This is a new web app for the printing department at PicTheGift. The users are the employees of the business and are meant to save time constructing what they call BID (Batch ID) or orders for production. The print room is responsible for this because printing the art is step two of the production process.
I was responsible for meeting with end-users and stakeholders to create wireframes and prototypes. I conducted usability studies based on the prototypes and reported findings to stakeholders and team members to better design the UI. I led meetings with stakeholders and team members and kept track of progress on the project.
Before printing, our team has to create a Batch ID or a BID. This is very taxing both in time and labor. Parts of orders from customers need to be organized in many ways before they can be printed on a layout for production. Material, due dates, and departments involved in product production and need to be organized. This organizational challenge causes many variations in output from employees which can cause mistakes and waste.
Batch Identifications (BIDs) need to be organized based on the products that are in them. for example. all items that when given to the fabric department would be put on the roll together but need to be done in reverse order to those who which didn't go on fabric rolls because of different variables in making those products.
Some BIDs were more than ten steps which relied on the users to be focused and correct on all those steps. This made it very difficult and time-consuming.
Because this process is so dependent on the users, it wasn't easy to standardize any process. Many users made BIDs differently, which was a strain on other departments.
Reduce the process work, and standardize the BID creation. There are many steps to building these groups of orders and using tables connected to a dashboard. We can automate the sorting process using advanced queries in SQL based on the specific kind of BID the print operator would like to make.
"Most BID require lots of knowledge and now I feel like I can do it in half the time without even thinking about it."
- Print Production Coordinator
Consistency of Task
Manual-built print layouts would roughly be estimated by team members as 60% consistent with each other. XML Automation was 100% consistent within the group of individual SKUs. Organizing orders in groups of SKUs is half the work of this task, bring overall consistency up to 80%
Access to Task
Initially, only Print Production Coordinators could complete this task without issues. We saw the same level of performance from 100% Department Managers and Department Leads.
Time of Task
Times studies showed a 200% decrease in time to complete task with the use of the new print room UI.
