Inventory Audits
I designed an internal, proprietary platform for comprehensive supply-chain management, effortlessly tracking every aspect of operations from cultivation to distribution, ensuring precise inventory to the gram.
Flow Kana
Client
3 Months
Project Duration
Designer & Leader
Project Role
Supply-Chain Mgmt.
Sector
Flow Kana
Flow Kana was one of the largest mid-supply chain infrastructure companies in California focused on cannabis during recreational legalization in 2016/2017.
From cultivation to distribution, Flow Kana differentiated themselves by investing in a platform technology team to build proprietary solutions to scale and accelerate agricultural supply chains, and ensure greater profits for small farmers.
About the Client
Head of User Experience
Job Title
Sep 2017 - Nov 2019
Timeline
The Challenge
Once a week, all of Flow Kana’s operations team were legally responsible to conduct a comprehensive inventory audit. Due to the critical nature of these inventory audit’s, it required several employees, several hours all working together until it was completed. This was a manual process which meant high cost as well as high-risk.
We needed to safely improve the efficacy of our inventory audits to increase operational performance without incurring legal risk.
Opportunity Cost
All of Flow Kana’s operations had to stop during an audit period, which meant every minute we spent auditing was a significant loss in operational output.
Legal Risk
Any error within a certain threshold meant an immediate halt of all operations for an unknown amount of time. We needed to ensure efficiency and accuracy.
The Research
I had no prior experience or knowledge of the cannabis industry. I took several trips to California to meet with every people from every step of the supply-chain in order to gain a better understanding of both the process and the persona.
Observations
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The operations teams had already iterated on their own process. Whether it was pen and paper, marker on boxes, or a Google Spreadsheet, there were several consistent patterns that emerged from it all.
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In order to improve the speed and accuracy of our inventory auditing, we quickly realized the technology would only go so far. In fact, the limits on how quickly a user could move through a facility posed the biggest limitation.
This was experience design in its purest form.
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Audits were a dreaded process that caused a high level of anxiety given the level of pressure on the employees conducting the audits.
Every minute spent auditing was a minute of production loss and small mistakes could cost thousands of dollars and in some cases have legal repercussions.
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Inaccuracies came from simple mistakes like misreading someone’s handwriting or misreading a scale. It was clear that if we wanted to increase the accuracy of our inventory audits, we had to reduce the amount of user input to near-zero.
The Solution
An engaging, end-to-end auditing workflow that maximized every step a user took in a warehouse to ensure both speed and accuracy of the audit itself.
“Wow! That was actually fun.”
This was experience design in its most pure form: blending technology with real-world implications in order to develop a solution that benefited both user and business.
Little Details, Big Impact
Object Barcodes vs Action Barcodes
To cut down on time spent moving from inventory to laptop, we established patterns for two different types of barcodes: info and action.
Action barcodes would change the state that your scanner was in so that you could start and complete a digital action without touching a computer. Each action had a sound effect that would provide clear feedback with whatever state the user was in.
Metric Tracking
As part of the workflow, auditors had to reconcile inventory that was not confirmed, or did not match the information captured in the system. Tracking both speed and accuracy and later reporting those numbers out ensured that the inventory auditors balanced both speed and accuracy.
Sound Experience
We also spent intentional time procuring sound effects that were distinct and clear while remaining unobtrusive given the amount of times a user would have to hear the sound.
Drawing on my experience as a game designer helped make this interaction fun and motivating for the auditors.
Make it Fun
For launch, we knew that the operations team were dreading the amount of effort it would take to digitize all inventory. To help, the design team billed the event as “Scan Fest” and bought goodies for anyone who participated.
User Journey Comparison
Before
Long, manual process that led to high-rates of error, frustrated employees, and a significant operational loss.
Weekly inventory audit is scheduled late at night or on weekends to avoid production loss
Several employees per facility help catalogue all current inventory and log any irreconcilable inventory
Employee submits forms to the state manually
Process takes 4 or more hours
After
Fun, engaging process that encourages speed without sacrificing accuracy.
Weekly inventory audits are moved to the end of the day.
One employee is capable of conducting the entire audit in each facility
Forms are digitally submitted on completion.
Process takes as little as 20 minutes.
The Results
This was very fun and rewarding project to work on with tangible results, and very happy end-users. We turned a dreaded reality for our users into something that some looked forward to. Most importantly, we improved several hard metrics that the business loved.
Improved Accuracy
Consistently logged 98% or higher in Inventory Accuracy. An increase from accuracy rates between 80% and 92%
Improved Speed
What took several employees several hours was reduced to 1-3 employees conducing an audit in 20-60 minutes.
Improved Perception
Follow-up research showed auditing changed from the worst part of the job for our users to one of the favorite.