Empowering process engineers with natural user interfaces for incident analysis and documentation – A case study in battery cell manufacturing

Driving process innovation and ensuring the product quality to reduce scrap rates are among the key objectives for a process engineer in battery cell manufacturing. Since unresolved product quality incidents often lead to a higher scrap rate, thorough analysis and documentation are required. However, the root cause analysis of product quality issues is often complicated by the lack of systematic documentation and its associated data. This deficit points to an urgent need for a user-friendly interface that facilitates efficient data collection and analysis. In this case study we propose the development of an application providing a user interface tailored for the challenging working conditions in battery cell manufacturing, such as the use of multi-layered gloves, face masks, noisy environments, and the limitation on space for input devices in cell assembly and formation. Focus groups and contextual interviews were conducted to gather insights from users to help design the initial version of the user interface. Due to an usability inspection, areas for improvement as well as features that already had a positive impact were identified. Further iterative testing and evaluation methods such as RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation) were applied to conduct user studies, which allowed for continuous feedback to ensure that the application delivered on user requirements and usability standards. In this context, we investigated the usability of natural user interfaces (NUIs) on mobile devices and integrated technologies such as speech-to-text input and image attachment to optimise the analysis and documentation of incidents. The results demonstrate a significant improvement in operational efficiency. With the proposed solution, the duration of the documentation and analysis process is can be reduced by 20% to 50%. Moreover, it enhances the overall user experience by addressing the industry-specific challenges of battery cell manufacturing. In addition, the solution minimises the barriers for documenting incidents. It serves as a starting point for further detailed user studies with a commercial battery manufacturer. This improvement not only confirms the effectiveness of NUIs in enhancing data collection and analysis in battery manufacturing environments but also highlights the potential for broader applications in similar industrial settings.