Global Chemical Ordering & Sample Planning Platform

Enterprise Product Design

2024 -2025

Lead UX Product Designer

A global organization relied on multiple legacy systems for chemical ordering, sample planning, and fulfillment. Each region had developed its own workflows over time, making ordering inconsistent, reducing visibility, and creating friction between planning and fulfillment teams. To increase operational efficiency, the organization wanted to consolidate these experiences into a single platform integrated with SAP while supporting existing business processes that users were deeply attached to. The project also required designing for highly specialized scientific workflows involving laboratory formulation, inventory management, sample logistics, and regulated science teams.

My Role Lead UX Product Designer Domain Enterprise SaaS Laboratory Operations Supply Chain Research & Development Areas of Product Ownership * Chemical Ordering * Sample Logistics * Sampling to Lab workflows * Laboratory Formulation * Inventory Management * Forecasting * SAP-connected ordering Users Approximately 200+ global users Including: * Planning teams * Chemical Requestors * Fulfillment teams * Sample Logistics * Regulated Science The challenge wasn't simply creating a better interface—it was designing a workflow that supported several interconnected roles with different priorities while maintaining operational accuracy.

The first step was understanding how work actually moved through the organization. Through stakeholder sessions, workflow mapping, and collaboration with subject matter experts, I identified three primary personas involved in every chemical request. Planner Forecasts future chemical needs. ↓ Requestor Places orders against forecasts or creates one-off requests. ↓ Fulfiller Sources, prepares, and delivers requested materials. While each persona completed different tasks, their work depended heavily on one another. Existing systems obscured those dependencies, resulting in unnecessary communication and reduced visibility. Key insights included: * Teams relied on multiple disconnected systems. * Visibility across the request lifecycle was limited. * Forecasting and ordering were separated. * Users were highly resistant to replacing familiar legacy tools. * Different scientific teams required different levels of complexity.

The biggest opportunity wasn't redesigning forms. It was reducing friction between people. Rather than optimizing individual screens, the design focused on improving the hand-offs between teams. Core principles included: * Make workflow status visible. * Reduce duplicate work. * Connect forecasting and ordering. * Support both planned and ad hoc requests. * Preserve familiar mental models while modernizing the experience.

Working closely with Product Managers, Engineers, SAP teams, and business stakeholders, I designed a unified ordering experience that replaced multiple legacy platforms. Key improvements included: Unified Ordering Users could now * Forecast future demand * Order against forecasts * Submit one-off requests all within a single workflow. Cross-Persona Visibility Designed clearer transitions between Planner → Requestor → Fulfiller allowing every role to understand request status and next steps. Communication Improvements Reduced unnecessary back-and-forth by making request information more transparent throughout the process. Scalability Designed the platform to support enterprise-scale datasets, including: * Hundreds of intents per sampling plan * Hundreds of sets * Thousands of linked associations * Large plant datasets Performance requirements included page load times under 10 seconds despite highly complex data relationships.

This project required continuous collaboration across multiple disciplines. Partners included: * Product Management * Engineering * SAP integration teams * Sample Logistics * Laboratory Scientists * Regulated Science teams * Business stakeholders * Global Operations One of the most valuable aspects of the project was aligning technical constraints with user needs while balancing the expectations of teams transitioning from legacy systems.

Platform Consolidation Successfully replaced multiple chemical ordering systems with one global solution connected to SAP fulfillment. Improved Visibility Created greater transparency across planning, ordering, and fulfillment workflows. Simplified Ordering Users could manage forecasting and ordering within one experience rather than switching between systems. Better Operational Planning Sample Logistics teams gained improved visibility into seasonal and year-over-year chemical demand. Enterprise Scale Designed for approximately 200+ global users while supporting complex scientific datasets including: * 200 intents per sampling plan * 500 sets * 250 entries per set * 15 plants per entry * Up to 10,000 linked associations The solution also supported anticipated growth for regulated science users while maintaining performance targets.

This project reinforced an important lesson about enterprise UX: The most impactful design work often happens between screens—not on them. By focusing on how information moved between people instead of simply improving individual interfaces, we were able to reduce operational friction, increase visibility, and create a shared workflow that supported multiple teams across the organization. It also strengthened my ability to design within highly technical domains, quickly build domain expertise, and translate complex scientific and operational processes into intuitive product experiences that scale globally.