BMA develops new user interface for centrifugals

Consistent visuals in E and K series for more user friendliness

Programs and apps are becoming ever more intuitive and user friendly – also the centrifugal software from BMA. With our new graphical user interface for the E and K series, we are setting standards in the sugar industry. 

The world is changing… 

Using our smartphones, we can chat with friends and colleagues on the other side of the globe and even see them. We have 24/7 access to in-depth information on what’s happening in the world. We can share our thoughts, order a meal from our favourite restaurant, listen to songs and watch films – all of it online. All we need to do is tap our fingers. Actually, not even that: we only have to say our wishes aloud – and they are granted. Programs and apps should be as simple as possible. Today, almost anyone can use a tablet immediately, familiarise themselves with it quickly, and exploit its full potential in the shortest of time. Usability and user friendliness are key. Design trends have a lasting effect on what we can see on our screens. Icons, textures, shapes, colours and backgrounds all blend to create the perfect user experience – whether we are reading a newspaper, playing a game, or sending pictures to our family. 

... and so is the software from BMA! 

Intuitive use and state-of-the-art design: those were BMA’s goals for a redesign of the programs for its E-series batch centrifugals and K3-series continuous machines. With this in mind, our software developers set to work together with colleagues from different departments and launched a project lasting three years. In collaboration with the Marketing department, we brought the look and feel of our software in line with the new visual identity BMA had introduced a few years earlier. Sales helped us create a new design for the icons, headers and footers that programs from BMA should use. A key contribution came from our service engineers, who listed a number of suggestions for improvement. Our mechanical and process engineers helped with the visualisation of major operating data and with creating messages and text elements that would provide our customers with all major information on maintenance or necessary adjustments. 

Customer feedback aids development 

Helped by input from our contractors, we developed features and designs that are similar to those in mobile phones and tablets commonly used today. And some of our customers gave us valuable feedback on how we could simplify features or configurations, making our software even more intuitive and user friendly. In this process, responsibility for decisions that would previously have been taken by a single programmer was shared by people from a wide range of areas, who complemented each other perfectly. This was the basis for the development by BMA of a simpler, more user friendly, smarter, intuitive HMI (human-machine interface), which also reflects our company’s visual identity.  

Merging old and new 

And there is more: we based the layout on previous generations of the system, so centrifugal operators who have become used to “their” machines will feel perfectly at home with the new software versions. This success story shows the way forward for the sugar industry and is certain to increase customer satisfaction with their centrifugals.