Gap Analysis

I began my efforts by sitting in on management meetings and having discussions with the warehouse. I heard many complaints about staying after hours and coming in early in the morning to prepare for customers during the day along with coming up with a useful action plan for putting all the products in an efficient location.

Based on these details I knew that if the warehouse leads and management could sit down and have a bird’s eye view of their warehouse in relation to where the trucks come to pick up products, where we load products to ship out, and where the retail counter it would cut down on foot traffic plus the number of additional meetings needed during business hours.  

Software

During my research, I came across Indoor Google Maps, with indoor Google Maps, visitors can spend less time searching for building directories and more time discovering new points of interest. This feature allows users to view in and out of a building and go floor to floor with indoor maps, something extremely helpful to new hires and managers who are trying to optimize floor space for better performance.

I also loved the idea that it was cross-platform from PC, Android, to iPhone which would prove useful to the warehouse team who may have an array of devices at their disposal.

Cost-Benefit

Midway into my project the Indoor Google Maps platform had withdrawn its client pool for only Malls, Airports, and Transit Stations (However, Indoor Google Maps has updated the client feature has since been expanded to include more businesses). Additionally, shortly before this update we were given a timeline from Google of 4 months for just a response alone from our initial request, so Indoor Google Map was already proving a defective choice for the job.

A cost-benefit analysis and Interviews with management and warehouse leads exposed the weakness in this approach, not only was Indoor Google Maps out of the running, but it would also expose the warehouse layout to competitors in addition to costing a service fee.

We then thought about making an Excel-based map but settled on Adobe Acrobat due to the transferability and ability to update texts in a format accessible to all parties who would utilize this tool.

Audience

The persona I created to get a good idea of my audience was a user with, minimal specified software skills outside of the general MS Office Word, Excel, and Power Point, WMS (Warehouse Management Software), or Google Suite products required for working at Murray Supply such as MS Office and Adobe Acrobat.

As far as Indoor Google Maps, it would have been great to have in a handheld device but would have been time-consuming and cost the company an additional budget for the service and training, even if we took private companies offering the same service.