April 2022 - June 2022
Product Design
Led the design vision of warehousing application, enabling efficient sorting of packages and staging them for pickup so they can be handed to the right delivery drivers on arrival.
Reduced delivery fulfillment time from 2 days to less than 6 hours. Optimized supply chain and reduced overhead costs by 19%. Acquired 3 new retailers, BestBuy, Fanatics, and Home Depot, generating additional volume of 8%.
Roadie is a crowd-sourced delivery platform that enables last-mile delivery all across the US. With more than 50k monthly active drivers, Roadie is a trusted delivery partner for many large-scale enterprises as well as small-medium businesses.
Roadie delivers variety of things of different sizes, from small items to extra-large items. For this project, the focus will be on small items like clothing.
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Senders typically rely on various distribution centers and store locations to deliver their orders. Because of multiple links in the supply chain, senders struggle with
Roadie can levarage retailer warehouses and turn them into sorting and distribution centres By tapping into its wide delivery network, Roadie can help retailers meet same-day delivery expectations.
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Working with Fanatics, Roadie Engineering proposed the following solution. Roadie would group orders into batches based on their delivery locations. The warehouse employee sorts the packages into batches and hand them off to Roadie drivers.
Design an MVP solution that enables sorting of packages and pickups directly from warehouses. For this project, we worked with Fanatics who are a leading sports apparel retailer.
1 customer in 1 location (Fanatics)
3000 deliveries/day
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The primary user is warehouse employee and the primary goal is sortation and handoff. Sortation is carried out by the warehouse employee and for handoff, the warehouse employee needs to verify information provided by the driver.
After defining the checklist of tasks, I designed the following user flow to determine the flow a user would take to complete the tasks.
To provide visual context, I designed a set of wireframes on Whimsical to share with the stakeholders and get their feedback.
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I received feedback from multiple stakeholders including the primary client and Roadie's Engineering team.
The primary feedback that I received was related to sorting process of delivery packages. Based on the initial inputs, I had designed the user flow in which the packages are pre-assigned to a bin. However, the stakeholders wanted the user to be able to select and assign the bin.
Additionally, to avoid accidental taps or misuse of the handoff button, it was suggested that the button should be removed. Instead, the app would update automatically when Roadie drivers completed the pickup. This improved the overall security of the app.
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To sort the packages using SmartSort, the user scans the barcode on the package followed by the barcode on the bin. Scanning a bin would assign that bin to the consolidation. The app prompts the user place the package in the bin and repeat the process for all remaining packages.
As the user sorts packages into different bins, the status of packages and bins get updated. The user can view package details and its status by tapping into the bin.
Furthermore, the user can tap on the Hand-off tab to view the information of Roadie drivers that have been assigned for pickup.
To ensure that users place packages into the right bins, I designed different error states that could help guide the user in case they make any mistakes while sorting the packages.
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After the app was deployed, I had the opportunity to visit the warehouses along with my teammates and view users interacting with the app.
It was great to see SmartSort in action.
It helped warehouse employees in sorting packages effortlessly.
They mentioned that the app was intuitive and easy to use. When they ran into
issues, the app provided appropriate feedback which allowed them to correct
their action.
Over a period of time, I have introduced several changes in the app to improve
its performance and usability. Please let me know if you would like to see them.
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The SmartSort app has been an exciting project to work on for many of us at Roadie. The CEO of Roadie, Mr. Marc Gorlin, called SmartSort to be one of the most innovative product the company has developed. It has opened up potential to scale the business exponentially. Besides being highly acclaimed, SmartSort also won Supply & Demand Chain Executive’s 2023 Top Supply Chain Projects Award! You can read more about the achievement here.
Since its inception, Roadie Support has experienced a significant drop in call volume as the drivers that deliver for warehouses have to deal with fewer number of pickups and are extremely professional. Roadie drivers that deliver for warehouses also love the long delivery routes as this helps them achieve their earning targets much more easily.
None of this would have been possible without my amazing team. From the Engineering masterminds, a Frontend wizard, to a meticuluous QA Lead, we all came together to turn this idea into reality. I also want to thank the Leaders at Roadie that truly trusted me with my design thinking and take ownership of the entire experience.