SUMMARY
The ‘Putaway’ workflow involves moving items from a storage area to a place where inventory can be easily accessed and picked for order fulfillment. This term is used for tasks related to both restocking and organizing inventory. The process requires that each unit moved from one location to another is recorded with the warehouse management system (WMS) in order to keep track of product quantity and condition.
TASK
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Optimize the Putaway workflow for faster speed
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Reduce cognitive effort and potential for human error during Putaway
Shopify
ROLE
Senior Product Designer
KEY ACTIVITIES
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User Research (interviews)
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Stakeholder workshops and management
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User flows,
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Process Flow
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UI Design
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Cross-functional team collaboration.
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Usability testing
TimeLine
2022 - 2023
RESEARCH & definition
Capturing the complete user journey of the Putaway process was crucial in order to identify key issues and comprehend the connection between each step in the GUI and the actual user experience.
PUTAWAY USER Flow WORKSHOP
This workshop involved active participation from essential stakeholders and subject matter experts to extract the real-time experience of associates while storing units in picking locations. The participants included myself, operations managers, warehouse associates, warehouse supervisors, engineers, and product managers.
As a collective team, we successfully mapped and pinpointed areas of concern, as well as identified opportunities for future optimizations and improvements.
DIScovery & INSIGHTS
Upon conducting research, it was revealed that our associates were effectively using the 'number pad' functionality to accurately tally units while storing them in partial increments. Although initially designed to track unit discrepancies and confirm the final quantity stored from each container, the numpad feature proved to be essential in maintaining meticulous record-keeping during the putaway process. Hence, it was imperative to preserve this functionality during the streamlining update.
Solving Cognitive Overload
Associates discovered a creative method of using the number pad to track units in manageable increments for themselves to memorize how many units they had counted in order to keep their final number accurate. This opened up an opportunity to enhance our workflow and features, intentionally incorporating functionalities that not only assist associates in counting units but also help them maintain an accurate count within our tool's design. Hence, "Partial Quantity" feature was created.
By employing this approach, the robot becomes capable of aiding associates by handling the calculations and notifying them of the remaining amount to be stored in the container. As a result, associates can conserve cognitive energy and minimize the likelihood of human error.
OPTIMIZING FOR FASTER SPEED
Through extensive research, gathering insights from key stakeholders, and observing the tool in real-time, we discovered several opportunities to streamline the Putaway workflow. We identified certain steps that, while beneficial in specific scenarios, were unnecessary for the majority of Putaway instances. Consequently, for cases where associates do not need to enter units in increments, the number pad screen became an additional step to bypass. Therefore, when implementing the "Partial Quantity" feature, it made sense to remove the number pad screen from the primary flow, deprioritize it, and clearly label the corresponding button.
After careful evaluation, we identified several screens that were causing delays in the user experience. As a result, we made the decision to either remove them completely or reorganize them in a way that still allows users to access and benefit from them when relevant.
The Final Outcome
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We were able to reduce the workflow process from 9 steps to 7 steps
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Cognitive effort required was significantly reduced as associates no longer had to keep count of units.
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Overall time to complete each putaway task reduced by an average of 14%
Final DESIGNS
