A global utility player needed to identify opportunities to improve the productivity level of workers by leveraging new technologies.

Wastewater plants are complex and typically spread over a large area, with operators who mostly work in isolation and need to cover large distances, especially to fix problems that requires access to information, expertise and supervision.

In a co-creative loop involving workers all along, we generated mappings of their daily routines in which we illustrated their activity flow, needs, pain points & spontaneous ideas for improvement. A key insight was that operators had to cover large distances to gather appropriate information or expertise to fix certain problems, and current communication modes where chaotic and unsupervised.

Based on the insights, operational and functional experts jointly developed 6 new mobility solutions, such as the “water tweet”, a new real-time text, speech and image communication system for quick, concerted problem resolution.