Rossmoor Pastries in Long Beach, California, wanted to update their bakery processes with a custom digital solution. The solution touched every part of the bakery's process chain.
Partnered with a seasoned developer and just a few weeks to complete the design, I took frequent visits to the bakery to meet with the owner and employees in each department. Early in the process, I conducted stakeholder interviews, shadowed them as they worked, and took copious notes. I uncovered the information that was valuable to people in each department.
The system needed to be a web app with different form factors for each department. Production Managers and Consultants would be on computers, Assemblers and Decorators on tablets, and Drivers on smartphones. Employees would have their own username and password; their role would dictate which part of the system they'd log into, appropriate for their device type.
Out of respect for Rossmoor and their intellectual property, I've only shown select designs below and have abstained from showing the full system.
The owner had their own system for tracking things, so they weren't necessarily a user of this one. Instead, they needed this system to improve processes and root out errors. There had been a periodic problem with orders getting lost and not completed, and this system was meant to eliminate that issue.
The production managers needed the ability to assign specific decorators to orders if a given order was particularly challenging. They needed to define which date an order should be processed. They also needed the details of the location and delivery timing for each order so they could assemble delivery routes and pick the right driver.
The consultants needed robust ordering forms that allowed them to create cake assemblies with clients and gather client signatures.
The consultant system is broken into two main sections: New Orders and Existing Orders. The New Orders tab helps consultants to initiate the proper web form, whereas the Existing Orders tab gives them an overview of everything in case a customer calls wanting to know something about their order.
As a bonus to Rossmoor, I designed the three large icons depicted here to add some delight to the interface, since this was a public-facing part of the system.
Here's an example of how this part of the interface works:
The assemblers needed to know what size, shape, cake type, and frosting each order contained. Their system was accessed from a tablet.
The decorators needed details and image references for each cake. Like the assemblers, their system was accessed from a tablet.
The driver side of the system gave each driver all the information they needed at their fingertips. Addresses that would open in Google Maps, phone numbers for the point of contact, details about the order and the extra materials they needed to load, and even which van they were driving. It was designed to help them track their deliveries as they went, which relayed the information automatically back to the bakery.
The client was happy with the result. Last I heard, they'd paused the project for budget reasons. It was a fairly sophisticated system and for it to do everything they wanted it to, it would take time and money to pull off. I was a contractor on the project and it was essentially my job to communicate how a system like this could work in practice. The owner loved it and the employees were excited about it, too.
I'm always open to consulting and collaborating, so don't hesitate to send me your project details. Want to take your business to the next level?
