Parcel
Fulfillment
Parcel
Fulfillment
Company
Stord
Company
Stord
Role
Product Designer
Role
Product Designer
Scope
New experience
Duration
February, 2022 – December, 2022
Duration
Feb – Dec, 2022
Stord is a supply chain company offering a complete package of fulfillment services and software that help B2B and D2C businesses increase sales, save money, and operate more efficiently.
Stord is a supply chain company offering a complete package of fulfillment services and software that help B2B and D2C businesses increase sales, save money, and operate more efficiently.
Video: Stord Fulfillment in Action. Courtesy of Stord.
Background
Background
Stord's Warehouse Management System (StordWMS) lacked effective tools for parcel fulfillment, offering only an inefficient B2B order fulfillment experience. This gap represented a significant missed opportunity to expand the company's warehousing business through robust parcel fulfillment services. As a design partner to the fast-paced WMS engineering team, I jumped on this opportunity by conducting comprehensive user and market research, which shaped a clear experience vision and implementation strategy, supported by intuitive UI designs and seamless interaction flows.
Stord's Warehouse Management System (StordWMS) lacked effective tools for parcel fulfillment, offering only an inefficient B2B order fulfillment experience. This gap represented a significant missed opportunity to expand the company's warehousing business through robust parcel fulfillment services. As a design partner to the fast-paced WMS engineering team, I jumped on this opportunity by conducting comprehensive user and market research, which shaped a clear experience vision and implementation strategy, supported by intuitive UI designs and seamless interaction flows.
Challenges
Challenges
- Complex problem space
- Product maturity: MVP
- Proprietary nature hinders research
- High-velocity R&D team with engineer-based culture
- Limited or non-existent support from data science, research, and design
- Complex problem space
- Product maturity: MVP
- Proprietary nature hinders research
- High-velocity R&D team with engineer-based culture
- Limited or non-existent support from data science, research, and design
My role
My role
- Product Designer
- User Advocate
- A11y Enforcer
- Researcher
- Design Strategist
- Brand Experience Integrator
- Product Designer
- User Advocate
- A11y Enforcer
- Researcher
- Design Strategist
- Brand Experience Integrator
Impact
Impact
The measured impact demonstrates significant improvements in efficiency:
The measured impact demonstrates significant improvements in efficiency:
30–50%
less time spent on order fulfillment
4x
faster packout
3.29x
increase in shipped daily order volume
Assessment & findings
Assessment & findings
Study
I studied warehouse associates handle picking and packing operations with different WMS software and tested these products and tasks myself.
Analysis
I analyzed the findings through process comparisons, highlighting advantages and shortfalls, leading to the decision to abandon our current picking flow and design a new one.
Research
I remotely evaluated competitor products to identify opportunities they missed, capturing each step of the picking process.
Interviews
While interviewing various warehouse employees, I learned not only about their different roles, goals, and responsibilities, but also about their daily struggles with the current system.
Account roles
Account roles
I have identified two major user groups that are remarkably opposite by nature and co-dependent by necessity:
Managers
- Trained and experienced industry professionals
- Multiple roles: Shift Leads, Warehouse Clerks, Inventory Specialists, Supervisors, Warehouse Managers
- Role-based WMS access permissions
- Focus: product availability, urgency, efficiency, smooth operations
Associates
- Contract, seasonal and gig workers
- Multiple roles: Pickers, Packers, Forklift Operatorss
- Uniform (lowest) WMS access permissions
- Require supervision, unable to troubleshoot
- Experience time pressure, fatigue, repetitive tasks, pressure to perform
- Focus: Units Per Hour (UPH)
Shortfalls
Shortfalls
- The order batching mechanism couldn’t support an efficient grouping of multiple orders due to lack of essential tools such as order filters
- Poor visibility into batch picking progress
- Pickers could not resolve minor picking issues without a managerial assistance, resulting in abandonment of picking tasks
- Freight picking was the only existing picking method, which was unsuitable for parcel picking
- Packing was non-existent because there were no packing stations and packing software
Pain points
Pain points
- Pickers spent way too much time on on-screen interactions, which was tanking their UPH performance
- Picking flow unnecessarily involves a decision-making process, such as selecting a picking location from multiple options
- Different shippers would use different WMS for picking tasks
- Desktop and scanner experiences demonstrated poor contrast and complete absence of A11y compliance
- No efficient way of tracking order batches
Analysis & strategy
Analysis & strategy
Parcel fulfillment process
Parcel fulfillment process
Informed by findings resulted from experience assessment, I visualized parcel order fulfillment experience and mapped the shortfalls of the existing features, missing and failing pieces, and potential opportunities for further improvements. This greatly helped to strategically prioritize work and develp design standards to follow.
Shortfalls
Blocks
Opportunities
Strategy
Strategy
- Design and build packout experience to unblock end-to-end experience while other features are being created or perfected
- Re-design picking experience and flow, so it can support various picking methods
- Elevate outbound orders experience by improving usability and efficiency
- Define batch management experience
- Provide pickers and packers with means to handle discrepancies with orders and inventory.
Tenets
Tenets
- Intuitive user-centric design
- Accessibility compliant experience
- Less interactions, more efficiency
- Stord Design System alignment
- Scalable design that can support both growth and reduction
- Involve warehouse and engineering partners in design process
- Thoughtful balance of industry jargon and plain human speech
- Maximize value, minimize design/tech debt
Design
Design
The design work was following the principle of prioritizing enablement of the experience by designing nonexistent elements over perfecting less important parts.
