Project Definition
Rumpke is one of the largest residential and commercial waste and recycling company, providing service to areas of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia. The project was refactoring the existing Waste Management Platform based on SAP.
Waste management is all about the activities and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. This process includes, amongst other things, collection, transport, treatment and disposal of waste together with monitoring and regulation. It also encompasses the legal and regulatory framework that relates to waste management covering guidance on recycling etc.
Recycling Process
The Challenge
Rumpke was using a legacy ERP system based on SAP and some other additional applications. They are providing trash collection services for homes and businesses. It is highly complex, fragmented and regulated service. There are various types of wastes, containers, trucks, recycling processes, certification and security related procedures exists in the business.
Previous ERP Solution based on SAP
To run this business, Rumpke has its recycling facilities, disposal landfill areas, trucks and numerous types of containers. Also, they are working with various business partner companies and buying services from them. They are providing collection services to millions of customers and a daily base. This complex set of relationships requires a comprehensive solution.
Integrated Main Service Domains
Creating a seamless relation between all these parties was the main challenge. Understanding before-after relations of each step and looking to the process with business, customer/employer and technological perspective, understanding existing users and customers pain points and seeking opportunities for improving process were also important areas that we have to focus.
My Role
For the first phase of the project, I joined the team for creating user experience designs of the procurement, back office, and vendor process. I was also responsible for user interface design.
Breakdown of the Ecosystem
I started by the research for creating a knowledge base for recycling business, facts about waste management, existing product, and other competitors. I was trying to identify the domains and subdomains in the business processes that would help work on the information architecture. Also understanding the user segmentation, interdependencies of tasks and internal flow of recycling would help create a consistent solution for all domains.
One of the User Flows
The Approach
Because of the complexity of Rumpke’s business; creating a consistent user journey on a different section of platform was a challenge. While doing researches, and workshops with internal stakeholders, creating site maps, user flows, wireframes, online interactive prototypes; I always focused on simplified navigation, clean layouts, easy to learn interfaces.
Stakeholder Meetings
Balsamic Wireframes
Problems and Solutions
From the technical perspective; the development team was aimed to create frontend with a low-code platform, while SAP and AWS were still using in the backend. This frontend and backend relation creates some technical challenges that directly affect user experience. From a business perspective; there are lots of personal, vendor, service-related, financial and safety regulations related information have to be gathered and this creates a burden to the employees and customers. From the user perspective; there were lots of complex screens and complex navigation exist to be solved. I tried to find a sweet spot between technical, business and user-related requirements.
Axure RP Interactive Prototype
Impacts
After successfully delivering the first phase for the project, Rumpke employees provide very positive feedback with the new look and feel and usability. With the latest UX/UI style guides and standards, it will be much easier to develop further sections.
