As part of GE’s visionary drive to transform its factories into “Brilliant” facilities, our team developed a concept tool empowering Line Leaders and Operations Managers with real-time machine monitoring—right on their Apple Watches. By combining design thinking and user research, we aimed to visualize how wearable technology could elevate factory floor efficiency and responsiveness, especially around machine downtime notifications.
In high-pressure manufacturing environments, delayed awareness of machine downtime slows responses and elevates risk. Factory leaders needed a swift, on-the-go alert system to act decisively. The challenge was to design a refined Apple Watch experience that delivered critical machine status updates instantly and intuitively to the user’s wrist.
FACING THE CHALLENGE:
How do you bring a visionary, high-impact concept to life on a tiny, constrained device like the Apple Watch—especially one not yet in production?
The Apple Watch prototype redefined how factory leaders could respond to downtime alerts—delivering critical insights right on the wrist. The design earned direct recognition from Apple and sparked new conversations at GE about wearable-first workflows. By focusing on clarity and essential actions, the project proved that even complex industrial systems could be simplified, setting the stage for faster decisions and future innovations.
