Work

Shipments

Web · Supply chain management · July - October 23’ (4 months)

Role - Research, Visual designs

Team - 1 Designer(inclusive of me), 1 PM, 15+ Engineer’s, 3 QA’s, 1 Data analyst

Tools used - Figma, MS word

Overview

Zetwerk is an Indian manufacturing & procurement company that connects businesses with suppliers for custom and bulk industrial products. It acts as an online marketplace, managing procurement, shipping, and logistics.

This Initiative is focused on designing a logistics platform called Zetwerk shipments (ZHIP) for the logistics division of Zetwerk for establishing logistics visibility and trust in to Zetwerk's global supply chain solutions (GSC)

Key terminologies

Challenges

During the research the following were the challenges that were discovered and prioritized.

Proposed and implemented solution to address the challenges

The solution was to design Zetwerk Shipments (ZHIP), a scalable logistics platform designed to deliver transparency and visibility in logistics operations for Zetwerk and its customers, with a specific focus on the trading business unit. ZHIP enables the supply operations team to:

• Verify the compliance and legality of all vehicles transporting goods.
• Access information on every load handled by each vehicle/carrier from the E-Way bill and packing lists.
• Upload and manage all shipping documents necessary to ensure seamless transitions for each shipment.
• Track the movement and status of all vehicles/carriers involved in a shipment.
• Centralize all essential information related to a shipment into one single source of truth, enabling the team to easily access and assess the impact on on-time deliveries.

How did i arrive at the solution

The initiative originated during the research phase conducted for the sourcing and trading division, leveraging on significant insights derived from the service blueprint. The findings of the service blueprint guided the identification of 2 main focus areas, with this initiative being second among the 2 prioritized focus initiatives.

The research conducted for the trading division aimed to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the trading business process, the trading business unit, and its users. However, it did not delve deeply into the GSC, the logistics division of GSC, its processes, and the involved user groups. Consequently, the following design process was initiated to achieve a thorough understanding of these aspects.

**For information regarding the trading division and the conducted research, please refer here.

The design process adhered to an agile methodology, breaking down significant tasks into sets of sub-tasks that are executed through interactive and incremental cycles known as sprints.

Discover

During the discover phase, the objective was to acquire a thorough understanding of the Global Supply Chain (GSC), specifically focusing on the logistics division, its processes, and the involved users. Additionally, the goal was to uncover insights into previously unexplored areas.

• Informal 1-on-1s:

Informal 1-1 discussions took place with the operational excellence (OPEX) counterpart of the logistics division to get a sense of how the division operates, the existing logistics processes, and an understanding of the users.

• User interviews:

Following the informal 1-1 sessions, 5 users were recruited, and interviews were conducted with the recruited users to gain a comprehensive understanding of

• The current process in the logistics of GSC.
• The goals, needs, and challenges of the users.
• An in-depth understanding of the behavioral patterns of the users.

Define

The define phase was implemented to consolidate research findings, pinpoint users' problems, and identify their needs, challenges, and expectations. Additionally, the goal was to identify opportunities for innovation while addressing the observed issues.

• User personas:

Following the user interviews, personas were developed for the 5 individuals interviewed. The objective was to derive the user needs , expectations, goals and challenges.

Ideate

Extensive brainstorming sessions were conducted to explore numerous ideas for the initiative, involving active participation from project managers and relevant stakeholders. To visually present these ideas to stakeholders and users, paper sketches were created, which helped gather feedback. Based on this feedback, subsequent iterations were made and ultimately the final versions were finalized.

Current process

• Order release and recording: The supplier releases the order, and the supply operations team records relevant order and shipment details in a Google Sheet.
• Order ready for dispatch: Order is ready to be dispatched from the supplier location
• Request for quotations(RFQ’S): Once the order is ready for dispatch from the supplier location, RFQ’s are shared with freight forwarders via email. Received quotes are then transcribed into a Google Sheet for comparison and evaluation.
• Contract evaluation: If a contract exists with a freight forwarder, the same contract is stored in Google Drive, which is referred to manually to determine pricing by considering origin, destination region, and shipping weight.
• Booking the transporter: The booking is done with freight forwarders or logistics companies by either emailing the account manager or booking through their customer portal.
• Vehicle legality check: Currently, there’s no formal process to check the legality of the transporter or vehicle; the team relies on trust and assurances from the transporter/forwarder.
• E-way bill & packing list generation:
• For road shipments, vehicle details from the forwarder are recorded in the master Google Sheet, and the e-way bill is generated in the Order Management System (OMS). The E-way bill is emailed to the forwarder and passed to the transporter.
• For ocean shipments, the forwarder shares the bill of lading, from which the supply operations team creates a packing list in OMS. The packing list is sent by email to the forwarder, who passes it to the transporter.
• Shipment tracking: Tracking is performed manually by checking the carrier’s or forwarder’s website. If live tracking is unavailable, updates are gathered by calling the driver or forwarder, and the status is logged in the Google Sheet.
• Shipment documentation: All shipment-related documents—including packing lists, shipping invoices, declarations, export compliance documents, and GRNs—are stored in Google Drive. Key documents are also uploaded into OMS for compliance.
• Shipment payments & invoice reconciliation: Payments requests to freight forwarders mainly happen via OMS, but the unplanned expenses including clearance charges or miscellaneous expenses today occur outside of OMS which requires separate email requests and record keeping.

Design solution explanation

Explore the user flow

Let's consider a scenario where two loads, one truck and one container, are included to transport goods from location A to location B.

Vehilce validation process

• Once an Eway bill is generated in the OMS for a contract, it is reflected as a load in the "Loads" section of the Zetwerk Shipments platform (ZHIP), which triggers automatic vehicle validation.
• After confirming the vehicle's legality and type, the supply operations team downloads the Eway bill from OMS and shares it with the transporter.
• Next, the supply operations team generates a packing list in OMS for the container.

Shipment creation process

• The supply operations team initiates the creation of a shipment within the Zetwerk shipments platform, (ZHIP).
• The shipment creation process involves 4 steps- add necessary shipment details (Details Tab), add relevant documents (documents tab), add/update the shipment status (Status tab), track the shipment (Map view).
• Initially, relevant shipment details are added in the details tab. In this tab, the user selects the business unit for the shipment and a shipment template, and adds essential information such as delivery date fo the shipment, shipment owner, watchers of the shipment, and the contract associated with the shipment.
• After the users have added the contract, they can fetch the loads associated with it from available Eway bills and packing lists.
• After adding loads, users can upload the relevant shipment documents in the documents tab. Once uploaded, they can set the expected start and end dates for each shipment stage in the status tab.

Shipment tracking process

• After this, the user saves the shipment and gains the ability to track the vehicles' movement in the Map view tab. In the Map view, the user monitors truck and container loads, views route stops and toll plazas, and can manually update the load statuses as milestones are reached.
• On final delivery, the customer shares a Goods Received Note (GRN), which is uploaded to the shipment record for completion.

How did the solution solve the user challenges ?

The solution addressed user challenges by providing the supply operations team with a unified platform to store all shipment data, simplifying the assessment of on-time delivery impacts. The ZHIP's vehicle and carrier location tracking addressed a major challenge of customers and supply operations team by replacing unreliable verbal updates from forwarders with precise tracking. This visibility has enabled the team to make informed decisions regarding vehicle statuses, substantially reducing the costs Zetwerk incurred and decreasing order cancellations. Additionally, the vehicle validation feature ensures no illegal vehicles transport goods, further improving decision-making and operational security. Overall, the platform effectively resolved the key challenges faced by both the supply operations team and customers.

Visual designs

Test

Upon the completion of the designs, users were recruited and usability testing was conducted with 3 Supply operations team members to achieve the following objectives

• Assessing user satisfaction - The goal was to comprehend the users' interactions with the product and enhance overall satisfaction with the experience.
• Issue identification - The testing aimed to uncover usability issues, including confusing navigation, unclear instructions, or inefficient workflows, with the objective of mitigating user frustrations.
• Gather improvement insights – To collect direct user feedback on potential enhancements for improving the overall usability and experience.

Success metrics

Upon the completion of product development, the success of the initiative was assessed.

Business OKR’s and KPI’s

Based on the discussions with the business and product teams, the north start metrics was customer experience related, i.e improving customer experience scores and order repeats for customers involving Zetwerk for trading aka raw material procurement orders.

While the north start metric is WIP - with atleast 2 months lag expected between the launch and impact on the recurring orders due to the experience , the other metrics have already started showing improvements.

Additional business KPI’s included enhancing margins by reducing delay related expenses , improving productivity and ensuring compliance.

Mix panel results

Following the successful completion of the developement phase, collaboration occured with development and data teams to implement mix panel dashboards. The dashboards facilitated the analysis and assessment of the number of customers actively engaging with Zetwerk shipments.