Kroger Nighttime Store Operations
End-to-end inventory app for night-shift workers. The solution centralizes fragmented processes like receiving, stocking, damage tracking, and inventory audits into an integrated mobile experience.
Role
UI/UX Designer & Researcher
Client
Kroger
Duration
4 years
Executive Summary & ROI
Streamlining Store Readiness
In high-velocity retail, the availability of inventory in stores each morning relies heavily on the efficiency of the overnight cargo receiving crew. Previously, Kroger's team faced challenges with fragmented desktop software, paper manifests, and unclear logistics handoffs. Communicating with distribution centers was often time-consuming and ineffective.
"My Day" Task Management, a SaaS B2B and E2B2C solution
Consolidated logistics telemetry directly onto standard Android handheld terminals (Zebra TC-52) to keep workflows intuitive, compliant, and lightning-fast. This innovative approach not only enhances communication and coordination between the retail stores and distribution centers but also ensures that end consumers receive timely access to products, ultimately improving the overall shopping experience.
Objectives
Asset protection compliance ensures adherence to Kroger Fresh standards and the latest FDA regulations for perishable items, such as produce, meat, and dairy products. This solution would also minimize friction for users when managing load sheets and processing claims.
On-shelf availability is crucial for customer satisfaction and helps build trust in Kroger's commitment to product freshness.
Furthermore, the mobility solution, along with efforts to reduce paper waste, would support zero-waste initiatives.
100%
Paperless Audits
<15 min
Cold Chain Intake
55 CPH
Stocked Nightly
The Problem Space
Critical Gaps & Ground Realities
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Delayed cargo trucks led to reactive management, causing dock staff to sit idle or stock inefficiently.
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Perishables (dairy, meat, frozen) were manually tracked. A delay of just a few minutes outside temperature control risked food safety and inventory shrinkage.
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Workers wearing heavy thermal gloves must manage pallets with one hand while handling paper load sheets during deliveries and claims processing throughout the shift.
“If a dairy truck arrives unannounced at 2:00 AM, we drop everything. Without knowing what’s on that truck or how long a pallet has sat on the loading dock, we are constantly racing the clock to meet our fresh standards.”
Research
Literature reviews
Standard operating procedures
artifacts
documentation of past research efforts
Contextual Inquiry / Interviews
user behavior and workarounds
sentiment and feedback
participatory design
User Journeys
in-store execution processes
overlapping events
operations across entire pillar product spaces
ARCHITECTURE
The system uses an event-driven ledger powered by Google Cloud Spanner and Dataflow to sync logistics manifests in real-time. Our designs turn this high-density stream into clear, actionable physical steps on-screen.
TC-52 Mobility Device enables an Android-native platform for an Agentic AI and LLM problem-solver to optimize workflows and task execution.
Dynamic Count Verification: Receiving updates on the fly, transforming estimated arrival times into solid delivery figures.
Data Streams piped to store operations leads utilizing Agentic AI to optimize task execution based on leader preferences. Human-in-the-loop and user freedom and control heuristics enable leads to manage crew execution with ease.
Solution
Ensuring Perishable Protection
The primary UX differentiator is the introduction of improved accessibility through Visual and Haptic Time Constraint Mechanisms. When a cold storage cargo unit is unloaded, a critical countdown triggers with appropriated user feedback..
PERISHABLE FOOD COMPLIANCE RULE
Time to Dock equal to or less than 15 min. = Fresh Compliance
Optimize Workflows
Minimum viable product to reduce cognitive load through Agentic AI management of inundated and monotonous processes and tasks. Allow the user freedom and control. Ensure user trust through participatory design. Test and learn. Collect feedback.
Error Intervention
While standard design practices try to eliminate workflow friction, enterprise safety design sometimes demands it. If an associate attempts to close a delivery session before confirming cold room relocation, a hard safety barrier triggers.
Time Management: The system uses an LLM as its reasoning core to act as an Agentic AI that optimizes manager task assignments without requiring user interaction, while offering human-in-the-loop options to allow user freedom and control.
Contextual Warning: The system enforces a physical verification step: "Please confirm pallets have been moved to a cold room."
Accidental Prevention: Prominent error flows block final system submission until all perishables are safely verified.
This specific block prevents verification errors and protects millions of dollars in highly perishable food stock across our supply pipeline.
Deployment
Quality Assurance
The app goes through several rounds of rigorous testing to ensure code standards are met and to validate under both sanity and pressure conditions.
Alpha, Beta, and Gamma deployments to coordinate fast-follow bug fixes.
Durable engineering and product teams work in an Agile and Scrum environment to streamline the fast-paced ecosystem of Kroger-branded design and content strategy.
The Job Aid Onboarding Poster and app welcome tutorial help ease usability challenges during the development and implementation of the My Day app releases.
While an intuitive design is anticipated, users must complete weekly Fresh Start training to meet compliance standards.
Job Aids help to reduce user stress and streamline the onboarding process for new employees. Intuitive design is expected, but users must complete weekly Fresh Start training to meet compliance standards. Job Aids reduce user stress and streamline onboarding of new employees.
User Onboarding
“It’s so much better than using paper load sheets.”
“It helps us know what to expect so we can prepare our crew.”
“It’s nice because we can see what’s coming and when.”
KPIs
Power BI enterprise dashboards track and manage store data insights for inventory stocking and productivity measurements. This ensures friendly competition and store readiness tactics.
Operational Impact
Get a Quick Overview
This video is generated by AI and serves as a quick overview of the My Day product life cycle.