Summary

Coyote Asset Manager (CAM) is a brand new application that allows our Coyote Fleet Ops team to manage thousands of UPS trailers in preparation for peak season. CAM was a major initiative that eliminates manual touch points for Coyote Carrier Reps, effectively sparing the business from paying out commissions on up to 20,000 loads/yr and allowing Coyote Reps to instead focus on generating new business.

This could result in an overall gross margin per load increase of ~12%. 

In other words... it could save Coyote's core business approximately $1,350,000 per year.

Overview

Every year UPS comes to Coyote Logistics with a request to lease and relocate tens of thousands of trailers to their facilities across the country in order to be accommodate for their holiday rush (aka Peak season). Currently our Coyote Reps use manual (phone and email) communication, spreadsheets, and fragmented data sources which cause massive inefficiencies and delays. To address these issues, a user-centric trailer management system was designed to provide a one-stop shop for our Asset Ops team to lease, manage and relocate all of these trailers across the country.

Research Phase

To begin the design process, I spent 3 weeks conducting user interviews and shadowing the Coyote Asset Operations team to understand their pain points, workflows, and requirements. Through these interviews, I gathered valuable insights into their current methods and identified areas for improvement.

Journey Mapping

Based on the insights from user interviews, I created a journey map to visualize the user's workflows. This helped identify opportunities for automation and improving the user experience. The journey map highlighted key touch points, such as establishing trailer leasing vendors, dispatching carrier's to move the trailers, tracking the trailers across the country, returning the trailers, and settling up with the vendors.

Wire-framing

Using the insights from user interviews and the journey map, I created low-fidelity wireframes to outline the structure and layout of the Coyote Asset Manager app. The wireframes focused on the core functionalities, such as creating shell loads (more on this later), dispatching carriers, and uploading delivery reports. The wireframes served as a blueprint for the app's design and functionality.

Design Iterations

Once the wireframes were presented and iterated upon with the current team, we sat down with Coyote and UPS stakeholders to present all of the UX artifacts. 

Next, I moved on to creating high-fidelity mockups. The high-fidelity mockups captured the visual design UI, branding, and interactions of the app. I ensured that the design followed a clean and intuitive interface, making it easy for users to navigate and perform tasks efficiently.

Usability Testing

To validate the design and gather user feedback, I conducted usability testing sessions with members of the Coyote Asset Operations team. Participants were given realistic scenarios and tasks to perform using the prototype, while their interactions and feedback were observed. The feedback gathered from the usability testing sessions was used to make iterative improvements to the design.

Development and Refinement

Throughout the development phase, I collaborated closely with the development team to ensure the design was implemented accurately and the user experience was maintained. Regular design reviews and iterations were conducted to address any technical constraints and optimize the user interface. The product team, stakeholders and design team had agreed to take an agile, iterative approach to development of the product. This resulted in an MVP that allowed the Coyote Asset Operations team to begin the process of leasing and distributing the trailers for UPS in time for the 2023 peak season.

Conclusion

Coyote Asset Manager has efficiently addressed the challenges of tracking tens of thousands of leased trailers for UPS during peak season and beyond. Through user-centered design, iterative refinement, and close collaboration with the development team, the app provided a streamlined trailer management process. 

The implementation of the product eliminated the need for the Asset Ops team to call and manually track tens of thousands of leased assets. Also, Coyote Reps no longer needed to find trucks to move all of these empty trailers to different facilities.  So far this has resulted in significant cost savings for Coyote and improved overall productivity. The success of the Coyote Asset Manager application showcases the power of user-centric design in delivering impactful solutions that drive efficiency and save resources.