Untangling the Operations Behind Every Delivery
From scattered spreadsheets and manual processes to systems built for scale, for a grocery business with no storesOverview:Picnic is an online-only grocery app with no physical stores. Every day, each operation has to coordinate to get every product to the customer on time.
To give a simple picture: an order hits our warehouse planning system, a Shopper picks it in the fulfilment centre, it's packed and shipped to a distribution centre, where a Runner completes the last-mile delivery to the customer's door. If anything goes wrong along the way, CS steps in to support the customer.
Simple on the surface but underneath, there's a lot more. We need to forecast how much stock we'll need ahead of time, and check what's already in the fulfilment centre, if it's running low, an order goes out to the supplier through our inbound systems. We need to plan how many Shoppers are needed for each shift to hit capacity without overstaffing. And on the delivery side, we need to plan each trip so it's efficient and every order ends up at the right door. And that's just a few of the moving parts.
This is where the internal product team, and I, come in. We're the gatekeepers of this complexity: untangling it and translating it into something simple enough that anyone, regardless of role, can use it to keep operations running smoothly and with fewer errors.
Being embedded in the internal team also means direct access to the people using these tools daily. I can walk into the warehouse and talk to a Shopper, planner, or team lead directly. That closeness keeps the feedback loop tight and the tools continuously improving.
Contribution:
1
People Planning Console
Lets planners see availability and plan staffing to hit daily capacity, without over or underplanning. Needed to flex with evolving business and legal requirements while staying accurate enough to reduce cost and ensure compliance across all sites.
Today it plans staffing for 20,000 employees across three countries.
Today it plans staffing for 20,000 employees across three countries.
2
Hour Approval
Lets approvers review and correct worker hours. The core design challenge was reducing approver workload through automatic registration, while still surfacing clear flags on inconsistencies that need a closer look.
3
Forecast Manager
A central prediction tool connected to our data warehouse, used to forecast articles, seasonal demand, order volume, and staffing needs. Centralizes how the business interacts with forecasts, letting users review and adjust predictions in real time.
4
Runner Console
Used by distribution team leads to plan trips and delivery details, making sure Runners reach the right door and handle groceries per customer preference, protecting service quality at the last mile.
5
Calcium Internal Product Design System
With too many products across too many device types, having a split system per product became unmanageable. I initiated this effort with my manager, categorizing products and components into groups so each shares consistent patterns, flows, and principles, with shared components and styling across groups.
Other designers joined in as the system grew. The goals are to reduce design effort, improve product quality, and reduce dev effort. Whenever a new use case comes up that existing components can't solve, we sit down together to expand the system, making sure it stays consistent across 15 internal products and 5+ device types.
Other designers joined in as the system grew. The goals are to reduce design effort, improve product quality, and reduce dev effort. Whenever a new use case comes up that existing components can't solve, we sit down together to expand the system, making sure it stays consistent across 15 internal products and 5+ device types.
Impact:Tools that became the operating system for Picnic operations.
Because each tool was designed to plug into Picnic's actual operational logic rather than a generic template, they didn't stay static after launch.
Planning Console now plans staffing for 20,000 employees across three countries, and the other tools have become the default way planners, approvers, and team leads run daily operations across fulfilment, distribution, and CS.
Because each tool was designed to plug into Picnic's actual operational logic rather than a generic template, they didn't stay static after launch.
Planning Console now plans staffing for 20,000 employees across three countries, and the other tools have become the default way planners, approvers, and team leads run daily operations across fulfilment, distribution, and CS.