Practical Case Study – Deacom Freight Requisition
Freight Requisition Feature
New Feature/Business Process Request
01/15/26-05/15/26
Role
UX Researcher, UX Designer, Process Engineer, Developer
UX Skills
Systems Thinking, User Research, Usability Testing
Software/Technologies Used
Deacom ERP, JavaScript
Research Methods
Workflow Analysis, Qualitative Analysis, Contextual Inquiry
Project Overview
The goal of the process engineering was to create a feature that allowed the shipping team to book the freight and assign related costs to the sales orders.
This project I acted as the user experience researcher and designer. I also wore the hats of process engineer and developer.
Before this project, the shipping team never entered their freight costs because there was no easy way to do it. Therefore, the purchasing manager would have to enter it for them to record it in our ERP system, Deacom. It was my job to create a custom solution that would easily allow the shipping team to enter their own freight requests, or “requisitions.”
Problem Statement
Shipping team members do not have a clear, reliable way to enter freight requisitions, which forces purchasing managers to complete tasks outside their role and introduces inefficiencies and potential errors.
Understand
User Research
User research uncovered a manual freight reconciliation process that required collaboration between customer service, purchasing, and shipping. Freight was quoted and tracked outside of Deacom, forcing the Purchasing Manager to manually compare actual freight invoices against estimated sales order charges for every order. This time-consuming workflow increased administrative effort, introduced many opportunities for error, and highlighted the need for a more streamlined and automated solution.
Research
Methodology & Approach
I chose to conduct qualitative, informal interviews for my user research. I used those alongside of workflow analysis to understand the freight reconciliation process. I wanted to identify pain points, uncover opportunities for process improvements, hear about past failures, as well as desired enhancements.
Analyze
Key Insights
– CSR’s (Customer-Service Representatives) were having to wait on shipping to book the freight and then to communicate that to the CSR in order to then tell the customer how much freight would be
– Purchasing manager was spending anywhere from 3 to 30+ minutes research a sales order in order to determine whether or not the invoice discrepancies were covered, and whether or not the charges were warranted. Sometimes freight company’s would charge for things that weren’t needed.
– The whole process was unsupported by Deacom (our Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, tool) and relied on manual communication via email, Teams, or phone call.
– Whenever a problem in the process occurred, everyone blamed everyone else for the problem and there was no way to really research the root cause of a process failure.
– Whatever was built needed to address the concerns from all three departments, not just one.
– Stakeholders were concerned that the employees would not be willing to do the additional work that they imagined this process improvement would require.
– Whatever the solution was needed to be seamless for all parties involved in order to be accepted.
Prototype
Unfortunately, due to the nature of the ERP design and the case study being written after the completion of the project, I was unable to capture in-progress prototypes. However, I cannot change the UI for this process, more so I can just utilize JavaScript add-ons that utilize data that is already there. I do have the ability to add user-defined fields that help with customization, but the UI looks fairly the same before and after. Instead, I have decided to showcase my thought process in the following sections. Also, I wanted to walk through the iterations of development to show how I got from the beginning point to the final solution.
Interative Solutions
Below you will find brief insights into my thought patterns and solution proportions to help this new process be implemented and accepted by all parties involved.
Version 1 – Business Process Redesign
Before introducing any technical solution, the team redesigned the freight workflow. Responsibility for recording freight costs shifted closer to the source of the information, reducing communication delays and minimizing data entry errors. Freight requests were also transitioned into a requisition process to maintain Purchasing oversight and approval controls. I didn’t want to simply automate a bad business process.
Version 2 – Purchasing Visibility & Validation
The first technical solution focused on reducing the Purchasing Manager’s manual workload. The system automatically populated key freight information, including sales order details, freight charges, sales representative information, and markup visibility. Reporting was enhanced so freight purchase orders could be validated directly from a summary view without opening each record individually. Since data was being stored, I thought that purchasing should have easy access to it.
Version 3 – Navigation Automation
The next iteration streamlined the freight requisition process by automating screen navigation. Instead of manually moving through multiple ERP screens, users were automatically guided through the required workflow whenever a freight requisition was in progress, reducing repetitive clicks and improving efficiency. This is where user buy-in started to grow as users realized that they wouldn’t be adding clicks, but actually reducing them compared to the current process.
Version 4 – Shipping Ownership & Intelligent Data Reuse
The workflow was updated so the shipping department, which obtained freight quotes directly from carriers, became responsible for recording freight costs. A markup calculation feature was introduced, allowing users to apply standard percentage markups automatically. The system also reused existing freight data from sales orders to pre-populate downstream screens, eliminating duplicate entry. This further reduced the friction of data entry.
Version 5 – End-to-End Automation
The final iteration fully automated the freight requisition process. With a single action, the system retrieved freight data, navigated required screens, generated the freight requisition, populated Purchasing-specific information, saved the record, and returned users to their starting location. The earlier process improvements and data standardization efforts enabled this level of automation. This resulted in a seamless experience for the entry and retrieval of relevant data.
Project Reflections
I gained valuable hands-on experience into developing an impactful real-world solution while maintaining system integrity during the new development. My main takeaways are below:
– People want to make their job easier, they are just fearful of the unknown. Once they see it in action, they begin to get excited.
– If the system can do the work for the user, make it. This frees up your employees to do more meaningful and impactful work.
– People don’t like needless change. If you are changing a long-standing process, you should ensure that you have thought out the cost vs value-add it will provide.
– Keeping the stakeholders informed and involved along the way helps to avoid directionless redesigns and allows for more efficient iterations.
– Thinking through the business process before thinking about UI changes or coding customizations is critical to ensuring you are truly offering the best solution.
I design experiences, not just screens.
Check out my other projects…
MoneySaverz
The case study of my master's degree capstone project.