Designed various modules for Distribution Management Mobile application such as Inventory Management, Work Visibility, Task Management, Order Management, Configuration and Reporting for Order Streaming to enable warehouse managers and workers execute day-to-day operations.
Project Overview
- Supervisors are most effective when they are on the floor with the employees where the work is being performed. This is more important now than ever as our customers move to a more flexible fulfillment model driven by the Omni Channel Revolution. This project aimed at enabling supervisors to execute their jobs without running back and forth to their offices by providing actionable information at hand, at all times, via handheld devices.
High-Level Product Goals
- Implement “Ditch the Desk” Inventory Management functionality to enable supervisors to perform their functions away from the desks.
- Provide visibility to the warehouse inventory, from anywhere and anytime within a facility
- Enable supervisors to spend more time on the floor while allowing visibility to current data
- Provide intuitive/comprehensive data in a manner that facilitates quick validation of physical vs. systemic inventory.
- Provide ability to take actions to resolve variances and overcome operational issues related to inventory and locations.
Design Level Goals
- Build UIs for Mobile (iPad resolution).
- Consolidated super flexible search for Inventory via Location, Item or LPN with wildcard and advanced criteria support.
- Context-sensitive inventory actions based on user selections within the base results screen.
- Lock/Unlock of Inventory or Locations
- Adjust Inventory
- Transfer Inventory within Active or Transitional
- Submit locations for Cycle Count task evaluation/creation
- Submit location/item combinations for Slotting Application evaluation/creation of slotting moves
- View current tasks for an item or group of items selected.
- E-signature capture for actions impacting on hand or inventory allocability.
Initial Challenges
- The desktop UI was clunky. The three key tasks of searching the items in the warehouse, their locations and the specific LPNs were scattered across 6 different screens.
- Search capabilities were limited.
- The original UI was limited in restricting users to take actions on one location at a time.
- The UI seemed to cater to some very edge cases supported by backend which made common scenarios cumbersome.
- UI was missing some integrations with other actions of slotting and labor tasks, that go along well with inventory management operations.
UX Process
The existing software was designed to support the desktop based interactions only. The objective of this project was to get the supervisors “Ditch the Desk” to perform actions and react to the environments in real time. I was tasked with converting all existing screens to fit into mobile devices. The project team decided to take a closer look and start with converting basic user flows needed for supervisors while on the floor.
I was quite fortunate to have worked with an ex-warehouse supervisor as the consulting BA for this project. He helped in acquainting the complex space of inventory management and provided some early validation in some initial ideas data consolidation that challenged the current data model. His wealth of knowledge and experience helped improve the screens while going through multiple iterations.
Field observations – To begin with, we visited warehouses and observed supervisors. We tried to get a better sense of their mental model. One of the primary reasons the supervisors liked the desktop experience was that the actionable content was dispersed in multiple screens. The Supervisors had to open multiple windows simultaneously to view all content necessary to make critical decisions.
We identified 4 most used functionalities of inventory management that we needed to start working with:
- Location search by item attribute
- Location search by item
- Item search
- LPN search
Understood the problem space – We went through the primary, secondary and corner use cases of each of the current screens. We documented them in the form of various stories when answering questions related to – Who? What? Why? How?
We converted the business flows to user-centric process flows for all key actions and use cases.
Iterative Space Design - As the search became more contextual, we did multiple iterations of key screens to simplify the design and user actions. Seeing the inventory in context of location and item attributes was a big win and we got positive early validations from the supervisors. Since it mimicked how the inventory is laid out in the physical space, it mapped very well to their mental model also. Different iterations for collapsible and expandable location view that fetch more locations with the endless scroll is given below:
We scoped location search that auto-fills suggestion based on current scope.
Final Design – These are the final design screens explaining various searches we implemented for the supervisors for performing their tasks effectively.
- They can use a specific search criterion. The entry can be done manually or via scan capture of barcode utilizing devices camera
- The search can also use a wildcard. Searches executed “begins with” queries using the virtual-keyboard return or hitting the search action button after entry of at least 1 character. “Contains” searches were performed with the entry of asterisk wildcard at beginning of criteria entry. Wildcards within the criteria i.e. XXX*XXX were not supported.
- We included an advanced search panel that allows for input of single or multiple criteria elements to perform a search. The advanced criteria elements were specific to the menu selected search of Location, Item or LPN.
We wanted to display the search results in the hierarchy that matched the physical world. We employed progressive disclosure to display search results. The primary details of the locations based on any search criteria were always displayed and the expansion of location showed the contents based on the search entered. To summarize the details of the search results to the supervisor, we used the summary panel to display the search criteria, count of returned results and other key KPIs.
We also enabled context-sensitive action buttons depending upon the selection. For example, Selection of location will enable the location specific context-sensitive action buttons and display selection count summary.
- Clicking on the “Search Location” action button refined the base results screen to location search results.
- Clicking on the “Reslot” action button launched a pop-up that allowed submitting the location(s) selected to Slotting Application for evaluation and possible slot move task creation.
- Clicking on the “Cycle Count” action button launched a pop-up that submitted the location(s) selected for possible cycle count task creation. Toast message notification confirmed the execution of this action.
- Clicking on the “Unlock” action button launched a pop-up that removed the location put away and/or Inventory locks from the selected location(s).
- Clicking on the “Lock” action button launched a pop-up that will applied or modified the location Put-away locks and/or Inventory locks.
In another scenario, for context-sensitive action buttons, Selection of PLD/LPN initiated "Inventory Mode" that enabled the PLD/LPN specific context-sensitive action buttons and display selection count summary.
- Clicking on the “Search Item” action button will refine base results screen to item search results for the item(s) within selected LPN/PLD.
- Clicking on the “Adjust” action button launched a pop-up so that the updates go through adjust inventory validations, update inventory, create PIX’s and Activity Tracking as configured.
- Clicking on the “Transfer” action button launched a pop-up, so that updates go through transfer inventory validation, update inventory, create PIX’s and Activity Tracking as configured.
- Clicking on “Unlock” action button launched pop-up that removed selected Inventory locks from selected inventory.
- Clicking on the “Lock” action button launched pop-up that applied the Inventory lock for selected inventory.
Also, we baked in some in-line validation and conditional logic within the pop-ups that fostered efficiency for common use-cases. For example, in Lock Pop-ups, Select and Deselect checkboxes were provided to remove selection from within the pop-up. Removal of any single selection toggles the “Deselect All” action button to Select All. This action button was provided to allow for complete section updates if needed.
In ensuring screen consistency, a similar screen was designed for “Unlocking Pop-ups” functionality. The Select and Deselect checkboxes provided to removed selection within the pop-up. Removal of any single selection toggles the Deselect All action button to Select All.
Also, the selection of Unlock action within “Location Mode” launched the Unlock Location pop-up where the user can select existing Location Putaway and/or Inventory Lock codes to be removed from the location. The Selection of the Location checkbox will select all existing locks to be removed, deselection of either lock will deselect the location as well.
The selection of Unlock action within “Inventory Mode” launched the Unlock Inventory pop-up where the user selects existing Inventory Lock code(s) to be removed from the selected inventory. The selection of the LPN/PLD checkbox selected all existing locks to be removed, deselection of either lock will deselect the LPN as well. Multiple lock code support was available only for LPN’s in Reserve Locations.
User testing with the actual end users to get validation on critical tasks. The observation was documented and shared with the team.
We shared the UIs with product council and internal stakeholders to get their feedback and validations.
OKManhattan from Vedant Mehta on Vimeo.