I led a design thinking session that was attended by the different members of the enterprise supply chain team. Through the creation of empathy maps, current state journey maps, and a “big ideas” brainstorm, we gathered an in-depth understanding of our users, their pain points, and a conceptual idea for a solution.
Going into the workshop, we had a general idea that there would be 4 unique users experiencing a complex, messy process. Activities like empathy maps helped align the team around the key users and their behaviors and motivations. Defining the As-Is Process (or current state journey), allowed each stakeholder to visualize the end-to-end process experienced by the key users.
Each user struggled with issues that were specific to their role, but they were symptoms of a higher-level problem: Nobody knew what anybody else was doing!
A constant stream of update requests to the supplier, whose day slows down trying to react to them.
At one point during the workshop someone said: “Can’t we have the ‘Domino’s Pizza Tracker’ for our Purchase Orders?” After some laughter an discussion we realized that this idea captured our vision for a potential solution.
The new process we were proposing was a proactive approach to providing updates, facilitated by the supplier.
Working with our product manager, I mapped out the PO process. My goal was to illuminate this process for everyone so each user understood how they fit in.
Wireframe Evolution
After many interviews with each of the four users, I finally landed on a flow that met The Supplier’s needs. As it turned out, his problem wasn’t so much that he struggled to fulfill orders, but rather that continually providing status updates to the gazillions of requests he got took up most of his time!
For this piece of the design, I focused specifically on Darryl, the supplier, who is continually bombarded with requests for status updates. His motivation is to spend less time responding to those requests so he can dedicate more time to fulfilling orders.
Wireframe Evolution
After many interviews with each of the four users, I finally landed on a flow that met The Supplier’s needs. As it turned out, his problem wasn’t so much that he struggled to fulfill orders, but rather that continually providing status updates to the gazillions of requests he got took up most of his time!
Our client didn’t have a design system, so part of my work involved developing one for them based on their branding.
Status Graphic
As I designed each component, I looked for opportunities for continuity. For example, the order progress indicator on the order overview page visually translates to the larger, more detailed progress indicator on the order detail page.
Details View
Here is a breakdown of each section of the order details page. The most common questions our users were looking to answer by using this tool were questions like "Where is my order?" or "When should I expect delivery?" This drove the order of information in each section and the order of each section on the page.
In the first few weeks of testing the application it eliminated status inquiries! In addition to that both the IT Project Manager and the Data Center Manager mentioned that they used the application to plan better.
Challenges
While this tool was primarily designed for the supplier, his interactions with the tool directly impacted the other three users. Keeping track of everyone’s needs required frequent checkins with each of the other user groups.
