEYWELL

Vehicle Management System (VMS)

Ensuring safety, allocation, and maintenance with warehouse vehicle operations

Honeywell International Inc. is a publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It operates in four primary areas of business: aerospace, building automation, performance materials and technologies (PMT), and safety and productivity solutions. Honeywell hired Ziba to find out what it would take to enter the vehicle management system (VMS) space.

I joined the team to help conduct research and to design a solution. There were three main pillars that we were to investigate, operations, safety, and maintenance.

Challenge

Scope: We assessed a large-scale concept to identify areas where we could provide immediate value.
Platform: The system included desktop and mobile devices, as well as proprietary devices.
Environmental factors: Design considerations were made for fluctuating ambient light, gloved fingers on touchscreen devices, and high-noise and hazardous environments.

Solution

We talked to safety, operations, and maintenance personnel in a range of industries that utilized warehouse-type vehicles such as forklifts, pallet jacks, cherry-pickers, and baggage cars. Environments were as diverse as airports, oil fields, warehouses, and heavy-duty manufacturing facilities.

We evaluated several design approaches and tested them with users. Our solution combines the onboard computers of the fleet with a desktop tool that enables administrators to establish safety and maintenance parameters, and mobile devices to monitor fleet activities while on the floor and away from the desk.

The system comprises a desktop application, a mobile application, and onboard vehicle sensors and computers.

Responsibilities

USER RESEARCH

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATIONS

DESKTOP APP DESIGN

MOBILE APP DESIGN

ONBOARD COMPUTER APP DESIGN

USABILITY TESTING

INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPES