Smart Solutions for Connected Equipment

It is likely when checking trucks in Helsinki, that you will see a crane, tail lift or some other equipment from Hiab on it. Hiab is a leading provider of load handling equipment not just in Finland, but with customers in multiple countries all around the globe.

Hiab's products are smart and connected, meaning that they send telematic data and have remote diagnostic capabilities. This allows for real-time insights into utilization, operation, and condition of the equipment, helping customers unlock business potential and enabling Hiab to provide next level service.

Remote Connected Products

HiQ was brought on board to design and develop services leveraging the full potential of Hiab’s connected equipment. The mission, to build reliable, secure and easy to use interfaces, making Hiab nothing less but the worldwide market leader in services for remote connected products.

Designing modern interfaces for Hiab is not about finding the best solutions on how to fit as many features or as much data as possible on to a single screen. Instead, we want users to be able to focus on the core features and easily see info when relevant and deliver that with minimal latency and technically robust way. This requires a thorough understanding of the problems services should solve combined with a fair portion of experience in designing and developing modern digital interfaces. All in all, enabling us to build solutions for Hiab with clear and simple interfaces that have usability and quality user experiences at its core.

A Fresh Look with Longevity

Designing the interfaces for Hiab, we modernized the look and feel while maintaining a functional and credible look that reflects the durability and quality of Hiab products. We are proud to say that the service interfaces we are building are not only modern in terms of usability, but also visually set the bar in Hiab’s field of industry to a high level.

Additionally, starting with the first service we designed for Hiab, we set up building blocks towards a consistent interface language including common styles and components. This style library of interface elements, best practices and rules will benefit Hiab’s quality of interfaces, create consistency and importantly will also decrease the amount of design and development effort needed when building features and services in the future.

Collaboration Model

The type of work we do for Hiab varies. In some cases, we update existing services, this usually includes designing and developing new features and overall improving usability and thus improving efficiency and the value for the end users. In other cases, we create new services from the ground up creating totally new business opportunities for Hiab’s smart equipment. This service design process starts as workshops with Hiab experts, gathering insights, then designing protypes and eventually developing and testing the services. To stay flexible, we have project teams that let designers and developers jump between them adjusting to where they are needed most.

We are defining the future of smart load handling equipment. HiQ has been a valuable partner to us with their multidisciplinary team

Project Development Manager, Hiab

Eric Stigzelius

A key to the success of our projects with Hiab has been a close collaboration where Hiab contributes with their vast business and domain knowledge and state of art features of their equipment, and we bring our digital service design and development experience to the table. In our projects we maintain regular and good discussions, including workshops, frequent exchange of ideas and quick feedback loops on concepts and production. In the time we have worked with Hiab we have gathered strong insights on business, deepening our understanding of project goals for every new solution we build in the context of Hiab’s business vision strengthening our partnership even further.