Smart Electrical Meter
Industrial Design
Overview
Mechanical enclosure design for an EV residential meter for PG&E. The project encompassed the entire design process—from initial research and sketching to prototyping, DFM (Design for Manufacturing), and technical documentation. We collaborated closely with an excellent team at Apogii and worked in parallel with an Electronics Engineering team to bring the project to completion.
The product was a redesigned electric meter installed on the exterior of the house, featuring a modular core housed within the larger enclosure. This core could be easily extracted by technicians for maintenance and upgrades.
Process
Although the process was relatively straightforward, it was incredibly challenging due to the scale of the project, which involved engineering teams and numerous stakeholders.
One of the main challenges was designing for two distinct user groups: technicians and regular users. For technicians, the focus was on ensuring the design facilitated easy installation and maintenance, while for regular users, the priority was simplicity and ease of use for monitoring.
The process began by building a comprehensive brief. Once the scope of the project was clearly defined, we moved forward with concept development and research simultaneously.
Concept stage
The first stages of the Design Thinking process helped setting a direction for the project. First, different methods of user research took place, including user research, qualitative research, quantitative research and competitive analysis. Then, the user was defined by creating user personas with empathy and journey maps.
Test, testing and testing
Once the design was finalized, we moved into the validation phase, which involved several iterations over the course of a few months to ensure the design met all requirements.
Documentation
A significant part of the job involved documenting the product, including all parts and assemblies. A detailed BOM (Bill of Materials) was created to track the various components, from off-the-shelf items to custom-manufactured parts, while also incorporating revisions and top-level specifications to ensure accuracy throughout the development process.
And...a bit more
Throughout the project, we needed to keep stakeholders informed, which required preparing multiple presentations and pitches at various stages to provide updates and maintain alignment.
Conclusion and insights
This project was incredibly valuable for me. I had the opportunity to contribute actively and make suggestions based on my experience. At the time, most of my experience had been as a freelancer, where it's often challenging to be involved in the entire design process. In addition to bringing value to the project, this was a great opportunity for me to prove myself and grow as a designer.
