BRANDON PICKETT

Optimizing your electrified jobsites

With the development of battery electric machines (BEM), Caterpillar has identified a business need for the construction industry to track and manage their electrified assets while in the field. The creation of a new “charge coordinator” persona allows the user to maintain a high level of utilization through leveraging telematics data provided via a mix of BEM machines, electric storage systems (ESS), and geolocation information.

After the initial kickoff and research phase started, the business need was defined as “Provide an interface that allows users to set up and manage their worksite’s energy use and track historical data.” The customer/user needs were identified as “the Charge coordinator monitors daily energy use, forecasts & reserves the next day’s energy. And the outcomes defined in terms of data driven solutions based on historical data.

EFLOW delivers real-time status and utilization data for each work site via the live dashboard page. From here, the user has the ability to view the composition of their fleet, the current activity status & state of charge of each asset, as well as location information to maintain optimum utilization of the electric fleet.

Selecting an asset from the portfolio opens the asset details drawer. This is where the user can view historical utilization and activity data to make decisions on where to task the asset next and when to charge it.

Viewing the historical data page gives the user a clear view of how their fleet is being utilized for charging vs. working time, what time of day are the activities happening from a fleet level, and track the flow of energy from the grid, to the ESS batteries, and into the BEM assets.

Here are some snapshots of research and implementation examples. During initial kickoff, I use FigJam to foster a collaborative environment with stakeholders to identify the big idea, define the problem statement, list user and business needs, identify user personas, and share insights. Once the EPIC scope is refined, I then move into the Figma space where I build and manage the working files that will become production-ready for the engineering team. Delegation of design tasks are then t-shirt sized and broken out between team members for execution.