A real example
- What changed Looking up and re-typing became one tap.
- For whom About thirty planners, every day.
- How much it saved About four working weeks a year, each.
- What it bought Time back on the job they were hired for.
For the past few years I've been a specialist brought into Australia's largest private freight rail operator: finding the work they still did by hand, then taking it off them.
Around thirty planners spent part of every day moving between seven systems that didn't talk to each other, just to answer a simple operational question.
To do one task, they had to:
- check one screen
- ring a depot
- write it on paper
- type it into the next system
Then do it again.
And again.
I designed one screen they could work from: where every train was, what state it was in, and who to ring about it, instead of seven systems and a phone.
They still use it every day.
The feature they used most was the simplest thing in it.
Instead of looking up a phone number and typing it in, you tapped the name and it called.
That was the whole feature.
About 150 hours saved a year, each
Not because it was clever.
Because it removed one small frustration that happened dozens of times a day.
Those hours went back into deciding what moves next, instead of hunting for information about it.
That's where the biggest opportunities usually are.
Not in one big project.
In removing the small things your team has simply learned to live with.