Services
service design, ethnographic research
Industry
startup, sustainability, retail
Team
Service designer, financial analyst
Outcomes
Enabled operational scale with a detailed analysis of employee pain points and detailed list of software requirements
The Challenge
Identifying bottlenecks in a factory workflow
Textile manufacturing is estimated to contribute to approximately 20% of industrial water pollution. The Renewal Workshop was a textile sustainability pioneer, with a mission to provide the apparel industry with a completely circular and sustainable solution, and customers with a way to become zero waste consumers.
As a startup, they were beginning to experience some growing pains: their existing inventory tracking system had become too cumbersome to use as their business grew, requiring manual input at many points in the process, and contained many points where errors or data loss could potentially be introduced. TRW had begun the process of designing and developing a custom inventory tracking system suited to their unique requirements, but first, they needed help documenting existing pain points and visualizing the bigger picture.
Operational challenges:
Manual inventory tracking system couldn't scale with business growth
Data entry required at multiple touchpoints, creating bottlenecks
Every manual entry introduced a potential for error, risking data loss and financial inaccuracies
Employees were slowed down by finding workarounds for system limitations rather than being enabled by tools
Strategic challenges:
TRW needed to clearly articulate their unique business model to investors
A comprehensive list of system requirements was needed to select a software vendor
TRW lacked visibility into end-to-end material flows and financial implications
Approach
With the service designer, I co-facilitated several collaborative design workshops with the TRW team via Zoom and Mural. As team lead, I also served as project coordinator and was the point of contact with TRW founders, key stakeholders, and investors.
Discovery & research
We began with a series of detailed stakeholder interviews to understand user needs and pain points in each part of the business, including finance, investors, and sales. In order to fully understand the textile renewal process, we planned a contextual inquiry session at the TRW factory in Cascade Locks, OR. During that session, we observed employees perform their duties at each point of the textile renewal process as they described the pros and cons of the current system.
Distilling patterns
After the factory visit, we conducted workshops with key stakeholders on the TRW team to further identify and prioritize opportunities for improvement.
Deliverables
The Autodesk team delivered:
a process map detailing the current and ideal textile renewal process
a stakeholder map documenting all stakeholders and partners
a prioritized requirements list for the TRW team to incorporate into their software RFP
Where are they now?
The Autodesk Foundation team's engagement ended after 4 months. TRW continued to grow their business, partnering with brands including The North Face, Adidas, New Balance, Pearl Izumi, Osprey, and Timbuk2, and announcing several rounds of funding. In March 2022, they announced their aquisition by Bleckmann, a leader in supply chain & logistics.