Dark store kitchen

The kitchen is one of Samokat's new projects and is responsible for fast delivery of hot meals to clients

The business prioritizes fast order assembly and quick handoff to delivery.

In the physical workflow, the operator finds the items from the order and puts them on heating. After that, they need to prepare labels with ingredients and production dates for the meals. Without a label, the meal cannot be handed over for delivery.

Problem

We identified a significant number of food order cancellations from kitchens

Labels are printed and distributed by a supervisor to dark stores with kitchens. Operators use pre-printed labels to hand meals over for delivery. If the recipe changes or a label is missing, the meal cannot be delivered to the client.

My role

Worked end-to-end on the project: from discovery and problem definition through design to final release

• Joined at the stage of active kitchen rollout.

• Conducted field research in 2 dark stores.

• Identified key issues affecting Time to Task, errors, and item removal from orders.

• Together with the product manager, we pitched the idea of label printing to the business (at that time, labels were printed and distributed by a supervisor).

• Conducted 10 UX tests

• Together with the product manager, ran a technical launch in 10 dark stores.

• Released the updates to 240 dark stores

Busines pain points

Kitchen operators' pain points

The main insight

The app should help operators have only order-relevant, up-to-date labels at hand

Hypotheses

Printer integration

Start of assembly

Kitchen operators mark the goods as collected, reheat them, and proceed to print labels

Label printing

If the label has not been printed or has been damaged, it can be reprinted

Entering box numbers and completion

To complete the task, you must enter the box numbers to transfer the order for delivery

Result