1. Challenge:

I work as a Supply Chain Consultant and one of the major part of my job is IT systems’ development. Given a lot of business disruptions and high uncertainties in logistics these days (Covid-19), the organization/client I work with, wants to adopt a pro-active approach towards business emergencies rather taking the actions when problems surface.

This demands an IT system thru which we can map the impact of various in-transit shipments on real-time basis. While the organization do have an IT system (ERP) which accounts all the data of orders, inventory and consumption, it does not have any system for keeping a track & impact of all transit shipments. Existing process of reporting the coverage is completely manual and presentations/processes differ on division to division basis.

The challenge is to create a new system and integrate it with existing one across the vertical within the stipulated time and budget in order to suffice client expectations (increased efficiency & commonization). Also, the same shall be bringing disruption to its existing value chain and many of the clients/employees are initially resistant towards new technology/processes.

2. Selection:

We had different prototypes which may work. Prior to that, we had worked on a lot of quality data sets acquired from related sources and also formed a group of people of around 15 for the real kind testing environment. We, thus, followed Learning Launch Tool. The learning launch is an experiment meant to quickly test an idea and prototype.

3. Application & 4. Insight :

We mapped the existing processes of achieving the objective on one side and desired outcomes on the other. Then, focused on how to bridge the gap, stated hypothesis. While doing so, we discussed the challenges that employees face in existing scenario and what are their expectations with respect to the new system, which different menus are used currently and the backing systems. They were requested to be as open as possible and were assured that whatever the final system is, it is going to make their life convenient only, so they had to feel free while providing ground experience, processes and feedback. We followed below approach then :

While exploring and meeting end expectations, we could improve user experience by :

First, We created a Advance Delivery Note in which the seller would input all related shipment information, majorly the container number and material information. This was a new process of extracting invoice information, as earlier the user was inputting all this information manually. Tests done.

Second, we integrated this new menu with container status sheets based on information on internet, the same will be uploaded in the system. Tests done.

Third, Additional fields were also added in existing system and mapped with i-BOM to make a full Integrated system. Tests done.

My insight- During the series of various prototype testing we could understand what best fits the requirement in the end but perhaps a system is always open for more innovation as per times requirement.

It is important to keep the employees’ moral boost high during the whole changeover process by keeping them involved and be empathetic.

5.Approach:

While I called my experimentation as a Learning Launch Process, it is also an integration of Mind Mapping Tool wherein I looked for patterns, insights and connection from large quantity of data collected during the exploration. It is something which lets more creativity flow and help in the wow process.

