Mobile Cycle Counting
Senior Product Designer • React Native
OVERVIEW
Foxtrot store teams were using an outdated manual and slow process to conduct cycle counts* in our stores.
My team created a task-based cycle count experience in Quickstep (our mobile app used in stores), that addressed problems with the current process and made cycle counting easier, more efficient, and quicker for store team members.
RESULTS
Our team successfully transitioned the manual process to a mobile experience that was intuitive for store teams, required little training, and increased number of weekly cycle counts completed by 3.5x.
As of Q4 2023, nearly 250,000 cycle counts have been completed in the app, with a 98% on-time completion rate/adoption (up from 76% at launch in Q1 2023).
*A perpetual inventory auditing procedure, where you follow a regularly repeated sequence of counts on a subset inventory to work towards having a consistently accurate count of on hand inventory
QUICK FACTS
Duration: design effort 2 months / development effort 1.5 months
Collaborators: product manager, front end & back end developers, store operations team
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THE DESIGN PROCESS
A FEW CHALLENGES WITH THE PREVIOUS PROCESS
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Store teams aimed to complete cycle counts for 100 items per week, but did not have bandwidth to complete many additional counts beyond that - the number of counts teams could complete was therefore limited.
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The process was very manual - store teams would count inventory and mark quantities on a printed out spreadsheet, then would move to Backbone (our internal web-based tool) to actually update inventory numbers through an inventory reconciliation
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The process in Backbone was glitchy and slow, often times taking several hours from start to finish
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This process also had more opportunity to worsen inventory inaccuracies due to the time lag between counting and inventory actually being updated in our system
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Previous Cycle Counting Process
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PROJECT GOAL 1
Enable faster, more efficient, and easier cycle counting, which will ultimately lead to better inventory accuracy in Foxtrot stores.
DESIGN DECISIONS TO MEET THIS GOAL
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Create individual cycle count tasks for each item so store teams can complete as many or as few as they can in a given time period. This allows them to complete cycle counts ad hoc when they have time rather than carving out time in schedules each week to dedicate to cycle counting.
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Allow users to add multiple counts for each item so they can easily track their counts in various locations throughout the store rather than keeping track of the count with mental math.
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Update inventory in our internal systems as soon as a user submits a cycle count so inventory reflects real time quantities.
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Create a simple UI that minimizes user error and makes it clear which item a user should be counting.
PROJECT GOAL 2
Increase the number of items being cycle counted each week, and prioritize urgent ad-hoc cycle counts for things like negative inventory and items flagged as out of stock.
DESIGN DECISIONS TO MEET THIS GOAL
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Working with product and engineering, develop cycle count rules to determine what items will show up in the task queue in the app. The goal of these rules was to ensure high priority items get counted as soon as possible (triggered cycle counts), and all other items get counted at a regular, steady cadence (lean time cycle counts).
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Introduce the concept of cycle count tasks so store team members can quickly count inventory in the app instead of old slow/manual process, enabling them to complete more per week.
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Apply UI treatments to higher priority cycle counts so users know that they should complete those as soon as possible.
RESULTS
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The new cycle counting feature increased the number of cycle counts completed each week by 3.5x, consequently increasing inventory accuracy in Foxtrot stores.
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We heard feedback from store teams that the experience was straightforward, intuitive, and easy to use.
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“Cycle counts was the best thing you all [retail technology team] could have launched going into 2023” - Foxtrot store manager
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For next steps, I plan to conduct research to identify opportunities for improvement and prioritize those opportunities along with updates we already know we'd like to add to this feature:
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​​Give end users (store teams) the ability to generate cycle counts
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Create cycle count groups to increase efficiency and allow users to count multiple items within one task
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Integrate location management to have an even more clear understanding of how much inventory a store has in various locations, like front of house or back of house.
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