Designing confidence into early-stage facility planning.
Research turned an engineering estimation tool into a shared decision platform — one model five teams could plan from.
- Role
- UX Research Lead & Product Designer
- Timeline
- SLB · 2022–2024
- Research
- 15 interviews · 48-response survey
- Focus
- Discovery → design direction
Five teams. Five versions of the truth.
Engineering, tendering and sales each estimated the same facility their own way. Every spreadsheet told a slightly different story.
Engineering
Symmetry export
$26.1M
estimated CAPEX
Concept Solutions
Scenario workbook
$29.0M
estimated CAPEX
Tendering
Bid compile
$31.7M
estimated CAPEX
Sales
Client deck
$27.4M
estimated CAPEX
Estimating
Cost model
$33.2M
estimated CAPEX
Same project. Five estimates. No shared source of truth.
I studied the decision, not the interface.
Fifteen interviews, a 48-person survey and on-site shadowing across engineering, tendering and sales — following the indicative-bid process to find where confidence broke down.
15 interviews · 48 survey responses · 9 themes
Capture the client need
Request initiation
Size equipment, model options
Sizing & simulation
Produce documentation
Engineering docs
Compile cost & technical
Proposal preparation
Submit the bid
Proposal submission
Requirements arrive incomplete
Heavy setup on partial data; constant tool-switching
Inconsistent revisions, manual rework
Numbers re-compiled by hand in Excel
Estimates re-validated outside the tool
Engineers could build a concept easily. What they lacked was the confidence to decide on it — the assumptions and trade-offs behind each estimate stayed hidden.
The problem was alignment, not estimation.
So the goal shifted: from a better calculator to a shared place where teams decide together.
- 1
Engineering tool
A form to capture equipment and cost.
- 2
Planning tool
Scenarios modelled, not just recorded.
- 3
Decision platform
Assumptions, trade-offs and recommendations made legible.
- 4
Collaborative planning system
One workflow across engineering, commercial and planning.
From a form to a decision.
One workspace that keeps assumptions, options and recommendations in view.
Equipment library
Selected · Gas Treatment
- BasisAmine (MDEA)
- AssumptionSweet feed
- ConfidenceMedium
Why A
Lower risk, faster schedule, cost within 6% of the cheapest.
Recommendation
Proceed with Concept A
Best balance of cost, schedule and execution risk for a sweet-gas export facility.
Traces back to
- Feed gas rate120 MMscfd
- H₂S contentSweet
- Export specSales gas
- SiteOffshore, North Sea
Every driver is visible and editable — the recommendation updates when assumptions change.
A six-screen interactive concept — dashboard, concept builder, scenario comparison, execution transparency, cost and proposal.
Fragmented planning became shared decision-making.
- 01One shared decision model across five teams.
- 02Assumptions and trade-offs made visible.
- 03A clear, evidenced path from diagnosis to design direction.
“When the tool’s numbers don’t line up across views, I can’t stake my name on them. I rebuild the estimate in Symmetry before it ever reaches a client.”
Designing trust, not screens.
Enterprise products win when people trust the output. My job was to make the reasoning behind a decision clear enough that teams would act on it.
One platform. One planning model.
One shared engineering language.