Automating 3D printing custom healthcare devices

My role

CPO provides custom foot orthotics (specialized insoles designed for individual feet) to patients across the US. Manufacturing these truly one-of-a-kind products requires time and extreme attention to detail. CPO's previous manufacturing capabilities were severely bottlenecked by manual processes and paper-based workflows that introduced errors in the mass production of orthotics. They aimed to implement 3D printing and replace their legacy workflow as quickly as possible. I designed internal dashboards that became foundational to the daily operations of their 3D print farm, bringing visibility and efficiency to the entire process.

Role: Founding UX Designer

Duration: MVP launched in 6 weeks

Impact on 3D print farm

Optimizing time to deliver

After full adoption, we were able to reduce time to delivery from 12 weeks to just 2 weeks.

Visibility into a multi step product lifecycle.

Our internal tools and automations brought visibility into a multi-step manufacturing process. Each order could now be accurately tracked from the moment it's placed by a clinician to the moment it's delivered to the patient's doorstep.

Reducing waste

Internal dashboards helped automate our operations and streamline 3D printing profiles, saving 100,000+ annually in material costs.

Delivering care as soon as patients need it.

Delivering care to patients without compromising product quality was extremely important. When we started, I identified several issues with their current manufacturing setup that were leading to constant returns and complaints from patients, causing delays in providing care. All these problems could be traced to the lack of visibility in the manufacturing process and the inability to track products and their customizations by people on the floor.

Constant errors were hindering the delivery of a beautiful product that was necessary in patients' journey to foot health.

My focus was on solving two high and immediate impact areas

Create transparency across all operations

Quickly identify and report issues

Create transparency across all operations

Quickly identify and report issues

Create transparency across all operations

Quickly identify and report issues

Bringing visibility into everyday operations

I started by designing for the most important parts of the workflow to bring instant visibility into the process. It was crucial for the production team to know how many prints were in queue and access their files. We used anonymous IDs on the floor to bring privacy to the patient data.

I created internal dashboards for our 3D Print Farm to reduce paper trail. Here's a glimpse.

As our print farm expanded it became essential to connect all 3D printers to our dashboards allowing us to view each printer individually and manage print queues effectively. This integration enabled us to monitor the entire operation centrally and optimize our workflow across the growing number of printers.

While our system provides optimized default slicing profiles, users maintain complete control over the printing process by being able to adjust any profile settings before starting their print.

Providing On-the-Go access

I proposed that every station on the manufacturing floor receive its own iPad to provide all the necessary data to the operators. Their jobs require constant movement, so it was essential for them to have access to information wherever they went on the floor. I designed station dashboards specifically for iPad use. This implementation significantly increased efficiency and reduced errors by giving operators real-time access to crucial data while they worked.

iPads with custom dashboards were introduced to manufacturing stations, providing mobile data access and improving efficiency.

Creating spatial system to view engagements

While designing our internal tools an urgent need arose to bring visibility into the engagement rates of our various clients. I designed a hybrid view to provide insight into each facility where our employers were offering our benefits. We could easily search on the map and view facilities which allowed us to zoom in and out quickly to see engagement rates and know where to target our marketing efforts.

Business stakeholders could search on the map for all locations where our custom insoles were being offered and know key stats that helped them make important business decisions.

Empowering all manufacturers with access to custom insole APIs

Our engineering team worked hard to build an SDK that could be used by all manufacturers of custom insoles to handle their manufacturing operations. I designed key user flows for API usage and real-time billing updates while also providing them a library view for all orders being processed. This helps bring more revenue to our business as new orthotic providers can easily onboard and start their own operations using our software and technology as their backbone.

Access all your API keys at a glance in our unified dashboard.

Track and manage your real-time billing updates effortlessly.

Reflection

As the founding member, shaping a key experience to increase the scalability of our operations was a great learning opportunity. I had the chance to collaborate with business leadership and understand their goals to directly impact the overall experience. Mindful of our constantly growing operations, I designed experiences that were easy to scale and served as foundations for our manufacturing and expansion processes.

Designing novel interactions for Google

Image of a computer and keyboard on a desk