Komatsu

January 2009

Komatsu Forest develops harvesting machines and automatized logging software. Harvesters are their flagship product and they got in touch with the Umeå Institute of Design to improve the way operators use their software and controllers.

The learning curve of their machines takes their operators up to two years to learn how to use them fluently. I decided to work on an easier to learn method to use the controllers.

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Sponsored by Komatsu Forest

Joining the operators

The way these machines work is really complex. We were invited to join their test driver during a couple of days and we also got in touch with a private swedish company that was working in the area.

The vibrations in the cabin and the weather make of it a hard work environment. In addition to this, the use of standard elements like screens and keyboards that are not specifically designed for the harvester create ergonomic problems too.

Understanding how do they work

To understand better the whole process, I created this workflows of the whole process of logging a tree.

Even though it might look simple, the strategy to follow and the way to place the logs for the forwarder that will collect the logs are the most complicated parts to learn.

Brainstormings

After the days spent with the operators, we went through all the footage filmed and analyzed it.

I worked together with George Paravantes and Joachim Falck-Hansen. Each group focused in different aspects of the visit and we shared all the research done.

Once everybody had seen each group's findings, we had a brainstorming session with IDEO, that came to Sweden to give us feedback on the project.

Concept proposed

I decided to work on a interface that shows the information on the scenario itself and developed a gesture language to control the harvester.

My concept wasn't a realistic proposal to be used right now. I assumed a lot of actions would be automatized and the vibrations in the cabin minimized.

To show how the operator would see the forest, I made some trees and put them on a screen to represent the information that would be displayed with the head-up display.

The operator controls the machine by choosing the tree to log, in what direction does he want to make it fall and where to place the different qualities of the logs to cut.