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Netilion Conserve
Rethinking Sustainability Monitoring through Memories
About
We spent ten weeks working on a design project for E&H, aiming to help water treatment plants track their progress toward sustainability using Netilion Water Network insights.
Solution
The challenge of keeping a track of sustainable practices at a water treatment plant is not just limited to silent monitoring. The real benefit of monitoring comes in place when you learn from your past and improve strategies for the future. The solution we proposed for this challenge was Netilion Conserve: Tracking sustainability with memories. A collaborated dashboard with complete transparency of consumption, production and decision making. Along with simplified report generation and data collection.
Challenge
The biggest challenge in the existing workflow to maximize sustainability practices was scattered data and a tedious analysis process. Beyond that, they needed to review historical data to compare the past and present activities and utilize that data to build effective insight-based future strategies. To build an efficient sustainability monitoring dashboard solution for water treatment plants we formed our problem statement as
“How might we make it easier for water treatment and community water companies to track their sustainability progress and activities?”
Process
For this design challenge, I was assigned to a team of three and contributed to each and every aspect of the design process. We achieved the stated solution "Netilion Conserve", after rigorous desk research and market analysis combined with user research, followed by ideating how could we solve the problems in the existing workflow of potential E&H clients. Finally, shaped and evaluated our idea with a mid-fi prototype. We also built a business model to take the solution to the market.
Research
Market Landscape
Why do industries need sustainability monitoring?
Address Climate Change
Improved Outlook
Government Regulations
Is it worth investing resources in this vertical?
A rise in sustainability reporting
Since 2011, the number of S&P 500 companies publishing sustainability reports increased from 20% in 2011, to 90% in 2019.
Government Investments
“We have the opportunity to build a more resilient, sustainable economy – one that will put the United States on an irreversible path to achieve net-zero emissions…by no later than 2050.”
– BIDEN-HARRIS CAMPAIGN
What are various approaches to track sustainability practices?
Traditional Excel Monitoring
External Assessment Services
Environmental Analysis Software
Problem Identification and Customer Segment
We interviewed Justin Redman (Manager of Water System Control and Planning) and Ann McIver (Director, Environmental Stewardship) from Citizens Energy Group, a leading water treatment plant in Indianapolis. The interviews helped us absorb the sustainability monitoring workflow from a focused viewpoint and capture significant pain points in current workflow.
Key Insights
The frequency of report review could vary from company to company.
Historical data is required before setting sustainability goals
From collection to analysis to sharing, the complete movement of data is manual which takes around 80 hours for one report cycle.
External factors like weather could fluctuate the overall output
Customer Segment
Personas and Empathy Map
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Matthew Miller
Data Analyst
Sarah Jones
Sustainability Executive
Mark Manson
Plant Manager
Matthew Miller (Data Analyst)
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Sarah Jones (Sustainability Executive)
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Current Workflow
How are personas connected to one another?
After studying the data from research we were astonished to discover that the whole process is manual and the data is extracted in different excel sheets. Those excel sheets are further reviewed by multiple stakeholders with different responsibilities. In one of the interviews the user(sustainability executive) shared
"It takes my data analyst around 80 hours to assemble a report for me to review if some modifications are needed, she has to go through the entire process once again."
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Existing Workflow Example -
80 hour cycle
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What is missing in the existing workflow?
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Ideation
We conducted multiple brainstorming sessions to develop various ways to solve pain points in the existing workflow. We came up with many ideas for each and every pain point.
We built three different solutions from a combination of these ideas. We used a value proposition canvas to down select the best solution to solve the needs of maximum customer segments.
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Down selection:
Value Proposition Canvas
We compared the value proposition of each idea with respect to the users and monitoring demands, Idea 2 featuring Memory Palace aka Netilion Conserve came out to be the best direction for monitoring and improving sustainability practices
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Idea 1
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Idea 1 vs Idea 2 vs Idea 3
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What does Netilion Conserve offer?
Increased collaboration and transparency
Strategic task allocation
Effortless reporting
Centralized data collection
Increased efficiency with sensor health monitoring
Evaluation
Overview
Issue Categories
Issue Priority
Reported By:
Issue Type
Evaluators
Peers
UX Designers and Software Developer
Citizens Energy
Sustainability Executive and Plant Manager
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Carmel Utilities
Utilities Director and Manager of Customer Relations
Key Findings
"I really like the way you have called this section memory palace, I can completely relate with this"
- Ann Mclver
Adding a blueprint to locate sensor in data connections would be helpful for diagnostics
"We definitely need something like this, especially to motivate people to be more mindful about water consumption" - John Duffy
Ability to download visualization with annotation and comments could be helpful for quick sharing.
Business Model
How do we maintain customer relations?
Tech Support
to make sure customers
face as few bugs as possible
Consultancy
to provide guidance in building a pilot set-up
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Freemium
Customers could be given
sensors for free to incentivize
them to join NWNI
How do we make the water treatment industry aware of Netilion Conserve?
Newsletters
Subscribed customers can be reached out through emails.
Partnership
Partnerships with NGOs and
regulatory bodies
Talking to PMs
Speaking with PMs from
existing customers
Marketing Groups, Network updates from employees, other stakeholders, and Blog posts
Revenue Sources
Number of reports per plan
Paid Cloud Storage
Sensor Sales from Health Recommendations
Sustainability Consultation
SWOT Analysis
Strength
-
E+H’s value, reputation, and customer base
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Integration of other tools
with the software
Oppertunity
-
Government regulations,
NGO and ESG Policies -
Compulsory reporting of
data related to sustainability
Weakness
-
Slow-moving industries
-
Software is not a core competency
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Threat
-
Sustainability is not taken seriously by smaller companies
-
Software companies that built systems on other Company’s hardware
Special thanks to..
Ann Mclver and Justin Redman from Citizens Energy group for interviewing and sharing their experiences.
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John Duffy and Kelli Prader from City of Carmel utilities for evaluating our solution.
Team Reveal
Lou Lenzi
Mentor
Matt Walsh
E&H Sponser
Manali Bhetaria
Team
Nahush Farkande
Team
Vandana Munjal
Team