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Designed an End-to-End Packaging Data Platform
Reduced over 1,000+ hours of manual work per year while supporting long-term sustainability goals.
Overview
Streamlining Sustainability Data Management
I designed an online experience for a Sustainability Data Platform that streamlined how packaging materials and logistics data were managed. One of the biggest challenges was the back-and-forth email exchanges and lack of direct communication between teams, which often caused delays and duplicated efforts.
Through research and collaboration, I developed a solution that reduced wasted engineer hours, eliminated unnecessary communication loops, and enabled packaging data to be directly injected into a sustainability database. This not only improved efficiency but also provided teams with a clearer, more reliable source of information.
Problem
Manual workflow leads to inefficiency and mistakes
During the discovery phase, we uncovered that the issues were not isolated to one step, but spread across the entire packaging and logistics system. The process lacked consistency, relied heavily on manual work, and created friction between teams and suppliers.
Through user research, we identified three key user groups involved in the journey. Each of them faced different pain points and expectations, which helped us map the full scope of the problem:
01 - Process lack consistency, 02 - Poor communication between teams, 03 - Waste of over 1,000 engineer hours per year.
Research
User Journey Reveals Communication Barriers
Each of our users—engineers, suppliers, and internal teams—faced different struggles, but all of their pain points converged into one major issue: lack of communication.
The current journey was highly manual and heavily dependent on emails, with outdated file versions being shared back and forth. This resulted in engineers becoming overloaded, suppliers struggling to submit their data, and Marketing, Sales, and other teams receiving information that was often delayed and incomplete.
Previous manual process
Too many emails and delayed information.
Integrated new system
Integrated system and enhanced communication.
"The whole point of digitizing and scale our process was to create a single source of truth for packaging and logistics data, so marketers and sellers could pull the information they need themselves."
Interview participant
Principal engineer
Designs
From outdated tools to a streamlined system
I designed a solution that brought all users into a single, integrated system, aligned with the company’s efforts to build a sustainability database. This reduced dependency on manual processes and enabled clearer, faster communication across teams.
Provided clear system feedback at every step, giving users visibility into request status while enabling direct communication with suppliers—eliminating the need for lengthy email exchanges.
Introduced an automated percentage calculator that synced directly with the Sustainability Database, giving internal teams instant access to accurate product sustainability data.
Designed around users' existing mental models to create a familiar experience, reducing the learning curve and enabling faster adoption.
Creation of a New Design System Component
Built scalable design system components to support consistent implementation across products.
Results
From outdated tools to a streamlined system
Our research was extensive, involving 22 internal and external users, and it validated the pain points outlined in our stakeholders’ requirements. The insights we gathered were crucial for stakeholders to justify to their leadership the need for a digitized, user-friendly platform.
Due to budget constraints, the solution was not implemented, but the expectation was that it would:
Save 1,000+ hours/year
reduction of working hours per year during the whole process between internal and external users.
Support net-zero goal
Directly contribute to the company’s sustainability goals, including the long-term target of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Real-time data
Provide Sales and Marketing teams with the most up-to-date data to support their strategies and communication.
Lessons
Key Learnings
This project taught me the importance of resilience and accepting that not every solution we design can be implemented due to factors beyond our control, such as budget constraints.
It also strengthened my ability to navigate ambiguity, making decisions and moving forward even when the path wasn’t fully clear.
Although the solution was not implemented initially due to deprioritization and budget constraints, it already incorporated data visualization for internal users, who at the time relied on PowerBI dashboards to access packaging and logistics information.
