The Renewal Workshop service design consulting
Mapping the circular economy in the textile industry
journey mapping - ethnographic research - service design
The Renewal Workshop’s mission was to provide the apparel industry with a completely circular and sustainable solution, and provide customers with a way to become zero waste consumers. As a startup, they were beginning to experience some growing pains: their existing inventory tracking system had become too cumbersome to use as their business grew, requiring manual input at many points in the process, and contained many points where errors or data loss could potentially be introduced. TRW had begun the process of designing and developing a custom inventory tracking system suited to their unique requirements, but first, they needed help documenting existing pain points and visualizing the bigger picture.
goals
Project goals
Provide TRW with insights to inform a more efficient & comprehensive inventory tracking system
Create a map of the process, data flows, and financial flows in the textile industry
End goal
Develop and implement a circular enterprise system that allows the tracking of individual items through operations and the reuse of materials for multiple uses
my role
The team consisted of myself (as team lead), a service designer, and a finance director. We collaborated with TRW co-founders, operations, systems, finance, and technology consultant.
With the service designer, I co-facilitated several collaborative design workshops with the TRW team via Zoom and Mural. As team lead, I also served as project coordinator and was the point of contact with TRW founders, key stakeholders, and investors.
discovery & research
We began with a series of detailed stakeholder interviews to understand user needs and pain points in each part of the business, including finance, investors, and sales. In order to fully understand the textile renewal process, we planned a contextual inquiry session at the TRW factory in Cascade Locks, OR. During that session, we observed employees perform their duties at each point of the textile renewal process as they described the pros and cons of the current system.
After our factory visit, we conducted several collaborative design sessions with key stakeholders on the TRW team to further identify and prioritize opportunities for improvement.
deliverables
The Autodesk team delivered:
a process map detailing the current and ideal textile renewal process
a stakeholder map documenting all stakeholders and partners
a prioritized requirements list for the software vendor
Recommendations:
Create RFP using prioritized requirements list
Continue refining process based on priorities we identified during the project
impact
We anticipated that being able to partner with the right software vendor would allow TRW to run their business more efficiently and tell their story to investors & partners more effectively. TRW would see improved employee productivity with a new system that removed the need to work around a system that wasn’t built for their needs. Farther down the line, Autodesk might also be able to provide product design and manufacturing software that might help TRW design their new factory.
retrospective
TRW was able to use our deliverables in their RFP as they sought a vendor to build their new inventory tracking system or customize their existing software. They continued to grow their business, partnering with brands including The North Face, Adidas, New Balance, Pearl Izumi, Osprey, and Timbuk2, and announcing several rounds of funding. In March 2022, they announced their aquisition by Bleckmann.