Visualizing factories of tomorrow one measurement at a time

WHAT IS KANRI?

Kanri is a business software manufacturer that allows companies to follow the lean management concepts – from assembly line workers to managers making strategic decisions.

Their digital administration system combines many data acquisition, processing, and visualization tools and can be hosted on-premises or in the cloud, depending on the client’s requirements.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The application boosts the flow of information within a factory. It collects vital data from production machines and then sends them to machine operators who further expand it and define what is going on during production. This aggregated data is later distributed throughout all levels of factory operations to monitor and measure key performance factors and pinpoint and eliminate possible sources of waste.

Kanri is quite a unique project. We started the product development from workshops with the client to immerse ourselves in the industry and deeply research the functional requirements, and come up with a detailed backlog and wireframes.

We had to learn a lot about the day-to-day work of manufacturing companies, listen to the needs of machine operators, foremen, mechanics, and shift supervisors and understand their points of view. Flexibility played a big part in this project as we were working at the forefront of industry digitalization and automation of lean processes.

THE PRODUCT PATH

We started the work by getting our hands dirty and visiting our client on-site. We held long hours of workshops and interviews with each person involved in the production, from machine operators to CEOs. May we add that creating of the product concept, workshop planning, and other parts of the preparatory stage process took us 14 days.

All this allowed us to put ourselves in the end user's shoes and come up with the most accurate designs and functions.

THE TECHNOLOGY PATH

As a result of the extended discovery period, we first visualized the product using mockups that allowed our client to raise interest in the solution and get financing for it. After working hand-in-hand with a business analyst, those mockups gained programming logic and were transformed into a working prototype that was implemented later on.

We appointed our .NET, React.js, and TypeScript engineers to build a ready-to-use MVP that will serve as a base for the app. We also had to keep in mind that the solution could be stored in a closed on-premise infrastructure or in a cloud environment.

WHAT WE DERIVED FROM THE PROJECT

Building products that are useful and innovative are what drives us to continue to do what we do. Flexible development and dynamic team composition aid in dealing with time and money challenges. Working on Kanri we gained priceless knowledge how to design and lead product discovery workshops and, in return, refine and improve our development process.

What can we say? Just take a look!

All the dedication and hard work put into the development paid off and we have created an MVP that is ready to take over the manufacturing industry. There still is some room for growth: the system has great potential to be expanded to HR and payroll specialists, monitor and regulate shortages and delivery of intermediate goods.

After just a year of development, Kanri cooperates now with three clients that implemented the MVP in their factories and quite some more waiting to start working with it. This only shows the product has enormous potential and is getting serious traction and interest from business owners.