Making production
dependencies visible
Making orders, production progress and dependencies easier to understand.
- Design lead
- Lorenzo Rogante
- Design scope
- Head of Design / Design Lead
- Collaboration
- Management and development team
- Designed for
- Production managers and specialised operators
Production teams need to understand how a disruption travels through a plan. The connected view places suppliers, components, work centres and products in the same workspace, with a route from the overview to the affected order and part.
Reconstructed interface · Synthetic operational data
3D assembly created for this case study
Key decisions
Relationships before lists
The network makes dependencies visible across entities that otherwise sit in separate views.
Impact beside the issue
Affected orders and illustrative impact estimates remain next to the path under investigation.
Context through detail
The selected order and component remain connected while the team compares a possible response.
Supplier delay
Order impact
S-07 → C-104 → AS-02 → LA-200
28 units can proceed, assuming other parts remain available. €420/day × 4 working days.Drive-end bearing housing
- Reference
- C-104
- Material
- Aluminium
- Supplier
- S-07
- Available
- 28 / 40 required
- Unit cost
- €48
Buy · Custom machined part
CNC milling at supplier
Interface demonstration · no structural analysis
Alternative supplier
€48 / part
€61 / part
- 12 × €13 additional unit cost
- €156
- Expedited freight
- €120
- Incremental cost
- €276
Drawing revision B and material compatibility still need review. Delivery is not confirmed.
Review supply request
- To
- S-12 · Alternative supplier
- Part
- C-104 · Revision B
- Quantity
- 12 units
- Required arrival
- 12 October 2026
- Reference
- MO-1048 / LA-200
Nothing is sent. The team reviews the next step.
Read the relationships behind an order
Suppliers, components, work centres and products share one connected view. The production manager can follow a dependency path instead of assembling the relationship from separate lists.
Place the impact beside the issue
The investigation links a delivery issue to the affected component and order. Estimated delay and cost sit beside that path, connecting the alert to its operational consequences. The displayed figures are synthetic.
Change scale without losing the order
The selected order remains visible as the product detail opens. An illustrative 3D assembly, created for this portfolio, connects the network view to a physical part without presenting it as a recording of the original application.
Connect the part to its operational context
Selecting a component reveals its supplier, availability and cost. The assembly supports spatial understanding; the design decision is to keep that part connected to the production work that depends on it.
Make the response and its conditions comparable
Delivery, additional cost and outstanding checks appear together when reviewing an alternative supplier. A possible response remains distinct from a confirmed resolution.
Carry the context into the next action
Part, quantity, order reference and required date carry into the request. The team can review those details before proceeding. This reconstruction prepares a local draft; it does not contact a supplier or place an order.
Request 12
replacement parts
C-104 · Revision B · Required 12 Oct
Drawing, material and delivery require confirmation.
The alert is only
the beginning
The design connects a production alert to an investigation and a possible response. The walkthrough preserves the affected order and part while the team reviews the available options.
This presentation demonstrates the design approach qualitatively. Operational figures are illustrative; they are not measured project outcomes.
Making production risks visible and actionable
A production problem rarely affects a single part of the operation. A disruption involving a component or supplier can change what can be produced, when work can be completed, and the potential financial consequences.
My work on Production Intelligence focused on making that chain understandable: helping factory teams move from an alert to an assessment of its impact and a possible response.
The challenge
Production Intelligence is used by people managing production in a factory, including production managers and specialised operators. The system communicates problems, estimates their impact on production and proposes ways to address them.
The interface needed to connect several layers of information: the issue itself, the production dependencies involved, the projected delay and economic impact, and the solution being suggested.
My design challenge was to make this information useful for an operational decision. A team needs enough context to understand why an issue matters and evaluate what to do next.
My role
As Head of Design / Design Lead at BackwellTech, I helped shape the product direction and took responsibility for its user experience and visual language. I designed the information architecture, interaction flows, interface, reusable components and prototypes, and worked with developers on the product experience.
The work covered the overall experience, including production monitoring and the relationships between suppliers, components, machines and products. Requirements were informed by management input and discussions with engineering.
A representative workflow
A production manager is notified of a problem that could affect scheduled work. The system communicates the expected production impact, including a possible delay and estimated financial loss.
The user examines the affected parts of the operation and the solution proposed by the system. One possible response is to prepare a request for alternative suppliers.
This is a representative scenario: an issue is surfaced, its consequences are assessed, and a potential next action is prepared. Preparing a supplier request does not establish that it has been sent or that a supplier can fulfil it; those steps need their own operational confirmation.
Three design decisions
1. Present alerts together with their consequences
I structured the experience around the relationship between a problem and its operational significance. The alert needs to lead into the affected production context and the estimated consequences.
Showing projected delay and financial impact together gives the team a basis for assessing urgency. These values are estimates of what may happen; the interface needs to keep that distinction clear when the user evaluates the situation.
The aim is to help a production manager understand which issue requires attention and why, without having to reconstruct the impact from separate pieces of information.
2. Make production dependencies understandable
Production decisions involve relationships between suppliers, components, machines and products. I worked on presenting these connections as part of the product experience so users could follow how a problem affects the wider operation.
The dependency context helps explain the connection between a specific issue and the work at risk. It supports questions such as which parts of production depend on an affected component and where the consequences may propagate.
This gives the manager context for evaluating an alert and comparing possible responses. The relationships should remain understandable as the user moves between the overall production picture and the affected part of the operation.
3. Give the analysis an actionable continuation
The product proposes solutions, including preparing a request to alternative suppliers. I connected problem detection and impact assessment with this next step in the experience.
A proposed action needs to be understood in relation to the issue it addresses. The interface should help the user evaluate the recommendation and follow the work needed to act on it.
This keeps the operational goal visible: understand the disruption, assess its consequences, and determine a suitable response. A proposed solution and a successfully resolved production problem remain different outcomes.
Outcome and next step
My work established the UX and visual foundation for a product used by production teams, bringing problem detection, dependency context, projected impact and proposed responses into a connected experience.
This case study documents that design contribution. Delay reduction and financial savings are not presented as measured results of the interface.
I would next evaluate whether production managers and specialised operators can understand why an alert matters, identify the affected work and assess the proposed next action. I would also examine whether the distinction between the current problem and its projected consequences remains clear.