Railway operator
Mobile inventory for onboard catering and sleeper cars
Here the warehouse travels. The count happens on board and without a network; a dedicated interface carries it into the client's existing warehouse system afterwards.
The brief
A warehouse that moves breaks the usual assumptions of stock management: stock belongs to a vehicle and a service rather than a shelf, counting happens en route, and the connection is at its worst precisely when the count is made. The system of record is fixed — it is the client's own and is not being replaced.
The solution
An Android application that counts fully offline on board, and a dedicated interface that carries the reconciliation into the existing system. The boundary between the two is deliberately narrow: what happens on board depends on no connection, and what is transferred is a step somebody can audit.
The outcome
A train's stock is recorded when it arrives, and it lands in the system operations already keeps — with no second set of records beside it.
Stock management normally assumes the warehouse stands still and the connection works. In onboard catering neither holds. Stock moves with the vehicle, changes hands between services, and is counted exactly where the network is least reliable.
The application therefore reverses the order: the count on board is the authoritative act and works entirely without a network. Reconciliation happens later and is a step of its own, visible in the record — not a silent correction nobody notices.
The second half of the work is the interface. The system of record belongs to the client and stays where it is; our part was to connect the mobile capture to it cleanly. In operation that is the more valuable half: a second truth beside an existing system costs more than any missing feature, and the only way to avoid one is a handover that can be checked.