Adapting geofencing technology for worksites

Design Research Director

Identified and scoped work. Guided development of a research strategy, synthesis, ideation and concept development. Supported creation of data and concept presentation.

The team on this project was multidisciplinary, made up of researchers, experience designers and engineers.

This was an internal project produced for commercial vehicle leadership at Ford, initiated by engineering.

A team of engineers saw potential in adapting an existing technology used in retail to control vehicles on commercial construction sites.

I scoped a project that included investigation into work done on construction sites as well as other closed work sites. Our design team found inspiration from onsite visits and investigation of similar technology already used or desired on worksites. Analogous research of other enclosed work environments inspired new solutions for an expanded the market to other industries. 

The engineering team's initial hypothesis was determined to be a rare use case for construction sites, so concepts were created to support new use cases uncovered by the exploratory research. Lo-fidelity concepts were presented to engineering leadership as possible directions to incorporate geofencing technology. 

• Developed understanding of commercial customer operations and needs
• Costly development errors prevented due to low prioritization of initial hypothesis
• Inspired new ways to incorporate geofencing technology into commercial vehicles through the identification of additional use cases