Pick n Pack Experiment

As part of the Point of Sale project, the business was interested in improving its in-store sales flow.

Reece stores are specialised trade stores. Staff members would take customers’ orders over the counter and then pick and pack the goods for the customers.

Staff members would use printed pick-slips to locate and identify goods to pick.

Role

Senior Product Designer

Company

Reece Group

Year

2022

Squad

TRS (The Reece System) team

Overview

Reece was using approximately 2.2 million sheets of paper and 300 toner cartridges each month. As part of their “War on Waste” initiative, reducing unnecessary printing became a key focus.

Through in-store observations and staff feedback, we discovered that most packing slips were discarded immediately—customers rarely wanted them, and experienced staff often didn’t need them. However, the system offered no option to skip printing.

The Approach

Mobility is key for staff members and we had the need to reduce paper waste. Mobile phone was a feasible solution, because each stores already supplied with a few for other usage.

The team and I came up with an assumption that using mobile phones to pick and pack goods, would help reduce paper wastes significantly.

I quickly designed a prototype to test this assumption. Leveraged existing mobile components for the Point of Sale.

The protoype was built with protopie for a high fidelity interaction purpose.

Prototype video

Interactive Prototype

The test

To further in/validate our assumptions, I added a wristband for the mobile device. The prototype tests were done over multiple rounds in different stores.

Remote test

These were done at the end of covid lockdown. Here is how it was run:

I reached out to selected branches and requested support from two staff members and access to two mobile phones.
One phone was used to run the prototype and to be tested in-store, while the other was used to join the MS Teams video call, allowing us to observe the session remotely.
Prior to the sessions, I dropped off the wristbands at each store and coordinated logistics—sending out invites to participants and any additional observers.

Feedback

We received plenty of feedback. Branch staff didn’t like the wrist band as it was getting in the way when they had to complete their task quickly, maneuvering around tight spaces risk damaging the device. However the digitisation was the right direction in order to save paper

“The wristband is clunky and would get in the way”

- Branch staff

“This would save a lot of paper”

- Branch manager