Overview
In my role as Operations Coordinator for a family-owned commercial greenhouse, I took on a self-directed project to redesign the information systems and workflows governing the planting of 800,000+ plants annually. The project centered on aligning the needs and constraints of multiple interdependent teams, including program leadership, plant care, container filling, and planting staff, within tight seasonal constraints. I proactively identified operational bottlenecks and independently designed and implemented systems, tools, and organizational structures to improve efficiency, accuracy, and reliability across the organization.
Problem
Fragmented Information & Operational Bottlenecks
When I stepped into the role, greenhouse operations relied heavily on handwritten updates and informal, undocumented organizational systems, with a single individual as the sole steward of project status, decision-making, and inventory knowledge, creating both operational risk and systemic fragility.
Critically, there was no unified source of truth to show the real-time state of operations—what had arrived, what had been planted, what was urgent, and how tasks and resources were interdependent across teams. This lack of a central information system caused delays, miscommunications, and difficulty responding to disruptions, and was the primary source of pain points for both administrative and planting staff.
Objectives
Rather than attempting a full overhaul, I focused on incremental system redesign, targeting the highest-impact failures first. Observational analysis paired with input from coworkers quickly highlighted areas of greatest friction and operational leverage, informing the following project goals:
Establish one unified source of truth
Make priorities visible and defensible using data
Reduce bottlenecks by increasing clarity and accessibility of information
Empower employees to act independently
Design Process
Constraints
This work took place under significant constraints, including:
Seasonal time pressure with immovable delivery deadlines
Fluctuating labor availability and varying skill levels
Physical constraints such as space, container availability, and plant viability
Legacy systems that could not be fully replaced
A workforce accustomed to informal processes
Design solutions needed to improve outcomes without disrupting existing mental models or requiring extensive retraining.
Design Interventions
1 | Unified Production Cycle Management System
2 | Inventory Systems Redesign
Prior to the redesign, there was no formal or shared system for organizing plant material after receipt. Information about location, status, and purpose of plant material lived largely in individual memory, creating a single-point dependency that slowed work, introduced errors, and caused frustration for staff. Redesigning the inventory system was a critical step toward achieving the project goals of reducing bottlenecks and increasing independent agency for employees.
The re-architected inventory system introduced a shared physical organization model with clear documentation and labeling, enabling equal access and shared understanding for both administrative and planting staff. The structure intentionally aligned with existing informal conventions, making it legible and consistent across teams without requiring extensive retraining.
As it is critical that each plant be paired with its corresponding identification tag, the inventory redesign required a parallel system for tag organization. A complementary tag inventory structure was developed to mirror the organization of plant material, ensuring reliable plant–tag pairing throughout the production cycle. By applying a single, consistent mental model to both inventories, the system reduces training overhead and cognitive load while improving accuracy.
The task lists generated by the master spreadsheet are designed to align directly with this physical organization. As a result, planting staff can receive a task list, independently locate and retrieve the required materials, and complete work without administrative intervention.
Together, these changes eliminated the dependency on a single individual as the operational gatekeeper for material location and retrieval. This removed a major bottleneck, reduced idle time, and increased both autonomy and accountability across the planting staff.
3 | Forecasting & Procurement System for Tag Management
Accurate tag availability is critical to planting operations, and shortages or over-ordering directly disrupt workflow, causing delays and increasing waste. To address this, I designed a predictive planning system focused on forecasting tag demand and supporting proactive procurement decisions.
The system estimates required tag quantities using historical plant-to-tag ratios and aligns projected ordering timelines with planting schedules. The forecasting logic was intentionally designed to refine accuracy over time by storing and incorporating cumulative historical production data. By grounding forecasts in both past performance and upcoming production plans, the system enables more accurate ordering decisions and reduces reliance on reactive, last-minute purchasing. In practice, forecasted quantities closely match actual usage, significantly reducing both shortages and excess inventory.
While the system was primarily designed to meet immediate needs within current constraints, it also anticipates future scalability and automation opportunities. Proof of concept has been completed for future iterations that would support automatic generation of vendor-ready PDF order forms derived directly from plant material order summaries. This automation would minimize manual data entry and eliminate manual ordering steps entirely, further streamlining a previously tedious and time-consuming task. The system is designed for flexible iteration, capable of leveraging automation opportunities as they arise.
Results
The development of the unified planting management system provided a single, guiding source of truth for operational decisions, while consolidating and exposing metrics to allow for transparent, data-driven prioritization across departments. Unified design and implementation of physical inventory frameworks reduced bottlenecks, eliminated single points of failure, and increased employee autonomy, while the predictive tag supply management system increased the agility and accuracy of the critical tag procurement workflow. These changes led directly to favorable outcomes:
Real-time operational visibility, enabling precise, defensible prioritization, rapid pivoting, and increased alignment across teams
Reduced time between plant receipt and planting, improving quality of end product
Faster response to operational variability and disruptions, maintaining workflow efficiency under changing conditions
Fewer planting and tagging errors, reducing time and effort expenditure
Simplified processes and standardized inventory structures, resulting in reduction of training requirements and cognitive load
Increased employee confidence and independence, with reduced need for oversight
Significant reduction in operational and cognitive stress across administrative and planting staff
Qualitative feedback reinforced these outcomes: planting staff consistently expressed appreciation for the clarity and independence the systems provided, while leadership gained immediate insight into operations that had previously been opaque.
Takeaways
This project exemplifies the fundamental importance of clear, accessible data as the foundation for effective reasoning and decision-making. Just as user research uncovers real behaviors, needs, and pain points to guide design, operational data exposes true workflow patterns and bottlenecks, enabling interventions grounded in evidence rather than assumptions. Establishing an objective source of truth to inform decisions increases efficiency and reduces missteps across operations.
One insight which stood out quite clearly to me in this work was the value of intentionally overlapping information architectures to create cohesion and reduce cognitive load across systems. In this case, structuring physical inventories and task lists around the same organizational framework allowed for streamlined onboarding and training, while minimizing mental burden on staff. Distilling systems down to their essential requirements and aligning their commonalities into a unified foundation increases consistency across processes and conserves resources during both design and operation phases.
At the forefront of this project was the need to design agile, adaptable systems capable of rapid redirection and redeployment. Although this need arose from the project’s specific constraints, it has since informed my broader approach to design. I prioritize foundational systems built from reusable structures that can be tailored to diverse uses—architectures informed by content but not bound to it. By separating framework from content, these systems remain flexible, supporting future iteration and adaptation as conditions and requirements change.
Although this work involved revamping greenhouse operations, the experience reinforced a broader principle that resonates deeply with my design practice: operations themselves can be treated as a design problem, where carefully structured systems empower users, improve efficiency, and support resilient, adaptive workflows. Approaching operational complexity through a systems lens allows design to extend beyond interfaces and into the underlying structures that guide human action.
