LEGO – Stop codes in two taps for the machines that make bricks

Every LEGO brick starts in an injection-moulding machine, and operators keep hundreds of them running day and night. When a machine stops, someone has to say why with a stop code, or the production data is wrong.

At GGK I designed the operator tools across two phases in 2018 and 2019. The client's success criterion was blunt: set a stop code in two clicks or less. Their persona, a repair technician with twenty years on the floor, didn't think of stop codes as software at all.

The tablet is mounted on each machine and built on IBM's Carbon design system, sized for gloves and readable from a step back. It shows live process values and flags mould-card drift before it becomes scrap. Alarms explain what happened and suggest the right stop code, so setting it takes two taps. A digital eLog replaces the paper sheet, and the run-in screen shows which results a setting change will move before the test shot. A phone companion lets operators handle alarms away from the machine.