Project Details

Length: 6 Months

My Role: Senior Product Designer

Platform: Desktop

Background

Rivian is an electric car manufacturer based in Palo Alto, CA. They primarily focus on three vehicles, the R1T, R1S, and RPV. All three of these vehicles are in production, and as of writing, have yet to be released to customers.

Our goal for this project was to build a new enterprise application for the Purchasing department within Rivian. This application was called Basecamp, and it would empower members of the procurement team to purchase new parts for the cars. As an example, let’s say Rivian needs to externally source 10,000 lugnuts for the wheels of the new Rivian pickup truck. This request would then be sent to 10 different suppliers in China, 4 suppliers in the US, and 2 suppliers in Europe. The purchasing manager would then have to work with each individual supplier to ensure they quote us consistently and in a way, Rivian can understand. Eventually, one supplier would then be awarded the contract, and various other processes would then start, including sending letters of intent, kicking off tooling, and setting up an invoicing agreement. This entire process was handled externally over email and excel, and then reflected internally across 11 different systems. Our design ask was to create a solution that combined all of these processes, from initial Request for Quote, all the way through payment and logistics.

Iteration + Process

This project is a great example of how I work cross-functionally between Design, Product Owners, Development, and integrations teams. All of these teams were in close collaboration throughout the design process and were all key contributors to the final deliverables. Our process would follow an iterative approach, working closely with end-users and product owners to design a solution that would solve all their business needs. This would often involve lengthy meetings where product owners would explain all the important considerations and internal processes we would need to support.

Once we had made it through the low, medium, and high fidelity stages, the screens would then be frozen and delivered to development teams. We would then work to support them as they build out the live version. They would often have questions about the intention behind the design, simplification to meet deadlines, and other general questions for the design team. The below screens are a collection of medium fidelity screens to illustrate my design process. These screens vary in complexity, and are in no particular order.

Final Product

Overall this project went great, and the MVP release is slated for Q4 2022. We are really proud of the application and the value we have been able to drive for users! There is a long roadmap of features planned for release in the next few months, and I am excited to see what is in store for the future of Basecamp!