GE 7F.05 Gas Turbine

Project type: Enterprise Application // Employer: GE Power

Product: Advanced Modeling Platform (AMP)


AMP: Redesigning a Financial Forecasting Tool for Efficiency and Trust

THE CHALLENGE

GE Power’s financial modeling software, used to forecast billing, outages, and parts flow for $35B in turbine service contracts, was outdated and inefficient. Modelers spent hours creating workarounds, pulling data from Excel, backend systems, and contracts just to update or build a model. These inefficiencies slowed operations, introduced errors, and reduced trust in the tool.

Our challenge: modernize the platform to streamline modeling, reduce errors, and restore confidence in the system.

THE BUSINESS GOALS

We partnered with business and engineering teams to:

  • Cut operations and maintenance costs through better modeling and scenario planning

  • Improve modeler efficiency by 25% (reduce margin review cycles by two weeks)

  • Minimize modeling errors and manual workarounds

THE DESIGN APPROACH

To make the platform intuitive and powerful, we grounded our design in these principles:

  • Clarity: Use meaningful labels and logical structure aligned with modelers’ mental models

  • Efficiency: Reduce steps to complete a margin review and centralize external data within the app

  • Discoverability: Make key data visible, discoverable, and actionable

  • Consistency: Use Material Design and Angular Material for a scalable design system

MY ROLE

As the Lead Product Designer, I guided the end-to-end UX process from research to validation.

Understand

  • Conducted stakeholder discovery, user interviews, and observation sessions

  • Mapped workflows to uncover pain points and inefficiencies

Analyze

  • Identified key opportunity areas and defined future-state user flows

Design

  • Led design studios and critiques with cross-functional teams

  • Created prototypes, design system components, and high-fidelity interfaces

Validate

  • Designed and facilitated user testing scenarios

  • Synthesized feedback into actionable design refinements

THE UX PROCESS

Each 2 to 4 week UX sprint followed a consistent rhythm:

  1. Define business and user requirements

  2. Observe users remotely to understand real workflows

  3. Synthesize findings into insights and opportunities

  4. Ideate and prototype feasible solutions

  5. Validate concepts through user testing

  6. Iterate or hand off refined designs for development

This structured, iterative process helped our team move from assumptions to evidence-backed design decisions, ultimately improving modeler productivity and reducing friction across GE Power’s forecasting operations.

“With our current tools, it is nearly impossible to deliver a well thought out financial model in just a few days.”

— Mahesh A., OTR Modeler

“We have to provide quick cost analysis to create ideal outcomes for both GE and our customers.”

— Lisa L., ITO Modeler

OLD PRODUCT
ICAM: Infrastructure Contractual Agreement Modeling

Screen Shot 2020-07-02 at 10.20.11 AM.png

NEW PRODUCT
AMP: Advanced Modeling Platform

5 - Billing_Setup_FVM.png

 Remote observations via Skype were necessary because our users were spread across three continents.

Screen Shot 2020-07-07 at 12.16.57 PM.png
 

Scripted discovery questions prior to help guide the users through the observation sessions.

 Prioritization exercise via Miro Board

 Prioritization exercise via Miro Board

Facilitated sketching exercises based on observation results with engineers and product managers to foster cross-discipline collaboration.

 Usability test (InVision) for projected manual variable billing scenario.

 Example assumptions and questions document used during usability testing.

 Example assumptions and questions document used during usability testing.

 Prioritization exercise via Miro Board

 Prioritization exercise via Miro Board

Sample screen designs

Operational Data, monthly view

Operational Data, monthly view

Billing Setup, Op data range billing

Billing Setup, Op data range billing

Billing Totals, model view

Billing Totals, model view

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