QC-x

Quote Checking Exceptions

Designed Quote Checking Tool for Walmart Global Sourcing to replace spreadsheet solution

This product gives Global Sourcing Associate the capabilities to verify the data accuracy of one-to-many quotes provided by suppliers.

Dates

Aug 2019 - Present

Role

Lead Product Designer

User Research

Team

Chad Staudt, Product Manager

Aaron Tang, UX Designer

Pradhan Buggareddygari, Engineer Lead 

Benjamin Clegg, Engineer 

Devyn Hardy, Engineer

Burt Gardner, Engineer

Abid Abdelaziz, Engineer

PROCESS 

Continuous discovery

Based on the data we gathered in terms of user feedback and behavior, we continuously improved experience and discovered new ideas. It was not just about shipping features, but about creating value for both our customers and our businesses.

Status quo

Time spent performing quote checking related activity per year

Time spent on reviewing supplier quote - checking & validating information

Overall time spending among all sourcing related activities

Challenges of the spreadsheet method

Time Consuming

The entire process could take weeks for associate to fetch the exception report.

High maintenance

Only one engineer had been maintaining the spreadsheet.

Not Scalable

The spreadsheet solutions can only be applied by a small group of users due to limited resources.

We wanted to create a simple and scalable solution to reduce labor time spent on manual quote checking tasks.

Results

We digitalized the quote checking process with a significant improvement on task efficiency.

75%

Time saved

4

Full time employees' labor reduced

Original method - spreadsheet

Digitalized report creation experience

MVP 1.0

Digitalized ruleset creation experience

MVP 1.0

Reporting Experience

By showing the report grid upfront with an empty state, users could ancipate what the outcome would look like.

Contributed to Walmart International Design System

MVP 2.0

Pushed UX to next level

One thing I noticed during meetings with users was that they preferred to identify quote info all together in the beginning. Based on this observation I rethought the entire process to make it easier to select all fields. Just by several clicks and the rule items will be popping out on the screen. When I tested it with users, they really like this idea.

Previous Iteration - Using dropdown to select fields

Latest Iteration - Save 40% more time

MVP 2.0

A more efficient ruleset creation process

2

Less clicks to create a rule

58%

Less time spent on creating one rule

REPORTING EXPERIENCE

Advanced reporting

Now when users are creating the report, they can see all previously uploaded line review files. We also added some advanced features such as report schedule capability to make this tool even more powerful and automated

PUGHING UX TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Rethink reporting experience

Here I added another page called line review library, where users can upload and maintain their line review files. When creating the report, all they need to do is to select the line review file previously uploaded.

Scheduling Report

Tool also provided advanced features such as report schedule capability to make this tool even more powerful and automated

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE

Template customization

Since each department has their own line review data, we ask users to use the template. Right now I am working on a new solution so users can even modify the template, and in the future, users won’t even have to download the template.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Continuous Discovery and Delivery

This is a concept coined by Marty Cagan in his book "Inspired: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love". I was reading this book while working on this project, and I really resonated with what Marty Cagen said. In this project, we kind of followed this process, and it turned out this is a very effective way of discovering and solving users’ problems. Because of doing so, we worked collaboratively on the same goal, so we could quickly identify some of the technical obstacles upfront, and give me sufficient time to come up with a workaround - even a better solution.

aarontang.design@gmail.com