Dealer ordering app for a cement manufacturer

A dealer ordering app for a leading cement manufacturer, built for iOS and Android with React Native. Dealers place orders, track deliveries and check schemes from the field, even with weak signal. Clients work under NDA, so the project is described by industry rather than by name. [TODO: confirm features and numbers with the founder]

Context

Cement moves through a network of dealers and field-sales staff who spend their days at building sites, depots and dealer counters rather than at a desk. Orders, delivery updates and scheme details that live in a back-office system are hard to reach from there. The app brings those three things to the phone the dealer already carries.

The challenge

Field work means patchy connectivity. An ordering app that only works on a strong connection is an app that fails at exactly the moment a dealer needs it. The app also had to run on both iOS and Android from one codebase, so that every dealer gets the same release at the same time. [TODO: confirm features and numbers with the founder]

What we built

Orders, delivery tracking and schemes

• Orders placed from the field
• Delivery tracking
• Schemes
• Offline-first, so ordering works with weak signal
• Push notifications
• One React Native codebase for iOS and Android, with a Node.js backend

[TODO: confirm features and numbers with the founder]

Architecture decisions

Offline-first was the deciding constraint. An offline-first app keeps a local copy of what the dealer needs, records actions locally and syncs when the connection returns, instead of blocking every tap on a network call. Push notifications close the loop in the other direction, so delivery updates reach the dealer without the app being open. [TODO: confirm features and numbers with the founder]

Outcome

• iOS and Android from one codebase
• Offline ordering in the field

[TODO: confirm features and numbers with the founder]

This is the kind of field app we build under our Mobile apps service. If your team works somewhere the signal does not, start a project brief and we will reply within 24 hours.