The manufacturing industry is rapidly diversifying, and Konica Minolta, one of Japan’s largest manufacturing technology companies, is leading the way. We partnered with Konica Minolta’s Human Experience Design Center (HEX Center) to embed design capabilities within their global teams.
The HEX Center is on a mission to cultivate a design-led approach throughout Konica Minolta’s branches in 50 countries – encompassing over 43,000 employees. Designit was approached to create and cultivate this transformation in three-phases: introducing design thinking tools and methodologies, supporting the expansion of the design strategy division capability, and developing an eight-week framework for quicker customer value creation and validation.
Together with the HEX Center, Designit led a series of sprints to introduce participants from the business division to creative problem-solving tools and service design thinking. This initiative led to a new mission for the Design Strategy division under the HEX Center. Over our subsequent collaborations with the division, we discovered that their Design Strategy division needed a cohesive vision to guide their projects.
We worked with the HEX Center to introduce an eight-week project framework. Divided into four phases – Understanding, Align, Prototype, and Transfer – the framework introduced the HEX Center’s members to an agile, iterative design process. The framework’s first loop improved the interface and user experience of a key device during the coronavirus pandemic: the Temperature Screening App. Through this project, the HEX Center demonstrated how a design-led approach can bring immediate value to the organisation.
Enabled by our initiatives at the beginning of our partnership in cultivating a design-led approach throughout the organization, the Design Strategy division has been recognised with internal awards for sparking organisational transformation and creating new value for customers. Now the HEX Center continues growing their capability to create new business value and expanding their initiatives to the overall business in Konica Minolta.
Details
Client
Project team
Contact info for Masakazu Iwabu
Lead UX Designer
Contact info for Mai Saito
Lead Service Designer
Contact info for Misaki Tsuchiyama
Senior Service Designer
Contact info for Hongjoo Yang
Senior Business Designer
Contact info for Hanae Shimizu
Designer
Contact info for Ayako Fujiwara
Service Designer
Contact info for Sai Bhavani Sunder
Designer
Contact info for Yasuyuki Kowata
Design Director
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Yasuyuki Kowata
Design Director
