Inventory Transfer Recommendations
01 Overview
The Product
A smart, web-based inventory management solution for pharmacies in the retail, long term care, and acute space.
Core Business Objectives
Increase usage of the websites feature that recommended inventory to be transferred from one pharmacy to another.
My Role and Interactions with The Team
As the dedicated product designer on this team I was responsible for everything from discovering the problem to designing the solution. Stakeholders Involved included the Manger of the Account Managers, Account Managers, Delivery Manager and Product Manager
02 Discovering the Problem
Research was performed with pharmacies that have two or more physical locations under common ownership. Conversations were targeted at understanding their current and desired workflow for moving inventory between different pharmacies.
We wanted to understand the current workflow for identifying drugs with low usage or drugs that could not be returned for credit, how they pull, track, and pack those items for shipment, and the approval process for the receiving store to accept or deny what was being sent.
Using the current interface, we discussed hurdles they face when trying to interpret the data they have been given.
Research outcomes
Current journey
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Design Needs
- Better protect who has access to changing the report parameters
- Better logic regarding order refills
- Allow receiving stores to reject an incoming transfers
03 Defining the Root Problem
After the customer interviews, we identified multiple points of friction.
- A misunderstanding of the overall definition of overstock and the relationship between dead stock and excess stock
- An inability to quickly identify sister stores that regularly use an item
- A manual process for receiving approval to send inventory to a sister store
- A lack of visibility into when a request for a transfer has been received
- A lack of control over the report output
04 Problem Statement & Solution
The carrying cost of inventory in pharmacies can be high. Not only is shelf space limited but patient needs are always changing and overstocking could be damaging. Additionally, tying up money in inventory reduces cash flow which can hinder growth for pharmacies in terms of investing in marketing and sales programs.
Lack of staff, narrowing profit margins, and increased competition with larger chain pharmacies means that pharmacies need a software that can make logical recommendations.
How might we enable pharmacies with common ownership to move the right inventory at the right time between locations so that they can increase cash flow and reduce waste?
05 Defining What Needed Tested
The success of the design for this workflow would be entirely dependent on giving equal priority to what is deadstock at pharmacy and which sister store would dispense the item, otherwise the pharmacy would just paying to move stock that will expire anyways.
We also needed to consider what every pharmacy differs on the type of items they are willing to transfer and the report would need to ensure that flexibility.
06 Designing the Solution
I created a high-fidelity prototype using Axure RP that would allow usability research participants to interact with proposed features such as…
- Specifying transferring store parameters
- Specifying receiving store parameters
- Creating a transfer based on recommendations
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07 Testing the Solution
Research Goals
- Better understand the interplay between push and pull requests
- Better understand how pharmacies would use the visibility into another store's stock
Sample questions
- Are the receiving store parameters effective?
- Do users want recommendations on the store to send to?
- Do users want to ignore min/max values on recommendations?
- What would be the most desirable default 'sort by'?
- Is there general interest in access to other stores inventory?
Research outcomes
08 Final Deliverables
Research isn't useful until it is acted upon. I worked to inform the team at large both about what we found and about how we were going to prioritize the features/workflow updates the customers found most impactful. Deliverables and artifacts from this project included…
- Two Research Plans
- Recorded Interviews
- Two Research Synthesis Mural Board
- Research Synthesis Powerpoint Deck
- Highlight reel from the interviews
- High Fidelity Prototype
- JIRA cards
Contact me to explore these final deliverables in more detail.
Recommendation from manager
Courtney has an unmatched passion for user experience design work. Her positive attitude and joy for quality design was a tremendous asset to our team. With very little direction, Courtney took ownership of and led the UX design for one of our complex software products. That product and our team was lucky to have Courtney onboard. I hope to work with her again someday.
David Roe
User Experience Design Manager at Cardinal Health
