Walt Disney World Resort offers visitors the chance to create unforgettable memories. This vacation destination – roughly the size of San Francisco – offers magic for millions of guests throughout 4 theme parks and 27 hotels. There is also a team of Disney Cast Members who work tirelessly behind-the-scenes to create and maintain many of the show elements seen throughout the Resort.
As with any business, Walt Disney World Resort conducts routine maintenance and servicing to maintain the enchanting atmospheres for guests. To enhance these services, Disney and the AT&T Foundry built and tested an interactive mobile app proof of concept that provides the Disney maintenance Cast Members with access to the information they need along with when and where they need it.
The mobile app helps Cast Members report and respond in real time to fill the work order in the field without having the need to return to the maintenance shops to grab technical manuals. The app auto loads schematics, work history, photos and other key data needed to perform the maintenance work. It’s all accessible at the touch of a button.
We started our collaboration with ideation sessions at our facility. Some of our team traveled to Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida to learn more about the user experience.
We explored what Disney Cast Members would do with the app. This included how they work, constraints, useful features and, just as important, what they didn’t need. Being onsite gave us the chance to kick-start the project with face-to-face meetings with Disney.
We went through 2 major iterations. The first was a formal AT&T Foundry project deployed entirely on AT&T software and hardware. In the second, we refined the user interface and tweaked the server software design to ease app deployment and its support systems on Disney equipment. That allowed us to demo the app at Epcot.
For me, the greatest part of the collaboration was realizing that technology like machine learning, data distribution, and location awareness can drive ground-breaking improvements in environments where technology plays a supporting role, rather than a primary role.
Applying an innovative approach to technology and real-world challenges is what we do at the AT&T Foundry. We are thrilled to collaborate with Disney, an industry leader in creating magical user experiences, and it was a great learning experience for us. That’s the wonder of innovation.
Mike Albrecht - Innovation Coach at the AT&T Foundry Innovation Center in Plano, TX