What makes this project unique?

  • Balanced a large amount of technical constraints

  • Created user guide documentation

  • Internal Costco employee platform

Summary

A retail merchant vendor is performing its core business functions with legacy tools that no longer meet performance and security requirements. Also, using two separate systems to perform the same claims management tasks allows for some frustrating inefficiencies.

The new system Pearl is expected to

  • Identify commonalities and discrepancies between the two tool sets.

  • Gather insight from a variety of end-users including our clients’ internal team and end-client personnel.

  • Identify points of frustration (a.k.a. “pain points”) held commonly across user groups.

  • Define the master feature set and database schema for the development of a replacement platform.

Solution

We built a new custom entity tool that solves the current auditor pain points and serves as a replacement of a legacy claims management tool.

This tool is also enables auditors to discover the overpayments and under-deductions, as well as the root cause of such errors.

Problem

Large enterprise operations like Costco manage high volumes of transactions and payments to thousands of suppliers across multiple ERP systems.

Complex pricing agreements, inconsistent processes and inefficient internal controls further amplify the risk of profit leakage along every point of the procure-to-pay (P2P) cycle.

“Create a first class experience for Costco and CPRS on incident-based claim management.”
— CPRS Mission Statement


My role

I worked directly with developers on both their implementation constraints and client feedback. I worked closely with our Senior Solutions Architect to digest the business process based on stakeholder interviews and detailed reviews of the existing infrastructure. My work was frequently taking screens and flows that did not work in functionality as fluidly as intended, and redesigning the UX with maintaining UI elements and continuation. 

Simultaneously, I worked with a Project Manager at Costco to construct a user manual for Costco employees, who would be switching to this new, easy to digest version of the back end auditing system they had been using.

Discovery

Goals

After talking to users and stakeholders we discovered the following areas as most error prone and we decided to tackled each item individually.

  • Pricing Errors

  • Invoice overcharges

  • Returns

  • Unauthorized charges

  • Price protection

  • Sales tax errors

  • Shortages/overages

  • Excessive defectives

  • Allowances

  • Duplications

  • Discounts

  • Post Rebates

The business process was complex with many rules and special contingencies.

During the initial discussion with the SME's, we found out that existing legacy tools were woefully inadequate, relying solely on the institutional knowledge and vigilance of their personnel to enforce strict compliance and excellent customer service.

Our client had survived with these antiquated tools for years by implementing clever work-arounds that took just about five years to spiral beyond their ability to control and maintain order.

Costco’s Claim Management Before

Legacy database management application powered by Microsoft Access 2010 used by client personnel to track and manage the workflow of claims.

Claim entities are visually complex and have a flat hierarchy with several key attributes.

Web-based database management application used by client personnel to track and manage the workflow of claims.

“We need a clean, modern, highly-sellable platform that we could later license to other vendors to offset their investment in developing the tool.”
— Costco

Workshops

Our in-depth discovery process allowed me to quickly synthesize a simple solution to a problem with many layers of complexity.

Breaking down the process

Design

Wireframes

Visual Design

We designed a clean, updated look that decreases clutter and information overload to help users focus on their primary task. The grid based layout allows a fully editable data visualization assist in claim analysis and to display a high-level and detail view of the user’s claims and cost centers.

Meanwhile, that long-time veteran personnel that carried the company through decades of inferior tools demanded a different use case. The simplistic card-based UI didn’t support the workflow process they’d spent many years perfecting. A simple toggle provided a table modality that eased the transition between the generations.

A table view allows veteran auditors to quickly scan down through many rows, using their decades of earned domain knowledge to interpret arcane codes and initialisms at a glance. Users lacking this level of comprehension feel more comfortable in the card modality.

Impact

A successful launch!

This robustly-defined and engineered minimally-viable product (MVP) was successfully deployed, achieving user acceptance (UAT) in early 2019.

A highly efficient design allows users to be more productive in their work. By learning the duties and goals of claim managers, we were able to create a system that is firmly rooted in the workflows they use on a regular basis. We achieved this by simplifying complex tasks and minimizing repetitive steps. The different incident types are color indicated for an additional level of communication within the interface.