General Motors 2011-2013, 2019-2022
General Motors (GM) incepted a strategic business unit (SBU), in 2019, to tackle urban delivery, building off of extensive work done in 2011-2013. How to optimize delivery of parcels in densely populated areas?
My Role
To be the strategic and creative arm of GM’s SBU in urban delivery. Leverage years of experience in and study of delivery systems. Drive cross functional collaboration to optimize our strategic framework to build quickly and often solutions that can be easily tested and demonstrated. Conduct and synthesize immersive and observational research of delivery systems, processes, and drivers. Help corporate partners co-create and collaborate with GM’s advanced design and engineering teams.
In addition:
Facilicated customer discovery
Helped organize submission of 50 + patent applications
Facilitated cross function workshops,
Market analysis
Designed flatbed rover & module e-pallet (container) system
Guided design for EV600 (box truck)
Communicated ecosystem vision with marketing team
Rapid prototyped system solutions
Led customer validation
Bottle Necks of the Delivery System
We studied Amazon and FedEx deliver drivers, walking, and bike personnel the most. Our first focus area of opportunity was delivery drivers. Here are some major observations from 2012-2013, 2019-2021 research:
Sorting 5 times took a lot of time and away from work flow
High load floor was a huge strain on knees and led to 10-15 yr. career cut short due to knee and back injuries / pain
Drivers spent most of their time in buildings going up and down elevators while their box truck were double parked. (FedEx paid $500 Million / yr. in parking tickets in Manhattan)
Over stacking cargo dolly’s - there was no good sorting / organizing solution for parcels they would take into large buildings
Conflicting relationships with drivers and officers
White Space Ideation
I crafted product briefs guiding creative development work from sketching, engineering + human requirements and the end to end experience. After which, we built many low fidelity mockups, fully working prototypes for internal & infield customer validation. We learned drivers needed access to parcels and goods in differently ways in a variety of contexts. So, we changed access panel orientation on EP1 (white box, lower right). Device IoT solutions / sensing were added and modified as we learned from each prototype iteration.
Some steps:
Problem statement definition
Solution scope for extreme urban delivery drivers
Quick sketching
Prototyping ASAP, starting foam care + found parts (e.g. furniture dolly’s for caster wheels)
Quick team basic functional testing
2 more full iterations
Rough engineering prototypes for driver field testing (continuous modification)
Corporate partner co-creation and feedback sessions.
** Most process images are GM ‘Secret’… Not publicly available.
Corporate Partners
The brands in the image above represent some of our corporate partners we collaborated with in early and later stages of the program, leading to launch.
I helped the team learn about our partners’ overlapping needs for goods delivery, at the same time, we learned that there were disparate needs that didn’t overlap. Those were considered as we moved forward in each product category.
Use Case Categories:
Warehouse movement
Distribution centers
Retail
Parcel delivery - depot to destination
Perishable goods delivery - depot to destination
Product Categories:
Delivery van
Smart container / pallet
Rapid load systems
Flatbed rover
Mobile app & ecosystem
Backoff & fleet management
Product Vision
Top Left: Rapid Load System (Alpha)
I guided a cross functional team to craft multiple ways of getting the containers off and onto the ZEVO 600 and other vehicle types.
Top Right: Smart Pallet / EP1 (Production, discontinued)
I designed early stage and guided mid-stage design leading to production. Side panel access allowed for easy parcel access on curbside and in building interaction.
Bottom Left: Flatbed Rover (Alpha)
I designed early stage and guided mid-stage design. A few large clients / partners were very interested in this product.
Bottom Right: ZEVO 600 (Production)
I worked tightly with the interior design team to optimize driver ingress and egress to minimize bodily wear and tear (entering 100-200 times per day).
We also built the interior and cargo passthrough increase safety
Also, in the rear cargo area there are parcel sorting efficiency options (robust flip up shelves) as add-ons
Product Ecosystem
I led the vision of this ecosystem internal to GM working with design, engineering, and the strategic business unit (SBU) from inception.
Working with marketing, I authored these graphics to publish the communication of the ecosystem.
Storytelling is a key component of collaboration. These communication tools helped unify and accelerate product vision to production.
** Communications and Icons have progressed and evolved over time.
Digital Experience
There are several development phases of the digital experience.
After need synthesis and problem definition. I crafted with my team a persona page similar to the one crafted above.
We then journey mapped the drivers current end to end experience to find deeper needs, other pain points, and patterns the delivery drivers face each day. This helped us discover the total number (5) deliver personnel sort the parcel.
Next came ideation of dozens of individual solutions, mixed with system offerings. We organized those solutions and found synergies and combinations of solutions that enriched the delivery experience.
I guided the cross functional team to prioritize the best concepts and ecosystem solution, allowing the us to focus our time and resources on the most promising opportunities that benefit the user customer, those receiving parcels, the delivery service and General Motors.
Choregraphing the experience is one of the funnest parts, putting all the pieces together. I did this cross functionally cross referencing technology enablers and engineering solutions to each major step of the journey and understanding what is functioning on a mobile device, in the vehicle, back office / cloud. Also, thinking about the touch points and mapping back the emotional quotient of delivery professional.
Taking the mapped experience, we started to craft the physical and digital as an integrated experience flow. Lower right is a look at an example of the wireframe.
We prototyped and iterated the experience and hardware experience back and forth … over and over until the experience resonated with our team and with the customer after testing.