Tackling complexity, daring simplicity

Walter produces a comprehensive range of standard and specialised tools. The international organisation offers around 200,000 tool combinations. Additionally, Walter Multiply provides services including production, logistics, maintenance and training. In this context a software that helps select the right tools has been created. The functionality continues to be adapted to changing market requirements. Today, all material-, cutting-, machinery- and tool data can be combined with areas of application and efficiency calculations to find the suitable tool.

Having successfully helped customers choose tools for more than ten years, the TEC CCS software had run its course. That’s why the Walter development team invited the Intuity User Experience Design Team to think about new directions for the interaction and user interface design of the software.

At the start of the project we asked ourselves whether the high complexity of the content could be simplified in a user interface. Operating the software should lead to a positive user experience. To solve this problem, we initially liberated us from any restrictions and gave all ideas a chance. We jointly devised an innovation roadmap for the software, balancing must- haves against nice-to-haves for the first release without watering down the initial question.

The first product iteration of the TEC-CCS software resulted in Walter Global Productivity System (Walter GPS). Daring to be simple has contributed significantly to achieving our initial goals. Instead of simply dropping features, we prioritised functions and content. At the heart of this project the question arose when and what kind of content and assistance we should offer to the customer, ensuring the successful completion of tasks one by one, and culminating in finding the searched for or required tool.

With this project we helped shape part of Walter’s future Corporate Interaction Design.