Innovation is the most effective tool in the toolbox

Living Lab Vesthimmerlands Kommune

Minebea Mitsumi is a large Japanese company that develops different components for the rocket industry, industrial weights and other industrial gauges and scales. They are very specialized in precision and quality of those components, therefore since weighing is playing such a huge role in healthcare and welfare, they thought that it would be a very interesting area to explore and come into. The change of industry is always a complicated process and especially with healthcare there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration. Having no experience in user driven feedback into the health- and welfare area they came to Public Intelligence for a simulation and test of their product prototype.

Challenge

The prototype was functioning, but there were still many features that had to be polished and further developed. The idea was great, and the vision of the product was well accepted. But they still had a long way to find out which part of the health- and welfare industry they fit best in and how to collect valuable user insight in order to finalize in the best possible way the development of their product.

Approach

Two functioning prototypes were installed in Public Intelligence’s premises – one in the Simulation Hall and one in the simulation apartment (an apartment furnished to mimic a close to real-life environment of a typical elderly Danish home). Together with the company we developed a plan for covering all their needs and how to approach all the topics.

The first step was to become super users of the product and conduct more than 100 simulation feedback demonstrations with visitors of Public Intelligence, relevant to the field. The simulations consisted of short presentation of the product and an opportunity to try it out/ test it yourself with a quick questionnaire following right after or while trying the product or just a verbal conversation about it.

The following steps were 3 workshops with healthcare professionals from 3 different sectors – home care, care homes and hospitals. This gave us the opportunity to see where the differences are, which sector they should consider entering into first and which one they should wait with for now.

As last all the findings from the user insights and desk research, were also validated with some expert interviews in order to map the key points that they need to be aware of and focus on.

Result

Minebea thought that the whole process was very valuable. They received many insights and users’ feedback that they could directly use and implement into developing their product further. They had planned some complicated functions for the future development but ended up stripping it to the bare minimum and prioritizing the minimum viable product as this was established to give the most value for the healthcare professionals and citizens. One of the most important findings from the project was which area of the 3 pre-set ones they should continue with first. This gave the potential to set their main focus on this area and with a sharp set of recommendations to be prepared on how to proceed. This led to further collaboration and a pilot project in a nursing home in Denmark, where Minebea came with improved prototypes, based on the user insights and findings from the project and will test in a real-life setting.