Client: Secure Energy
Industry: Oil Shipping and Renewable Energy Solutions
Project: Comprehensive Enterprise Platform
Challenge: Replace outdated Excel-based management systems with a modern, intuitive enterprise platform to enhance operational efficiency, safety compliance, and user satisfaction.
BUSINESS GOAL
Secure Energy, an oil shipping and renewable energy company, relied heavily on outdated spreadsheets to manage daily operations. This led to inefficiencies and safety risks, particularly when handling high volumes of oil shipments and navigating strict safety regulations. The primary goal was to create a comprehensive enterprise platform to:
THE USERS
The new platform was designed to serve a range of users at Secure Energy, including:
The Process
SPRINT DAY 1 - UNDERSTAND AND DEFINE
Day 1 of the sprint was all about getting a deep understanding of Secure Energy’s operational challenges, particularly in areas that were critical to their daily workflows: ticket management, account handling, sales, and source location management. The goal was to dig into these processes, uncover the pain points, and define how we could streamline and improve them.
Understanding the Problem Space
We started by conducting detailed interviews and working sessions with key stakeholders, including logistics coordinators, fleet managers, sales representatives, and account managers. Each group had specific challenges tied to their role, but a common theme emerged across the board — the outdated Excel-based system was creating bottlenecks, making it hard to keep track of shipments, manage accounts, and ensure compliance.
Key Challenges Identified:
Defining the Core Problem Statements
After gathering insights, we synthesized the information into core problem statements to guide the rest of the sprint:
- “Logistics coordinators struggle to manage ticket updates in real time, leading to operational delays and confusion.”
- “Account managers lack visibility into account details, making it difficult to manage active accounts and ensure smooth customer relations.”
- “Sales reps face inefficiencies when tracking sales lines and invoices, leading to delays in approvals and slower deal closures.”
- “Logistics coordinators need better tools for source location management to ensure compliance and avoid regulatory risks.”
These problem statements helped us focus on the specific areas where the most impactful improvements could be made.
Mapping User Journeys
Next, we dove into mapping out detailed user journeys for each role. This helped us visualize how users were currently navigating their workflows and where the most friction occurred.
For ticket management, we mapped the journey of a logistics coordinator managing shipments. From logging in to tracking shipments, updating tickets, and dealing with delays, it became clear that the process was bogged down by constant back-and-forth between different spreadsheets and systems.
The account manager’s journey was similarly complex. Managing different account types required switching between tools and manually entering data into Excel. This created a lot of room for errors, particularly when trying to manage credit status or resolve disputes with customers.
For sales reps, we mapped their process of tracking sales lines and managing load confirmations. They needed a better system to view all their active sales lines, track which invoices were still pending, and ensure their clients received timely updates. Their current journey was inefficient, often requiring them to cross-check multiple platforms.
Lastly, we looked at the source location management journey, which revealed the challenge of maintaining up-to-date compliance records. Logistics coordinators had no easy way of identifying which source locations were verified and compliant. This created potential compliance risks, especially when dealing with petroleum registry information that had to be up-to-date to avoid regulatory penalties.
Prioritizing Features Based on User Needs
With the user journeys mapped out, we turned our focus to how we could solve these problems. We prioritized features that would directly address the pain points identified in our research:
- For ticket management, we needed a system that provided real-time updates, allowed for bulk actions, and gave users an at-a-glance view of all ticket statuses.
- For account handling, we prioritized a centralized view where users could manage all accounts with ease, filter by status, and update credit information or billing details quickly.
- For sales management, we focused on a unified sales dashboard that consolidated all sales lines, invoices, and load confirmations in one place, reducing the manual overhead involved in managing them.
- For source location management, the focus was on creating an intuitive interface that would allow users to track compliance, flag issues, and search for source locations based on specific criteria.
How Might We Questions
To guide our design thinking for the next steps, we framed the following How Might We (HMW) questions:
- How might we streamline ticket management to allow logistics coordinators to update and track shipments in real time?
- How might we provide account managers with better visibility into account details, including credit status and payment history?
- How might we simplify sales management so that sales reps can manage multiple sales lines and invoices efficiently?
- How might we design a system for logistics coordinators to easily track source locations and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements?
By the end of Day 1, we had a solid understanding of the problem space, as well as a clear direction on how we could use design to improve operational efficiency and safety compliance across Secure Energy’s workflows.
SPRINT DAY 2 - IDEATE AND SKETCH
With a solid understanding of the users’ pain points from Day 1, Day 2 was all about rolling up our sleeves and diving into ideation. We started with a brainstorming session, where we explored a wide range of potential solutions to the challenges we’d uncovered. Based on the problem statements, we generated ideas and sketched solutions. The focus was on simplifying workflows, improving visibility, and reducing manual work across the board.
Key Features Ideated:
- Ticket Management: A color-coded, real-time ticket tracking system with bulk update functionality.
- Account Handling: A centralized dashboard for managing all customer, generator, and trucking company accounts.
- Sales Management: A unified sales dashboard with the ability to manage sales lines, load confirmations, and invoices in one place.
- Source Location Management: Search and filter capabilities to track compliance and verification flags for source locations.
Storyboarding User Flows
In the new flow, the logistics coordinator logged in and could see all ticket statuses in real-time. They could select multiple tickets at once, make bulk updates, and get instant confirmation. In the old process, they had to jump between different spreadsheets, manually updating each ticket without real-time tracking. It was slow and prone to errors, but now, everything was handled in one go, saving tons of time.
The new system gave account managers a centralized dashboard where they could quickly filter accounts, update credit info or billing details, and confirm changes instantly. Before, in the old setup, they were bouncing between different tools, manually keeping track of everything, which was not only tedious but also increased the chance of mistakes.
Sales reps had a unified dashboard where they could handle everything in one place—sales lines, invoices, load confirmations, and even bulk price updates. In the old flow, they had to jump between platforms, slowing down the whole process and making pricing updates a hassle. Now, it was quick, smooth, and way more efficient.
In the new flow, logistics coordinators could search, filter, and verify compliance in one go, flagging any issues immediately. Before, in the old flow, they had to manually check compliance across disconnected systems, which made staying on top of regulations a real challenge. Now, it was intuitive and much easier to manage.
Balancing Innovation and Simplicity
A key focus throughout the ideation and sketching process was finding the balance between innovation and simplicity. We wanted to make sure that the platform wasn’t just packed with features, but that it was easy to navigate for users with varying technical skills. This was especially important for roles like ship captains or safety officers, who needed something intuitive enough to use in high-pressure situations, such as reporting a compliance issue while in transit. Simplicity was always top of mind as we iterated on our sketches, with every design decision being made to minimize complexity and maximize clarity.
By the end of Day 2, we had a set of refined ideas and wireframes that were ready to be turned into interactive prototypes. Our focus on understanding the users, paired with rapid sketching and iteration, ensured that we were designing solutions that directly addressed their challenges while still being simple, intuitive, and efficient.
SPRINT DAY 3 - PROTOTYPE AND TEST
By Day 3, the concepts from our sketches and wireframes had evolved into fully clickable prototypes. Our focus during this phase was to test real workflows that are vital to Secure Energy’s operations—ticket management, account handling, sales management, and source location management. These areas had the most significant potential to reduce operational inefficiencies, and we needed to ensure that users could seamlessly navigate them in the new system.
Testing with Real Users
After building the prototype, we ran it through rigorous usability testing with Secure Energy’s stakeholders — logistics coordinators, fleet managers, sales reps, and account managers. The goal was to gather real feedback on how the system worked in practice and uncover any gaps or friction points.
SPRINT DAY 4 - IMPLEMENT AND VALIDATE
With the prototype refined and tested in Day 3, Day 4 was all about bringing the design to life through development and validation. The aim was to ensure that the implemented solution seamlessly translated the design into a fully functional system, addressing the real operational needs of Secure Energy’s users. We worked closely with the development team to make sure the final product not only looked great but also performed efficiently, especially in critical areas like ticket management, account handling, sales management, and source location management.
Validating the Implemented System
Once the core functionalities were developed, we moved into the validation phase. This involved testing the system in a staging environment, where users could interact with the live system under realistic conditions. This phase was critical for identifying any last-minute issues or inconsistencies between the design and the final implementation.
Validation Results:
- Ticket Management: Successfully reduced time spent managing shipments, thanks to real-time updates and bulk actions.
- Account Management: Gave users more visibility into customer and generator accounts, improving overall efficiency.
- Sales Management: Reduced the time spent tracking sales lines and invoices, speeding up the approval process.
- Source Location Management: Reduced compliance risks with real-time alerts and easier verification of source locations.
Final Adjustments and User Training
After validating the system with real users, we made some final adjustments based on the feedback. These included:
- Improving the visual feedback for bulk updates and other key actions, ensuring that users received immediate confirmation of their actions.
- Refining the filtering options in both the sales and account management systems to make it easier for users to customize their views.
- Enhancing the source location management feature with real-time alerts to keep users updated on compliance changes.
We also conducted training sessions for the Secure Energy team to ensure that everyone was comfortable with the new system. These sessions covered everything from basic navigation to more advanced features like bulk updates and custom filtering.
Continuous Monitoring and Feedback Loop
Although the implementation was complete, our work wasn’t finished. We set up a continuous monitoring system to track how the system performed in a live environment and gather ongoing user feedback. This allowed us to identify any further areas for improvement and ensure that the platform continued to meet Secure Energy’s evolving needs.
By the end of Day 4, we had successfully implemented a robust system that streamlined operations across ticket management, account handling, sales, and source location management. The final product delivered a more efficient, intuitive, and reliable solution, with users reporting significant improvements in their workflows.
The Results
IMPACT - RESULTS
The introduction of bulk updates in ticket management and a centralized sales dashboard saved users significant time, leading to a 30% overall boost in operational efficiency.
With the new compliance tracking tools in source location management, Secure Energy saw a significant reduction in compliance-related incidents. Real-time alerts and verification flags helped logistics coordinators stay ahead of regulatory requirements
WHAT DID I LEARN?
This project underscored the importance of close collaboration with stakeholders and end-users throughout the design process. By maintaining a continuous feedback loop, we were able to iterate quickly and effectively, ensuring that the solution not only met but exceeded expectations. Additionally, I learned the value of balancing functionality with user-friendly design, particularly in complex enterprise systems where ease of use is crucial.
IN THE FUTURE..
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