The no-pain supply chain
Forge is a production tracking system for physical goods, helping users ensure that the manufacture and delivery of products (anything from fidget spinners to infant formula) happens at the right time, cost, and quality.
After several years of product releases, supply chain managers were not making extensive use of Forge’s core tracking feature. Customers said it didn’t align with how their teams work. Some teams tracked dozens of milestones. Other would track only one or two steps of an order. With the feature not aligning to the real world, data were falling out of date. Overall the system was too rigid. And since order visibility was key selling point of Forge, it came time to build a more flexible solution.
Previous tracking feature The original design focused on allowing comparison of data from one order to the next, thus enabling the system to predict delays for future orders. There were always five tracking milestones.
Different teams, different processes Interviews with customers and industry experts revealed that the number of tracking milestones could vary from one to twenty or more.
New UX concepts Tests and iteration of the timeline experience and user flows informed refinement of the new feature.
Final direction A rich timeline of interactive cards let users know what's happening and keep tracking data up to date.
Milestone workflow creation An internal user map helped our team align on building the feature.
Check-in flow Buyers and manufacturers provide updates within a milestone card.
Feature in context The new tracking feature amongst other elements of a purchase order.