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From 4 to 2 days: How we centralized Latam customs operations using Service Design at Serhafen International
SaaS
Web
Research
LogTech
ROLE
UX Lead
COMPANY
Serhafen
TIMELINE
7 months
STACK
Figma, Figjam
From 4 to 2 days
Saved in logistics processes
-30%
Branches decongested with app design
+50
Screens created
Problem
Serhafen International is a major tri-border customs clearance and logistics provider operating across Chile, Peru, and Argentina. The company manages extreme volumes of high-velocity international e-commerce inflows, clearing massive batches of goods arriving directly from China for digital platforms like Temu and AliExpress (averaging 2,000+ packages every 48 hours per destination country). Serhafen is responsible for executing all end-to-end regulatory legal and physical customs processing inside the arrival territory, alongside organizing critical mid-to-last-mile delivery through a network of external fulfillment providers.
Upon stepping into the role of UX Lead on December 1, 2025, my initial diagnostic evaluation uncovered a profound systemic vulnerability: the organization suffered from an absolute absence of macro-level service documentation.
The entire core operations architecture was siloed exclusively within individual executives' minds:
The Operations Manager possessed a vision restricted entirely to immediate warehouse workflows and physical sorting backlogs.
The General Manager held a conceptual view focused strictly on high-level corporate oversight and P&L targets.
The Commercial Manager visualized the service model only through the lens of client-facing SLAs and cross-border acquisition metrics.
Because no single unified operational roadmap existed, corporate communication remained fundamentally fractured. No leader retained visibility into how upstream data handoffs triggered severe downstream breakdowns, leaving the organization unable to comprehensively diagnose structural service failures, anticipate friction points, or implement cohesive systemic improvements.
Business Perspective
In high-volume international cross-border logistics, operational friction directly degrades profitability. When handling major e-commerce contracts, failure to clear customs dynamically results in compounding warehouse bottlenecks, missed SLAs, and severe operational cost inflation.
From a commercial and business perspective, Serhafen needed a scalable method to absorb accelerating volume increases without multiplying headcount or suffering heavy border penalties. Unifying the mental models of leadership was not merely a design alignment exercise—it was a critical business prerequisite to identify infrastructure vulnerabilities, re-engineer API data streams with international custom agencies, and establish a repeatable cross-border operational playbook across three distinct legal jurisdictions (Chile, Peru, and Argentina).
Project Breakdown
To transform Serhafen's undocumented systems into a standardized, highly optimized digital operational model, I structured a multi-phase strategic UX initiative executed over approximately five months:
Phase 1: Diagnostic Research & Holistic Service Blueprinting
I launched an exhaustive internal qualitative research initiative, conducting deep contextual interviews and collaborative mapping sessions with each department head. I systematically extracted the fragmented knowledge from their minds, distilling the inputs into granular user flows and detailed architectural diagrams of our software ecosystem.
The definitive breakthrough was achieved by constructing a comprehensive End-to-End Service Blueprint. Over a rigorous four-week iterative process, I mapped the complete life cycle of a shipment—from initial digital origin points in China to final last-mile drop-off in South America. This artifact combined front-stage customer touchpoints, middle-office warehouse operations, and back-stage system dependencies (frontend triggers, backend APIs, and external customs database connections).
Peru Customs Bottleneck
The holistic Service Blueprint exposed a major operational breakdown in Peru. While platforms dispatched blocks of 2,000 packages simultaneously, the Peruvian customs API connection could only ingest and process 1,000 digital profiles daily. This unmapped system mismatch triggered massive backlogs, delaying shipping pipelines by up to 4 days.
Phase 2: Operational Research & Multi-Country Dashboard Standardization
Following the Service Blueprint discovery, I shifted focus to optimizing Serhafen’s primary tool: our internal management dashboard. Initially, the software was custom-built exclusively around Chilean operational logic, which utilized a predictive "pre-alert" model:
The Chilean Digital-First Sequence (The Ideal Pattern)
Seven days prior to a flight's arrival, AliExpress/Temu transmits a digital manifest of 10,000 packages. The internal dashboard parses the data package-by-package, running validation nomenclatures to pre-assign individual parcels an explicit digital status: Success (Cleared) or Error (Flagged for Inspection). When the physical cargo lands, warehouse operators completely bypass the "Success" pallets, directly targeting only the pre-flagged "Error" parcels for manual physical box opening. This approach drastically minimizes processing times.
However, this digital pre-clearance workflow did not exist in Peru or Argentina. To solve this, I spent 1.5 months executing field research to analyze regional variations. I discovered that all three nations shared identical operational patterns, but executed them in completely different chronological sequences:
- Argentina: Received physical documentation first, which had to be manually digitized before physical packages landed.
- Peru: Operated on a completely decoupled and unpredictable timeline between data arrival and physical cargo unloading.
I created a dedicated comparative Service Blueprint mapping all three operational variants side-by-side. This enabled us to isolate structural commonalities and map standard ecosystem entities (including airline fleets, middle-mile transport, and last-mile carrier APIs) into a single, unified database schema.
Phase 3: Re-Engineering the Next-Gen Internal Dashboard Interface
The legacy dashboard was heavily afflicted by profound accessibility flaws, broken navigation models, and severe information architecture fragmentation. Armed with a standardized data structure, I spearheaded a complete interface overhaul:
Information Architecture Layout:
Re-designed complex data grids into intuitive, status-driven tabs that
aligned seamlessly with the cross-border workflows.
UI Library Integration:
Selected and integrated Shadcn/ui (built on React) to establish an enterprise-
grade, accessible foundation capable of scaling to support data-dense configurations.
Design Token & Figma Synchronization:
Documented every interactive state inside Figma, establishing Serhafen’s first official cohesive Design System and working closely with engineering to guarantee high-
fidelity implementation.
Implementation Timeline: The execution was deployed via an Agile roadmap. Building the foundational framework and the core Chile MVP required 2.5 months of collaborative development, followed by an additional 1.5 months to adapt and launch localized iterations for Peru and Argentina.
Phase 4: Customer-Facing & Post-Purchase UX Enhancements
Concurrently, I led defensive experience updates for Serhafen's public-facing interfaces. I fully designed a comprehensive website redesign, and partnered with the Operations and Commercial teams to architect an interactive post-purchase support matrix. This structured workflow offered clear, automated diagnostic guidance for common delivery issues, such as lost items or late arrivals. Additionally, I designed a specialized real-time traceability dashboard, providing end-consumers with transparent parcel tracking.
Results
The introduction of a macro UX strategy fundamentally modernized Serhafen International's cross-border operations, shifting the company from a siloed corporate culture to an aligned, data-driven organization:
50%
Reduction in Customs Clearance Processing Time
4→2 Days
Pipeline Delay Optimization in Peru
100%
Digital Process Standardization
Across 3 Nations
- API Leverage & Negotiation Success: Visualizing the Peruvian API bottleneck within the Service Blueprint provided executives with empirical leverage. This enabled a successful, cost-neutral contract renegotiation with Peruvian customs to scale API data throughput, instantly slashing regional delivery backlogs by half.
- Operational Cost Reductions: Expanding the standardized digital-first pre-clearance logic to Peru and Argentina dramatically minimized physical warehouse friction. Operators no longer needed to manually inspect entire freight shipments; instead, they could instantly pinpoint pre-flagged error boxes. This optimization significantly decreased labor costs and warehouse resource constraints.
- Institutional Scale: Successfully designed, documented, and shipped a unified multi-region internal dashboard, backed by a production-ready Figma UI Kit and robust Design System. This framework allows Serhafen to rapidly scale up operations and launch future digital products with high visual and structural consistency.
Reflections
Joining Serhafen International as UX Lead reinforced a vital professional lesson: **the most impactful UX work often occurs far behind the user interface.** When working with complex industrial ecosystems, designing high- fidelity screens is meaningless if the underlying service blueprint is broken or undocumented.
By focusing first on qualitative stakeholder research and cross-departmental alignment, I successfully demonstrated to leadership that UX is an essential strategic tool capable of solving structural operational bottlenecks and driving real bottom-line value. Navigating international regulatory differences and aligning legacy corporate workflows was a major leadership challenge, but standardizing these systems into a unified digital experience laid a scalable foundation for the company’s ongoing regional expansion.
