BACKGROUND & CHALLENGE

An energy company’s onshore renewables division was losing millions due to inconsistent spare parts management across six wind farms. This led to low morale, wasted time, poor inventory accuracy (as low as 11%) and increased turbine downtime.

Frontline teams (technicians, warehouse coordinators, operations managers) and support staff (procurement, finance, operations) faced inefficiencies such as:

• Paper-based workflows and legacy systems
• Redundant processes across systems
• Unclear roles and slow communication across teams

The initiative aimed to save ~15% of staff time, boost employee satisfaction, standardize processes, and raise inventory accuracy to ~90%.

DESIGN-LED SOLUTION

As the Service Design Lead, I guided the team through a three-phase, human-centered transformation:

1. Discovery: Researched operations at three wind farms to map current processes. We uncovered 168 pain points spanning processes, people, data, and technology. A workshop then prioritized key issues and gained stakeholder buy-in.
2. Concept & Co-Design: Held workshops to design future workflows (e.g. blueprints) for top use cases. We created storyboards and simple prototypes for four core scenarios: goods receiving, inventory counting, part data standardization, and parts checkout/return. These concepts were tested and iterated on-site with users, refining requirements and building a strong business case. This phase yielded a roadmap with three workstreams (digital tools, process redesign, data cleanup) and laid the groundwork for process/procedure, digital design and implementation.
3. Implementation: Improvements were rolled out incrementally. We developed two SAP Fiori web apps mobile goods receiving and inventory counts) and introduced six standardized processes with clear roles. In tandem, we cleaned up material data (removing duplicates and standardizing names) and piloted a simplified parts checkout/return process. A robust change management plan – training, on-site coaching, gamification, and feedback loops – ensured full adoption and continuous improvement.

RESULTS

In under a year, the project delivered tangible benefits:

• Inventory accuracy: Improved from 11–30% to over 90%, virtually eliminating missing or miscounted parts.
• Efficiency gains: Achieved >15% reduction in time spent on inventory tasks, freeing the equivalent of one full-time technician for higher-value work.
• Cost savings: Projected $2M savings over two years by cutting waste and rush orders
• User adoption: 100% adoption of new apps and processes within weeks. Frontline technicians praised the changes (e.g. “No more running back to the office – it’s so much more efficient!”).
• Collaboration: With clean data and standard processes, silos broke down. Communication and trust improved between field sites and headquarters.

This human-centered redesign illustrates how service design can drive significant operational and financial improvements in industrial operations.