Field Service System for Trading Activities
Cross-platform solution for managing the cacao trading process, incorporating a mobile app for field managers and integration with a back-office module for traders
Industry
Logistics
Team
6 members
Started in
2024
Country
Europe
About a Project
Our customer is a leading trading and processing European company specializing in distributing cacao beans worldwide or processing them into cocoa materials. The company needed to boost its internal operation efficiency, so the client asked for a solution to automate its cocoa trading processes. The customer contacted Cleveroad for IT staff augmentation for their mobile project.
Goals set to Cleveroad
Build a customized system to track and manage the movement of cacao beans throughout the supply chain to incorporate automation into the cacao trading procedures
Solution’s integration with the customer’s developed Back Office to establish a unified and consistent data management system for cocoa trading operations
Provide the customer with IT team extension services to reinforce a company’s in-house development capabilities with skilled mobile experts
Solutions we've delivered
Development of the cross-platform app from scratch to facilitate the automation of cocoa trading operations, allowing stakeholders to conduct their activities through a centralized platform
Creation of the mobile app and its successful integration with the customer’s Back office platform to ensure seamless data of all transactions and reporting activities related to cocoa trading
Assembling a specialized Flutter development team to supplement a customer’s in-house team with the necessary skills and knowledge in the realm of mobile technology
Results for the Customer
Completely ready-to-use system that considers the pains and objectives of a company focused on enhancing the efficiency of cocoa trading and distribution processes
Enhanced operational efficiency and transparency in both cocoa trading and supply chain activities that positively impacted the organization’s profit margins
Fast onboarding of skilled IT experts into the client’s in-house team. It allowed the business to expand its technical capacities, and save the cost and time of making new full-time hires
Business Challenges
Our customer is a European company leader in the cocoa trading and processing industry. The customer wanted to enhance visibility into processes involving purchasing, processing, and transferring cacao beans from smallholder farmers by company field managers. For this reason, the company requested the creation of a mobile platform to optimize its cocoa trading processes, explicitly targeting the tracking of yields in remote areas, enhancing cash control, and improving reporting.
The customer had a web development team responsible for building a Back Office of the system. Faced with the need for mobile expertise, the organization decided to augment its tech proficiency with an external skill set. Mainly, they were looking for a competent mobile development team to create a mobile app for field supervisors. So, the solution ought to help the customer to:
Increase cash flow transparency. Design and develop a mobile application to streamline cash flow administration. It was required to integrate a real-time transaction tracking feature to offer an instant and accurate overview of all records regarding cocoa bean sales and payments.
Keep track of trading activities and processes. Integrate reporting functionality to enable the monitoring of all actions conducted on the fields. This module was requested to empower company field managers with real-time insights and to convey up-to-date reports to back-office management.
Augment in-house team with mobile tech expertise. Form a team of specialists in mobile development to join the client's in-house team. It was required to provide the customer with an appropriate staffing solution to seamlessly fill the skill gap and rapidly build a system for handling the cacao trading process.
Project in Details
We built the system from scratch, integrated it with the client’s Back Office, and provided the client with IT team augmentation services in short terms
Business Architecture
- A cross-platform mobile app for field managers to improve internal company processes related to purchasing, processing, and transferring cacao lots from suppliers to field representatives. The solution includes all the components and functionalities required for end-users engaged in different processes in the field.
- Implementation of the offline mode support to enable the app to function continuously in remote areas with poor internet connections and sometimes restricted electricity. Users can gather data related to purchase orders and cocoa quality and store it offline. When the device reconnects to the internet, the platform syncs data, making critical upgrades about the cocoa trading operations, including pricing data, quality info, and transportation costs.
- A web back-office module integration for trade managers working from the office. Seamless integration with the back-office functionality was required to ensure that data collected in the field is synchronized with the central system, ensuring transparency in the processes through the generation of reports.
Product Essentials
Core modules and functionality peculiarities, revealing the solution’s essence for managing the cacao trading activities
The “Buying lots” feature allows users to initiate, track, and handle purchasing cacao beans directly from suppliers. It offers an interface for making and monitoring purchase orders, ensuring a seamless procurement operation.
Field Managers can set the quality of lots and pricing following the system's recommended values for the specific date of the purchase deal. This guarantees transparency in financial transactions and enables accurate records to be supported for accounting purposes.
The cacao lots management feature for field managers is implemented to streamline the following activities:
- Lots processing. This functionality allows for combining lots into batches and adding lots/batch characteristics to track the quality of the cacao beans all the way through.
- Lots storing. This enables organized and controlled storage of cacao lots. Records detailing the storage of goods are maintained in the system and accessible to users at any moment as needed. Field managers have access to the records and can edit them.
- Lots transfer. The transfer process is meticulously recorded in the system. Field managers can add Dispatch Notes, specifying key characteristics for tracking the further route of cacao beans, including total weight transferred, number of bags, trucking details, lot and batch information.
The QR code generation feature is designed to improve the efficiency, traceability, and accuracy of the entire cacao bean supply chain. At each stage of cacao lots management, the field manager can generate a QR code and attach it to the lot, bag, and batch. The QR code contains all the information about cacao beans throughout every processing step.
Field supervisors can scan and generate QR codes directly from the mobile application. This functionality enables end-to-end tracking, allowing users to trace the way of each cacao bean lot from its origin through processing to the warehouse.
The integration with printers aims to improve the documentation and serves the two reasons:
- Receipt printing. Field managers can connect with printers to create and print receipts for the cacao bean purchases for suppliers right on the field. This way, suppliers have transparent reporting, fostering confidence in the corporation's dedication to openness.
- QR code printing. Field managers can print QR codes and attach them to each cacao batch. These QR codes allow tracking of the orders' journey from the supplier to the warehouse and keeping all the information about each cacao lot and batch
The offline mode feature allows field managers to work in remote areas with poor or without internet connection. When the connection is restored the app automatically syncs with the Back Office and all data is updated in both parts of the solution. This feature is pivotal for the solution as field managers often make purchases in the field and require a functioning app regardless of the quality of the internet connection
Development in Detail
- The customer required an outstaff team to augment their in-house web development team with extra expertise in mobile technology, including mobile app testing. We provided a choice of candidates within 24 hours whose CVs match the client's requirements. The customer picked the resumes and we arranged interviews for team augmentation with the approved candidates on the 3rd day after the first contact. After client approval and signing SLA (Service-Level Agreement), the team of 3 Flutter developers and 3 QA engineers seamlessly integrated with the client’s team and started the mobile development in the short term.
- The customer provided Figma designs encompassing all mobile app screens, and our Flutter programmers and QA engineers collaborated closely with the client’s in-house web team under the management of the customer's product owner. Cleveroad experts relied on their experience working in international teams and prioritized fitting into the client’s business processes. The communication flow between our team and the client's developers remained regular and mutually supportive throughout our collaboration.
- We were working on the cacao trading app with cross-platform capabilities to speed up the product launch and meet a tight delivery schedule. Our mobile development team created a Flutter application from scratch and successfully integrated it with the customer-built web-based back-office functionality. The system meets the requirements of GDPR rules for personal data usage. As the solution is expected to be used in remote areas with unstable internet connection, we also implemented offline mode support to guarantee an uninterrupted end-user experience.
Technology stack
The technology stack was selected according to the project's requirements and business logic
Web Architecture
Frontend
React.js
Redux
Next.js
Tailwind Elstar
Backend
Express
Node JS
Mobile Stack
Cross-platform
Flutter
Dart
Architecture
Serverless
AWS Infrastructure
Lambda functions
Route 53
API Gateway
Cloudfront
Amazon RDS
EC2
S3
ELB
Results Obtained
Increased transparency of cashflows due to a new app
Implementing a new system for automating the cacao trading activities allowed the business to increase the transparency of cashflows by integrating functionality for tracking transactions and cashflow in real-time and generating various reports. The company achieved a 100% assurance in cashflow visibility, resulting in optimized capital management
Quickly gaining specific mobile tech expertise
Team augmentation provided by Cleveroad allows to sustain a fast development pace and save costs on hiring in-house app engineers. Expanding their team with required mobile technology expertise, the customer has managed to maintain a truly agile environment and introduce a mobile solution for field managers rapidly, contributing to improved financial performance
Solution integration with Back Office system
Through a partnership with Cleveroad, the customer received a team of initiative, experienced mobile app developers who successfully developed and integrated the field service software with a back-office platform that was built in parallel by the client’s in-house team. It enabled all the parties to access the cacao trading processes on the go, getting real-time data and updates
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