Trackunit · Safety inspections
Operators were already inspecting machines. On paper.
Inspections started on construction sites, not on a strategy slide. Tying the safety check to unlocking the machine turned a paper routine into part of the job.
The problem
A keycard is easier than an app.
It was hard to get operators to use the digital key app. Tapping a keycard on the reader was simply quicker.
So I went out to the sites and talked to the people actually operating the machines. They weren’t just unlocking them — they were inspecting them before use. On paper.
Standing there also changed what I understood about my own users: weather, noise, gloves, safety gear, dirt on the screen, and a phone you can’t really type on.
My responsibility
I took Inspections from discovery to launch and out onto the sites — travelling to early customers to see the product in use and bringing that context back to the team.
The case for building it came from real observations in the field, not from a slide, and we started at the problem rather than at the edge of the existing product.
The decision that mattered
No inspection, no key.
If the operator already has the phone out for the inspection, unlocking the machine can follow from it. Conditional inspections made access depend on a completed check — with the customers themselves defining the conditions.
What happened
Inspections went from an idea to a product operators used as a natural part of unlocking the machine.
“Anders made a point of getting close to the problem itself, spending time on customer sites and engaging directly with the people experiencing it in their day-to-day work.”
“One of the solutions most recognised by customers to ensure safe and secure access to machines on construction sites.”
What I learned
- Empathy isn’t an attitude, it’s a place you go. You don’t get that depth from an interview over Teams.
- The best reason to go after a problem outside the product’s boundary is that the user doesn’t know the boundary exists.
- One concrete observation from the field moves an organisation faster than a good argument.