Inventory Management
Automating Inventory Management.
At Tekion, we automated the inventory management process by creating Tekion Store, a feature integrated into the B2B product that conveniently maintains and replenishes the hardware Inventory.
Sneak Peak of the live PrototypeThe Organization
Tekion is an online platform that seamlessly connects the entire automotive retail business. Unify DMS, CRM, Digital Retail, Analytics, and more
Problem Sector
Inventory Management is a part of the Maintenance wing, where automobile parts need to be available all the time, so that the workers can instantly fix automobile breakdowns, such as car repairs, changing certain parts in vehicles, supplying spare parts etc
Problem
The end-to-end cycle of issuing an order, getting a price estimate from the Store, negotiating the estimate, and eventually receiving the order, used to be done manually by Tekion employees by calling the store and maintaining orders on sheets.
Background
Buying parts from the store was a manual system with a lot of unnecessary chaos, bill management issues and costed time of the management team, until we decided to fix it
Opportunity
Automating this cycle would not be necessary during the initial days of the organization when the automobile parts were required only a few times a month but with growth, the demand increases and thus, maintaining such systems required more than cold calling and order sheets.
Impact
We connected with the Inventory Management Team, brainstormed a possible automated workflow, and delivered a promising solution which eventually increased the work efficiency by 80%
The Proposed Automated Flow
The end-to-end cycle of issuing an order, getting a price estimate from the Store, negotiating the estimate, and eventually receiving the order, used to be done manually by Tekion employees by calling the store and maintaining orders on sheets.
6 Step Work Process
The design process involved rapid prototyping and testing with employees to ensure that the feature we were building, would be solving the problem that they really faced. And also, it would minimize the learning curve for the employees once the feature went live.
Qualitative Research
A small team of product managers and designers, initiated the need-finding research via stakeholder interviews to gather enough data to start working on the solution.
We connected with the Inventory Management Head, and his team to understand their flow of actions for issuing an order, their major concerns, and their thoughts on devising an alternate flow. We discussed the current gaps and ranked them according to their impact.
Research Data Locked
Connect to see Research Findings
80/20 Layout
The idea was to divide the real estate into 80/20 ratio, 80 being used for product list and 20 for the cart
Card Options
Out of all the different typographic and layout combinations of product card designs, the one which created a balance between “not too much” and “Not too little” was selected.
Industry Standard Guidelines
The interface was designed on the 8 pt grid in FIGMA. Each block of component including the space element, margings & padding was defined in multiples of 8 and stacked upon each other to create the final interface.
80/20 Layout Options
The idea was to divide the real estate into 80/20 ratio, 80 being used for product list and 20 for the cart.
Final Solution
Login to your Tekion Application, open the Tekion Store, and select the items you need to buy.
Select where you want the items to be shipped shipped.
Place the order in just three steps
Keep yourself up to date by tracking your orders
Tekion Store’s Working Prototype
Tekion Store is the new order fulfillment process that will simplify ordering consumables.
You would be able to place and track orders right from here with ease
Usability Testing with Stakeholders
For Usability Testing we picked up the most common use case which was discussed during our conversation with the stakeholder and performed the following steps:
Created a working prototype for the end-to-end flow as described in the Use Case
Conducted Guerilla Testing workshop with stakeholders as participants
Asked them to complete the entire flow without asking for help
Observed where they took time to decide the flow and what made him stop at that point
Did similar excessive with multiple participants
Mapped the most common issues and prioritized them
Redesigned the experience eliminating issues
Results
After working closely with engineering to bring the designs to life, we launched the test and crossed our fingers. Our two primary indicators of success were; quicker usage and improved satisfaction. Fortunately, our users found the experience more effective and better than the earlier traditional method.
We increased the Order Placement journey efficiency by 80%, and also lifted user satisfaction by 8%.
A win of this magnitude meant not only rolling the designs out to all of our web users, but also clearing the way for our team to dive into other small problems that could be solved and increase the overall efficiency of the management team in the organization.