The user experience of a private cellular connectivity solution

Abstract

The manufacturing industry is in a state of change, with the possibility of completely automated and connected factories around the corner. As companies start to move in this direction, new connectivity solutions are evolving. This thesis looked at a private cellular connectivity solution and resulted in a concept for how to add and connect assets to this cellular network. Assets that are registered and connected to the network are most likely also registered in a separate asset management system. The qualitative study in this project was conduced to understand how asset management is used in industrial environments to provide an understanding for the persons involved and their needs. Problem areas, journey maps and personas were developed to define the data accumulated in the study. The knowledge gained from this study was used to develop the user flow of adding assets to the cellular connectivity solution. The final concept is presented as an entire flow from asset acquisition to asset decommission. Within this flow, an interactive prototype was designed to visualise the flow of adding assets to the cellular connectivity solution, with focus on the user experience of adding multiple assets at once. Lastly, suggestions for improvements were stated for future development of this design. It was found that it is important to be abundantly clear when it comes to layers of virtuality and reality - meaning that users should always feel certain that they are performing an action virtually in the system, or physically in reality.