Visual Management of Industrial Machinery

Overview

Sarens, a global player in crane rental and heavy transport, is active in numerous complex industrial projects worldwide. As the holder of the world record for the largest crane in the world, Sarens is an established name in the sector. As part of their digitalization strategy, they sought a way to optimize the planning of rented materials within their cloud platform Sarplan. Due to time pressure and the complexity of their operations, they sought a partner who could help them with an efficient and visual solution.

Challenge

Although Sarplan already had basic functionalities for material planning, it proved difficult to maintain an overview when managing large numbers of projects and materials. The existing list view provided insight, but fell short when users wanted to quickly get a complete picture of rented items across multiple projects and time periods. Sarens needed an intuitive, visual planning tool that was scalable and flexible.

Solution

We developed a powerful timeline module that was integrated into Sarplan. This interactive timeline makes it possible to visualize rented materials per project in one overview. Users can easily zoom in and out at different levels (day, week, month, year), with the display automatically adapting to the chosen scale.

Additionally, we implemented a second timeline that shows the totals of rented materials per day, across all projects. Both timelines are perfectly synchronized: actions such as scrolling or zooming in one timeline are automatically mirrored in the other, ensuring a consistent and efficient user experience.

Our Approach

Thoughtful Visualization: Together with Sarens, we investigated the needs of their users to arrive at a visualization that remained relevant and clear, even with hundreds of ongoing projects.

Flexibility as Key: The timelines were designed to adapt to any situation, with smooth interaction and detail display at any desired level.

Close Collaboration: During development, we maintained close contact with Sarens through regular demos and feedback sessions. This allowed us to quickly adjust and ensured the final result was optimally aligned with their operational reality.

The result is a user-friendly, scalable planning tool that provides a clear overview and helps Sarens further digitalize and streamline their material management.