Replacing Four Legacy Systems With One Coherent Platform
The domain
Westshore Terminals processes up to 33 million tons of coal annually. That volume runs on precision logistics: coordinating train arrivals, vessel departures, product grades, shift schedules, payroll, and absence management across a 24/7 operation. When I started the discovery work, the operation was running on four fragmented systems — some legacy, some internally built, some industry-specific — none of which talked to each other cleanly.
What made this hard
Industrial operations software has a specific design constraint that's easy to underestimate: the data is dense, the users are expert, and the cost of misinterpretation is operational disruption. A scheduling error doesn't mean a frustrated user — it means a coal shipment misses a vessel window. That shaped every design decision.
Discovery as translation. I ran cross-functional workshops with operations, workforce management, and payroll teams to map how work actually flowed through the facility. The most valuable output wasn't the workflows themselves — it was understanding which dependencies were visible to users and which were hidden in manual handoffs between systems. Several critical coordination points existed only in people's heads or in spreadsheets maintained by individual shift supervisors.
Designing for density without confusion. Operations teams need to see a lot of data at once — train schedules, vessel timelines, product grades, shift assignments. The challenge wasn't simplification (you can't hide data that's operationally critical); it was hierarchy. I structured information views so that the most decision-relevant data was visually prominent, with supporting detail accessible without navigation. This meant extensive iteration on data tables, timeline views, and status indicators — with real users validating readability in each round.
Unifying without disrupting. Replacing four systems that people have built muscle memory around is a change management challenge as much as a design challenge. I designed the migration as a progressive consolidation — new capabilities appeared where old systems had gaps, familiar patterns were preserved where they worked, and training was built into the rollout rather than treated as an afterthought.
Impact
The unified platform replaced four fragmented tools with a single operational system. Manual scheduling overhead dropped by 50%. But the impact I'd emphasize to a design audience is the approach: designing for expert users in a high-stakes domain means respecting their existing knowledge while giving them better tools to apply it.