Secure and efficient collaboration with suppliers
Suppliers Collaborate on Data Sheet
Design Lead / Core Product Team
Domain Background
Customers are seeking a reliable collaboration solution in the product development phase in their sourcing strategy nowadays
Among customers in the apparel industry, there is a rising demand for secure collaboration directly on product data sheet with reliable suppliers, meaning instead of in-house designers taking care of everything, suppliers now participate or even lead the design development process for their customers. Centric Software is providing an outstanding experience to meet this market demand!
Design Challenge
In the dynamic collaborative process between internal team and supplier, the outstanding pain point is, who updated what?
The common thing we communicate to each other are changes! We will communicating a lot about the details, but no systematic way to flash out the communication across internal and vendors.
- H&M
Internal user
?
Supplier
Research Process
Build empathy on the customers workflow
01
Learn how customers collaborate with suppliers and identify pain points through the workflow
During the research phase, we gathered information on how customers interact with their suppliers regarding data sheets. This includes their approach to multi-sourcing strategies, challenges in managing multiple copies, the level of detail they depend on from suppliers, any control restrictions they impose on various suppliers, and their methods for reviewing supplier work etc. I worked with my PM to convert insights into multiple specific features to craft a reliable and secure experience in this project.
02
Identified the biggest design challenge:
Users are using 6+ tools in communicating the changes, each takes repeated manual annotation or many clicks, and it's easy to lose track
Canvas
For communicating product image
Formal way for everything but outside PLM
Table Comments
this is customers' hack method...could be very manual heavy
Custom Attributes
this is customers' hack method...could be very manual heavy
Conversation
this is customers' hack method...could be very manual heavy
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Change Log
Hard to read and understand everything in context, not intuitive
Internal user
?
Supplier
How might we provide a systematic way to communicate changes that will reduce manual notes and increase efficiency?
Design Process
How did we effectively address the design challenge for customers' needs
01
Define the Design Principles for this new workflow
Internal user
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Supplier
Simple & Streamlined
It should be significantly simplified, with change tracking highly streamlined to minimize the annual workload as much as possible.
Clear & Scannable
Both parties can easily access updates in a clear and organized format, rather than a chaotic and overwhelming one.
Collaborative & Flexible
It's flexible and collaborative for both parties instead of a rigid process where one submits then waits for review, which can hinder the process.
02
Learn and push the boundary - we started with system audit and ideation prioritization
The optimal experience would involve automatically highlighting changes made by the other party. The difficult part is determining how to achieve this. By outlining all the concepts along with an impact/effort chart, we identified a path forward: utilizing the existing Comparison Mode feature to highlight changes for users. I then thoroughly explored this feature to understand its functionality and limitations before the rest of the design process.
03
I led in unifying product, engineering, and design to craft a straightforward workflow that empowered users without exposing them to technical complexities.
x 13
Iterations
The challenge was handling the complex logic of incorporating the dynamic collaborative workflow in the data sheet revisions with the existing comparison mode feature. There are nunmerous challenging moments where I needed to work with various roles to push the puzzle and boundary forward little by little until we reached the final solution. I'm pleased that we were able to piece everything together and kept the challenging moments for us and provided a smooth and easy experience for users!
Feature Walkthrough
A in data sheet that significantly minimize manual annotation and enhance efficiency
streamlined update tracking process
Step 1
Internal users create and share with supplier a base data sheet
Internal user
Step 2
Supplier user receive data sheet, edit and notify about the updates
Supplier
Step 3
Internal users received notification and check out updates
Internal user
Final Impact
Greatly enhanced the reliability and efficency in the collaboration process with a scalable pattern that significantly contributed to our business growth ↑
100%
Recieved 100% satisfaction rate from customers who adopted this new feature
75% ↑
Time saved on annotating updates between customers and suppliers in collaboration process
6+
Resuable patter for multiple updates-related scenarios in 6+ types of data sheet across Centric PLM system
Interested in learning more?
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516.647.7628
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