Structuring the Unstructured:
UX for Shipyard Supply Operations
Redesigning shipyard lubricant scheduling with clarity, flexibility, and efficiency.
Project Overview
Shipyards initiate contracts at the individual vessel level.
Each vessel has unique lubricant and oil requirements for testing and commissioning stages.
Vessels often combine standard and custom-built equipment, leading to variable product needs.
Lubricants are required in multiple batches, distributed across the construction timeline.
If internal inventory is unavailable, a third-party supply process is triggered to fulfil demand.
The system needed to support real-time availability, contract tolerances (permitted overages), and clear visibility into scheduling, usage, and deliveries.
Understanding the Business Complexity
The marine lubricants industry presents a uniquely layered challenge. A single vessel consists of multiple equipment systems, and each piece of equipment may include several parts. These parts demand specific lubricants or oils, often in different volumes.
Adding to the complexity, the same product might be available in different package types—Bulk, IBC, Drum, Pail, or Case—and shipped through various delivery modes including trucks, barges, tankers, or smaller vehicles depending on regional infrastructure.
Orders are typically placed by Customers or Customer Sales Representatives (CSRs). Once submitted, the request is routed through Account Managers, Marine Coordinators and fulfilled by regional Delivery Agents. Most deliveries are made directly to ports or vessels, meaning timing and availability are critical.
The project followed an Agile UX process.
Due to NDA, the client name has been omitted.
My Role
I led the end-to-end UX for the New Build scheduling module within a complex B2B environment, driving the process from discovery to delivery. Collaborating closely with product owners, developers, and program managers, I translated fragmented workflows and operational gaps into structured, intuitive user flows. The design focused on simplifying batch creation, enabling package optimization, and ensuring smooth handoffs to pricing and sales teams.
This included the design of task flows, wireframes, high-fidelity visuals, and the extension of the design system.
Tools such as Figma, FigJam, and PowerPoint were used throughout the project for design execution, collaboration, and stakeholder reviews.
User Roles and Responsibilities
New Build Specialist (NBS)
Create batch-wise schedules based on contract and shipyard needs
Pricing Expert
Apply pricing via spreadsheet templates and upload final prices
Customer Sales Rep (CSR)
Convert quotations to POs and confirm orders
While multiple roles interact across the broader order fulfillment journey, the New Build Specialist (NBS) is the primary and exclusive user of the New Build scheduling module. The core functionality—including batch creation, product configuration, and initiating pricing—is centered around the NBS workflow, making this role the focal point of the redesign.
The Problem Landscape
The legacy system posed several challenges:
📄
Disconnected Inputs
Requirements were submitted by shipyards via spreadsheets, but the system couldn’t ingest or reflect them effectively.
📆
Rigid Scheduling
Scheduling was limited to fixed intervals like weekly, monthly, or quarterly, forcing frequent use of a cluttered Ad Hoc mode.
🧮
Manual Calculations
New Build Specialists had to manually calculate and split volumes across packaging—outside the system—before inputting into a rigid popup.
🧭
No Batch Visibility
Batch-level visibility was missing; only a flat table existed.
🚫
Lack of Intelligence
No support existed for quantity-first entry, package optimization, or quota monitoring.
UI Audit & Pain Points
Pain Point
❌
No Breadcrumbs
😵
Visual Clutter
❗
Cryptic Messaging
🧱
Blocking Popups
📉
No Visualization
Pain Point
Users had no contextual navigation during multi-step workflows
Tables and controls overwhelmed the interface
Labels and errors were unclear or missing actionable guidance
Modal dialogs interrupted task continuity
Quotas, batches, and product usage were not visually represented
Framing the Redesign Challenge
1
How might we align the input experience with the way shipyards naturally share requirements—through simple spreadsheets with dates, products, quantities, and package types?
2
How might we offer flexible schedule creation without restricting users to rigid intervals like weekly or monthly?
3
How might we simplify package planning by enabling quantity-first input and intelligent package optimization?
Design Solutions in Action
🔁
Spreadsheet
Import or Manual Scheduling
The New Build Specialist begins by selecting the vessel and port, followed by defining a valid period for batch creation. This constraint ensures alignment with contractual delivery windows.
To reflect shipyard habits, scheduling can be done manually or through spreadsheet import. A standardized template was introduced, allowing shipyards to continue using familiar formats while maintaining system compatibility.
📦
Product Cards with Real-Time Optimization
Products selected from the Lube Chart Dropdown appear as individual cards with input fields for each available package type. Rather than manually calculating how to fit volume into packaging, the NBS simply enters the total quantity in litres or kilograms.
The system auto-calculates the number of packages required and highlights whether the quantity is optimized. If not, a prompt suggests the nearest optimized value, reducing waste and improving ordering efficiency.
🗂️
Dual Summary Views
To help users review batch plans with greater clarity, two summary views were introduced:
View by Schedule displays each batch, its scheduled date, and associated products.
View by Product aggregates the total quantity of each product across all batches—especially helpful when requesting pricing or evaluating delivery planning.
📊
Product Summary with Quota Insights
To enhance clarity around contract fulfillment, a product-wise summary view was introduced—bringing together essential details like product name, unit price, packaging, schedule references, and purchase order status.
At the heart of this table lies a color-coded quota bar, which visually represents the approved contract quantity, used volume, and any additional tolerance allowed by the Pricing Expert. This real-time visual helps users instantly understand how much of a product has been consumed, what's remaining, and where overages are permissible—all without relying on manual tracking or external spreadsheets.
Task Flow Evolution:
Legacy vs. Redesigned
Legacy Task Flow
Redesigned Task Flow
Key Experience Gains
Category
🌐
Scheduling Flow
📦
Packaging Logic
🗂️
Summary Views
📊
Quota Visibility
🧭
Navigation
🧱
Interaction Style
📤
PO Readiness
🧮
User Effort
Legacy Experience
Fixed intervals;
reliance on Ad Hoc mode
Manual calculations done offline
Flat table; no batch-level insights
No visibility into used
vs. remaining quota
No breadcrumbs; users felt lost
Blocking popups disrupted flow
No clear PO linkage in UI
Spreadsheet dependency
and redundant entry
Legacy Experience
Flexible scheduling via
manual input or spreadsheet import
Quantity-first input
with real-time package optimization
Dual views: by schedule and by product
Visual quota bars showing approved,
used, and tolerance levels
Breadcrumbs and contextual UI
added for orientation
Inline popovers enabled non-intrusive,
multitask-friendly interactions
PO indicators embedded
within product summary view
Reduced manual effort through
system-led guidance and data reuse
Enterprise UX:
Lessons Learned
Designing without direct access to end-users meant success depended heavily on close stakeholder alignment and deep immersion in the business domain. Translating real-world workflows into intuitive interfaces reinforced the value of user-centric systems thinking—especially in high-stakes, enterprise environments.
This project underscored the importance of scalable design systems and contextual UI flexibility when designing for complex B2B platforms. Supporting users’ existing formats, like spreadsheets, proved more effective than enforcing change, enabling smoother adoption and faster onboarding.
Real-time guidance—such as optimization prompts—added clarity and confidence at critical decision points. Meanwhile, visual summaries and quota indicators replaced dense tables and guesswork, offering much-needed transparency. Finally, preserving certain legacy workflows, such as pricing via spreadsheets, ensured continuity and reduced friction across user roles.
Opportunities
Beyond My Tenure
Although my role on the project has concluded, several meaningful opportunities remain to evolve the experience further.
User testing stands out as the most valuable next step—validating assumptions, uncovering role-specific friction, and surfacing insights that weren’t accessible during the stakeholder-led design phase. Testing with real users such as New Build Specialists, Pricing Experts, and CSRs could help refine interaction patterns and uncover hidden edge cases.
There’s also potential to explore role-based interface personalization, enabling users to focus on their most relevant actions without unnecessary complexity. Automating validation for pricing uploads, and triggering re-approval workflows for modified schedules, would further improve operational integrity.
Lastly, extending the updated design system across adjacent internal tools could strengthen consistency and reduce long-term design debt. Continued investment in these areas would enhance usability, improve decision-making, and solidify the platform’s impact across teams.
Let’s Design Something Meaningful
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Vishnuprasad Jahagirdar
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