1st meeting with Anders Smith (my tutor)

Today Tuesday 19th of January I had a big chat with Anders Smith my tutor in this project; We talked about about relevant ideas and the way I will start with the research part, how I am going to structure this.

I’m gonna start understanding the flow of what they do and how they do it! (what are the procedures to rescue people nowadays) specifictly the time line with all the actions to know more what they already have in terms of processes, protocols and products.

What I want to do? “mines rescue” is very wide and there are many different design opportunities so I need to define all the different mines operation and their accidents, in a few words: what they do and how many accidents they have had during their operational periods, once I collect all these information I can go directly to the miners and know more about them, about their life and their thoughts. After I have all this information I would be able to analyze it and define my opportunity of course my goals and wishes are gonna change once I know what I am gonna work with. 

During this chat I can highlight many relevant points:

• I wanna end up with a product which be extremely good for them, and relevant to show how Atlas Copco can raid in a new area for them, something visionary. 
• Based on the research certainly I can define the direction I want to take in this project and does not matter if is something that Atlas Copco is not good at doing it today, I mean it can be a new area, a new opportunity.
• I’m gonna design something for rescue not something to prevent accidents, it is important this big difference.
• Find the value of my product, what is important for Atlas Copco, for the miners and for me?
• I need to spend more time with miners, I need to find out how they live, think, what they like, feel, etc. all this is gonna help me to create my personas.
• I will propose something where the opportunity is; I picture it as strategic deign because I have a topic but I do not know what I am going to do yet.
• Don’t be afraid to end up in something conceptual (just if this is relevant and can be a step to develop a new product in the future).

As I do not know in what kind of product I am going to end up it is important don’t try to solve problems right now, the important thing during this phase is to define a problem and do a solid research which is gonna define where my opportunity is. 

2nd visit to the mine in Mexico

MIne in San Luis Potosí, Mexico

Last Friday 8th of January I had the chance again to go into the mine in Mexico, this mine is owned by Grupo Mexico the biggest miner company in the country. This mine is situated in the center of the country 1 hour away from San Luis Potosi (6 hours driving from Mexico City) the production of this mine is basically Zinc and Lead and they have around 75 miners working in 3 shifts per day, it has more 7 km in roads inside of the mine and more than 800 m subterranean high. In comparison with the last mine I’ve visited 15 days before in Mexico as well this one is 4 times bigger. 

Both visits were great and very different, somehow I feel they have the same rescue and safety needs but in a different scale; In my first visit to the mexican mines I was not prepared to ask many important questions and brainstorming inside of the mine with the right person I felt more like a tourist trying to get as much information as possible but then for my second round I was so much more prepared I started to analyze more and brainstorming at the moment but the most important thing was I started to create different scenarios inside of the mine, I was talking with the miner supervisor about all the rescue protocols in case of emergency and of course I started to investigate what type of accidents they have had during the last past years; I found many similarities between the 2 mines I visited during my stay in Mexico and talking with the people they said: most part of the mines in Latin-America are the same as the mexicans ones. The most important similarity was the safety culture miners have, both have different resources and even one of them gives the miners all the right equipment they do not want to carry it with them all the time, (it is not an inconvenient for my design proposal if after the research this would be relevant to add into their safety systems). Other important thing I saw is the opportunity for Atlas Copco  to implement this rescue equipment in their machines, I need to be very specific in what I want to do because this topic is so wide and it can covers many different areas.

What I got during my last visit to the mine? First of all the experience to create quick scenarios and talk with the miners in person, to know more about them how they think? how they work and how they will react into different situations; But definitely observe them in daily life.