Warehouse System

Case study · Bulut

A cloud warehouse system replacing a Windows desktop product

Role: Product Designer, the only designer on the project, working with the product owner and developers
Context: Bulut
Tools: Figma

Context

The problem

The company's warehouse work ran on a Windows desktop application. This project replaces it with a cloud-based system that makes everyday processes faster and more structured, and connects to PDA devices so stocktaking can be done at the shelf.

What was broken

The old Windows product slowed warehouse work down. Processes were not clearly defined, steps were hard to follow, and there was no good way to connect handheld scanners for the detailed counting that advanced stocktaking needs.

Approach

How I got there

01
Field research and talks with the stakeholders to understand the real work, desk research on similar products and best practices, and business meetings to agree on the problem and find the solution. I did the full product-design scope: research, solution finding and design.
02
Reviewed competing inventory products screen by screen, and mapped the existing desktop application and its warehouse processes with the product owner.
03
Ran event-storming sessions with sticky notes to lay out the real warehouse events, then turned them into a mind map, an architecture and a workflow.
04
Redesigned the main flows as a web product: receipts, transfers, stocktaking, inventory and configuration, with access levels per role.
05
Designed the receiving flow around the real sequence of quality control, quantity control and placement, including non-conformance (NCR) documents and tracking codes.
06
Designed stocktaking so counts from PDA devices flow into expert and financial review.

Thinking

Key decisions

I decided to

Split receiving into quality control, quantity control and placement

Because

Each receipt shows the three downstream steps side by side with their status, so a clerk always sees what is done, what is waiting and where to send the goods next.

I decided to

Run stocktaking by location, with mismatch figures up front

Because

Counting per location and surfacing the mismatch rate against item stock and location stock lets reviewers go straight to the problems instead of reading every row.

I decided to

Keep one consistent list, detail and form pattern across the system

Because

Receipts, stocktaking and warehouse setup share the same layout, so a new screen feels familiar and teams learn the product once.

Impact

Results

A faster and more structured way of working than the old desktop application.
PDA connection for advanced stocktaking, so counting happens where the stock is.
One consistent interface that new warehouse features can build on.
Impact was not measured in numbers for this project, so these results are qualitative.

Discovery

Research

Warehouse System: Competitor review — Competitor reviewScreens from competing inventory products, grouped by area: dashboard, inventory, items, packages, orders, stock adjustments, item groups, reports and settings. Used to see which patterns users already know and where they fall short.

Warehouse System: Event storming — Event stormingWorkshop sessions with sticky notes on the wall, laying out the warehouse events in order, with problems marked in colour, to agree on the real process with the team.

Warehouse System: Working board — Working boardThe Figma board that tied it together: architecture, a phase-one mind map, a competitive overview, the workflow, future ideas, open questions, notes and the event-storming photos.

Handover

Stakeholder presentation

Warehouse System: Counting a location — Counting a locationThe web system shown live to stakeholders in an online session. This is the counting detail page: the items of a location, the counters assigned to each count, the total counted, and the button that confirms the count and sends it to finance.

Warehouse System: Creating a count — Creating a countFrom the same session: creating a location inventory count with a title, the list of locations to count, and group assignment once locations are chosen.

Why so few screens? Most of this work is under NDA, so I can only share a small part of it. I am happy to walk through the rest in a conversation.

The craft

Screens