UX Design Thinking · SAP Fiori · Plant Maintenance
Manufacturing SAP Fiori SAP Plant Maintenance (PM) SAP S/4HANA
How a wire and cable manufacturer replaced paper and email with a 90-point Fiori asset workflow
A Large Wire and Cable Manufacturer Delivered 2022
Mindset ran a Design Thinking engagement and built a paperless Fiori prototype for asset entry and exit across plant operations. Users rated it a 90 on the System Usability Scale and said it was easier than ordering from Amazon.
By the numbers
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90 / 100 SUS
System Usability Scale score (excellent range)
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0 paper forms
Replaced a paper, Excel, and email process
Before
Paper, Excel, and email across every plant
- Asset entry and exit tracked through paper forms, spreadsheets, and email, with no reliable single record.
- Lost information, inconsistent processes across sites, and audits that required manual reconstruction of records.
- Production interruptions and downtime tied to inventory uncertainty and workflow gaps.
After
A Fiori workflow with a 90 usability score
- A paperless Fiori application on SAP PM and S/4HANA, with real-time status tracking and a full audit trail.
- All asset information on one screen, rated easier to use than ordering from Amazon by the people running it.
- Consistent workflow across plant locations, ready for audit, and user-validated before go-live.
Why this matters
This is what good UX work looks like in manufacturing: start with Design Thinking, understand the actual problem, build a prototype people test against the real thing, and hit 90 on the SUS. The measure is user satisfaction, not feature count.
The challenge
Tracking assets across a large wire and cable manufacturing operation should not depend on paper forms, Excel files, and email chains. But that is exactly what this company was doing.
When an asset moved in or out of a plant, someone had to fill out a form, send an email, and hope the right people saw it. Information got lost. Processes varied from site to site. Audits were painful because there was no reliable record of where things were or what had happened to them.
The gaps cost the company in real ways: production interruptions, unplanned downtime, and inventory uncertainty that was hard to quantify but easy to feel.
What we did
Mindset ran a Design Thinking engagement to understand the full scope of the problem before building anything. The goal was to understand what plant workers and supervisors actually needed, not just replicate the paper form in a digital format.
The team then designed and built a paperless software prototype on SAP Fiori and S/4HANA, integrated with SAP Plant Maintenance. The prototype gave the company a single source of truth: all asset information in one place, real-time notifications to workflow participants, status tracking at every step, and a consistent process that held up under audit scrutiny.
Users tested the prototype against the old approach as part of the Design Thinking process, and the results were clear. The new workflow was simpler, faster, and gave people everything they needed on a single screen.
The outcomes
The prototype scored 90 on the System Usability Scale, a benchmark that puts it squarely in the excellent range. Users described it as clearer than the old process and easier than ordering from Amazon. They noted they could see everything they needed from one screen, without jumping between windows.
The Design Thinking process itself delivered a second benefit: the company now had a validated, user-tested design ready to build on, plus an understanding of how to apply the same method to other workflow problems across the plant.
If we built this today
Concept · not delivered scopePaper and email become one live asset log.
This is a forward-looking concept, not the scope we delivered on this engagement. It is the build we would reach for now, grounded in SAP that ships today.
The same entry-and-exit tracking this manufacturer was running on paper forms, Excel files, and email chains becomes a single live workflow that a Joule agent keeps current and audit-ready.
The data product
Asset and maintenance data product on SAP Business Data Cloud
A governed asset and maintenance data product gives the agent one trusted view of where every asset is and what has happened to it, in place of the old patchwork of spreadsheets and email. There is no named Intelligent Application for plant assets yet, so this is the honest data-product category that grounds it.
Data product on SAP Business Data Cloud
The Joule agent
Asset Movement Logging Agent
Reads the asset master, plant-maintenance records, and every entry and exit event, then drafts the movement log, the status update, and the right notification to whoever owns the next step. It catches a missing field or an unlogged move and proposes the fix before an auditor ever asks.
SAP Plant Maintenance (PM), SAP S/4HANA Asset Management, SAP Fiori · PROPOSE · Asset location accuracy and audit-ready traceability (share of moves logged in real time)
The Fiori app
Create Maintenance Request / Order (Joule-embedded)
The standard S/4HANA maintenance apps now carry Joule right in the screen, so logging an asset move or raising a request is a short conversation instead of a paper form. It is the single screen the engagement's prototype was reaching for, and it ships in the box now.
Embedded in the Fiori launchpad
We would mine the real entry-and-exit process in SAP Signavio first, map the asset and PM landscape in SAP LeanIX, and let MIND accelerators carry the workflow logic from the old way to the new one.
What we built
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90 on the System Usability Scale (excellent range)
Fiori asset entry/exit prototype
A paperless Fiori application on S/4HANA and SAP PM, replacing paper forms and email with a structured digital workflow for tracking asset movement in and out of plant locations.
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Eliminated lost records and inconsistent processes
Single source of truth for asset data
All asset entry and exit information captured in one system, with real-time status tracking and audit-ready records replacing the previous patchwork of spreadsheets and emails.
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Instant visibility for workflow participants
Real-time workflow notifications
Automated notifications sent to the right people at the right time when an asset changes status, removing the need for manual follow-up emails.
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User-tested design before build completion
UX Design Thinking engagement
A structured Design Thinking workshop to understand plant worker and supervisor needs, run comparative user testing, and validate the design before development was complete.
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Process consistency across plant locations
Consistent cross-site workflow
A standardized process that works the same way across locations, removing the variation and guesswork that came with site-specific paper forms.
A look at the work
