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Energy Trading Platform For a GreenTech Startup

How creating a trailblazing digital marketplace for renewable energy producers and local households with an opportunity to save up to 20% on their monthly energy bill allowed a German startup to be available for 41 million households across Germany.

Domain:
Energy

Expertise:
Blockchain

Duration:
~1 year

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About the project

The objective of the project was to implement a blockchain infrastructure based trading platform for open and direct energy trading.

Challenge

Lition approached instinctools with an idea of creating a platform for direct energy exchange within Lition Energy System. The goal of the project was to simplify the legal, operational and economic hurdles for green power producers while facilitating customers to buy truly green electricity at a reduced price.

Tasks

An initial consulting phase ensured clarification of customer needs and purpose of the product. It helped to determine the main tasks for the *instinctools team:

Trading platform development including backend, frontend and UI/UX design reflecting Lition corporate style
Blockchain-based solution development
Consulting and integration of project management methodology and configuration of project management processes

Solution

The end solution met all the customer’s requirements and expectations. Around 10 JavaScript frameworks were implemented to build reliable and functionally rich web application.

Key features

Well-organized development process from goals and needs decision to solution architecture allowed to create the product with the following key features:

High performance and usability

Informative dashboard (with information about producers, types of energy, current rates, transactions and contract data)

Option to choose power plants and create several energy supply contracts with Lition

Based on Ethereum and proprietary blockchain

Access to energy market – the platform connects customers and producers to trade energy and receive financial benefits

Possibility to try a live demo and experience the trading platform interface

Result

The platform is currently the key product of the Lition and commercially available for 41 million households in Germany. Customers from more than 30 cities save up to 20% on their monthly energy bill, and producers generate up to 30% more profit. The solution gives users a possibility to support ecological energy plants and help to save the environment.

Client’s testimonial

“People at *instinctools are quite tech heads, which I like. They have used very advanced libraries, advanced techniques, advanced coding paradigms. So the advantage is that we get reusable code, that we get well-testable code, we get well-maintained code.”

– Richard Lohwasser, Co-founder and CEO of Lition

Technologies

SCRUM

Frontend:

Backend:

Blockchain:

Software Modernization For a Canadian Machinery Manufacturer

How redesigning and enriching their existing app with new features armed a machinery manufacturer with a leading-edge mining equipment monitoring system, allowed them to spot maintenance issues on average three months earlier than they used to and decrease machines upkeep costs by 23%.

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Challenge

The company needed a modern and an easy-to-use application to execute tests and to monitor condition of mining equipment – vibrating screens for segmentation of friable material by particle size.
Thus, the following tasks were set for *instinctools team:

Existing application code refactoring;
Full redesign of the application;
New test mode development and integration.

Solution

To meet the tight deadline and client’s needs, we chose Kanban approach for Agile application development, which implies full transparency of working processes and real time discussion of production.

The Spring Framework with C library was used for application implementation on Java.

Key features

Final result from good teamwork exceeded all customer’s expectations.
The client received a fully renewed application with the following features:

Impact mode — testing of vibrating screen elements from exposure to them at rest;
Orbit mode — testing of vibrating screen elements at work;
Reports generation with cloud storage;
New application design with user-friendly interface;
Application management system.

Value

Data for research

In addition to usability and two modes of testing the app provides information about the condition of machines owned by the company and company’s clients in order to conduct further research.

Cost saving

Real time monitoring of vibrating screen at work cuts costs on maintenance and shortens wait time in case of unexpected vehicle breakdown.

Further improvement

All data and research conducted through this application will help the company improve other products.

Technologies

Eyewear Measurements App For an Optical Company

How digitizing and automating eyewear measurement operations empowered a European eyewear company to accelerate in-store order processing by 67%.

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Challenge

The customer contacted us with a request to build a native iOS application for their sellers. The application would be able to determine distances (in millimeters) between a customer’s pupils and heights (calculated between the bottom of the lens and the middle of the customer’s pupil) using the camera.

Solution

We have successfully accomplished the task that we were given. We have developed an optical measurements application based on iOS system. It can provide our customer with accurate values (in millimeters) of pupillary distances and heights.

A part of our work was also the development of a UX/UI design.

Key Features

accurate values (in millimeters) of pupillary distance and height.

Technologies

iOS Application For a German Aluminium Producer

How developing an application with real-time updates of non-ferrous metal prices, company news, events, and podcasts allowed a manufacturing enterprise to enhance and streamline communication with their customers.

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Challenge

It was required to provide iOS software which would allow:

Watching the prices for metals mad by TRIMET in real time (aluminum, copper, etc.);
Watching changes in the market of metals for a certain period (1,3,6 months);
Learning TRIMET news;
Having reference information about TRIMET group companies;
Having fast access to reference information of this subject.

Solution

We have developed a software package which allows watching the market of non-ferrous metals, informing the clients on news of the company and providing reference information with the help of iPhone or iPad. Ability to obtain actual data helps to save time of clients on search and the analysis of the prices in the market of non-ferrous metals.

Technologies

Pre-Certification Testing Software of AC-Powered Electronic Devices

How creating an application for testing AC-powered electronic devices helped a household appliances manufacturer speed up checks for conformity to IEC 61000-4-11:2004.

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Development and deployment of any AC-powered electronic device are accompanied by one big step – device testing and certification for conformity to existing standards, including failure resistance, short interruptions and changes in power voltage. There is a special class of devices called “test generators” used for conformity testing and control.

Challenge

We had to develop a software solution that would be embedded into the client’s hardware devices. The app should cover testing electronic appliances with up to 600 W rated power for conformity to IEC 61000-4-11:2004.

Solutions

We created software that meets the specified requirements. Key features of the device: it is compact and has a communication interface for control from a computer.

Features

Portability

Possibility to test an electronic device for conformity to IEC 61000-4-11:2004

Communication interface for control from a computer

Modern hardware components

Technologies

Enterprise Document Management System For an Atomic Energy Corporation

How replacing several feature-poor document management solutions with a single comprehensive user-friendly system accelerated document-related processes by 23% on average.

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Object

Systems of electronic document management have been with large companies and state enterprises for quite some time now and are there to stay for a long time, too. It also requires more mobility from company managers who spend a lot of time out of office. Being outside the office they need to carry out their responsibilities and lose no time as well as to have a handy work interface with information systems, an easy possibility to solve problems in a fast and timely manner. In order to enable them to do so, a system interface has to be also informative and simple at its best – a manager is supposed to have on hand all the document operations possible.

What are the problems when running a document management system device with a web interface?

Mobility

When running a web interface a manager comes across a number of limitations on their freedom of movement – the manager needs to have constant access to the resources of his company and electronic document systems, i.e. he usually cannot handle his documents while on the road, up in the air or at sea.

Interface intuitivity

Web interfaces with access to electronic document
systems are often overloaded with functions and are meant for big screens with precise positioning of the mouse cursor. One needs to take his time to interact with the system as well.

Safety

When having access to electronic document systems via a mobile device it is needed to secure the proper keeping of the information received, transmitted and saved, which may be problematic in success-stories when running a mobile device outside the office.

One access interface

Having several systems of document management at your company, the manager needs to switch between various web interfaces and carry out single operations in each of the systems.

The main purpose for developing a mobile client device was finding solutions to the following problems.

Solution

How the mobile client solves the problems mentioned above.

Mobility

Application of the mobile client with offline work functions enables you to have access to documents and carry out all necessary operations with them while having limited access to electronic document management systems of the company. All operations done in the system by the user are kept in the application and if there is access to the document management system of the company, are synchronized automatically. Additionally the user is enabled to tune the synchronization intervals themselves.

One access interface

Mobile client enables you to unify tasks from several systems of document management, which allows running operations faster with volumes necessary for a manager in one application. In this case one interface is enough, i.e. the interface running tasks from different systems of document management.

Interface intuitivity

Interface adapted for use on mobile devices and the availability of just the operations needed enables to process documents in a faster manner and make the interface informative and simple at its best.

Safety

The mobile solutions as to the safety of information exchange with electronic document management systems and safe keeping the data disallow access to third parties to the information kept on the device, which is rather problematic when using a web interface. Application of different means of authentication of the user (login/password, authentication with smart cards) enables to secure reliable transmission of user data. Encrypting data bases and files of the user is fulfilled in accordance with GOST 28147-89 (State Standards).

When operating the mobile client, the additional advantages are guaranteed

Handy display and document task operation. The user is enabled to scroll and change documents in most office formats

A function to save marks on tasks. The user may leave their own marks which are not seen by other system users

Commenting the tasks to be done. The user may leave comments as per electronic document management system

Handy search and sorting user tasks/documents

Launch of new document management processes

What else can the system do

Several languages are available. Localization of forms and elements and their arrangement are kept on the server which allows changing their contents and arranging in a fast manner

Handy support to change the responsible person. If the user is outside the office and is not able to carry out their responsibilities at the moment, another user may be assigned to do the task at the push of a button

Launch of new secondary work processes and create new tasks either via interface or from a separate tab on processes

Keep selected tasks even after they have been carried out. The user may determine the volume in document management he/she needs by his/her own

The Drag & Drop handy mode enables the user to move the responsible per tasks. The expander system allows organizing work according to information on tasks providing the user with necessary information only

As a result, the manager’s main tasks have been successfully carried out for their superior, whose usual working place was out of reach, the transparency of all working processes was also observed.
This system may be integrated into different electronic document management systems, corporate calendars, task managers and other systems engaged in working processes.

Technologies

Advanced Monitoring App For a Global Car Manufacturer

How building a sales monitoring app with custom operational, analytical, and strategic dashboards provided a car manufacturing corporation with a comprehensive real-time visualization of performance metrics in different units and enhanced annual business planning.

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It is always very important for large corporations to monitor all stages of their activities, to study the objective information, and to review the metrics of performance efficiency. Thus, this company performs daily monitoring of car sales. It has created and has been improving over the years a complex business process which allows the management of the sales process on the basis of metrics.

However such a business process requires the extensive use of computers for various stages: analysis of collected data, calculation of metrics, and visual representation of metrics. Until recent times, it was impossible to receive new information in a mobile way. However, the current level of mobile technology provides the opportunity to create a system which will cope with the large amount of information and deliver a visual representation of performance metrics in the most user-friendly way.

Challenge

The main objectives in creating a mobile application for monitoring the performance metrics for the business was to:

implement the offline mode of the application. The consequence of this requirement was the necessity to handle large amount of data, based on which the various “cuts” of performance metrics should be created. In order to have flexibility and not to occupy the client application with processing a great amount of information, an unusual concept for preparing and delivering data to the client has been created

have the ability to compare data for different periods of time

implement the performance metrics in a visual presentation with the ability to display data in a variety of “cuts”

create a progressive mechanism for filtering and organizing data according to certain criteria

The vehicle manufacturer has one more vital business process – annual business planning. Managers and sale dealers used to meet each other in general meetings and discuss the sales plan for the upcoming year. This process took a lot of time, and the necessity of a multifunctional tool was obvious. As a solution, Business Planning Objective (BPO) was performed as a part of a sales app. BPO offers extensive possibilities for visual representation of plans, management of analytics, comparison of plans and many other features.

Key features

Daily monitoring of sales performance metrics

Management of analytics, tracking of the production process

Annual business planning for managers & sales dealers; coordination of plans

Wide possibilities for visual representation of plans and sales performance metrics, based on the various “cuts”

Advanced security and user access control

Operations with large amounts of information

Support of MobileIron MDM system

Full-featured offline mode

Technologies

Typhoon
Tolo

Mantle
Fabric

Masonry
Pop

VIPER
EasyMapping

Legacy System Modernization For an Environmental Company

How migrating from no longer supported VB6 to Java provided an environmental company with an app that seamlessly handles multiple customer requests at a time.

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Challenge

Customers turned to us with the following problems:

They needed a convenient way to build complex queries in the database.
There were some performance problems with the client’s site. The system was running slowly in the case of multiple requests.
Customers needed to restrict access to the application using a White IP List where access would be allowed only to certain IP addresses.
There was a need to synchronize data with other databases.
It was necessary to construct graphs based on the processed data (e.g., “Number of bags per hour,” “Number of shipments per hour,” etc.).
Customers needed improvement of TimeSlot overview and scheduling. It was necessary to develop an electronic schedule (organizer) enabling the reserving of time for unloading and servicing of trucks with bottles.
They needed the ability to obtain additional user data from LDAP.

Solution

The problem was solved in the following way:

To enable easy construction of complex queries in the database, we suggested and implemented the use of Querydsl.
We optimized and used cache data to solve the performance problem and improve the operation speed when there are multiple requests.
To restrict access to the application, we implemented Interceptor for requests intercepting and filtering (White IP List and Whitelist for paths).
We implemented a file manager based on Qdrive.
To construct graphs on the basis of processed data, we used an additional module of chart.js.
We developed a data model and implemented basic logic for CRUD operations in accordance with business requirements (frontend and backend sides).

We developed Time Slots Overview – an electronic schedule (organizer) to reserve the unloading time of the machine with bottles, featuring marking of fields “reserved time” / “available for reservation time” / “unavailable for reservation time” by different colors. The mechanism takes into account the overlap of reserved periods, and automatically suggests the nearest free time, if the time the customer has chosen for reservation is already taken. After reservation, the customer can view its details at any time.
We created jobs or scheduling tasks for processing the scheduled data.
We developed a variety of services for the system, for example, MailService – a shared service to send e-mails.

Key features

Access by roles

Sending e-mails

History of the entities’ changes

Report generation

Display of the data in graphs

Receiving and sending data to external terminals and databases

Imitation of logging in as a different user for the administrator

Tasks that process data in manual or automated mode

Technologies

Factory Monitoring App For a SaaS Automation Provider

How developing a mobile app for monitoring manufacturing equipment with the ability to control the whole factory and separate machines with a smartphone helped a SaaS automation provider win new customers.

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About the Project

This is an iOS/Android application. It creates interfaces for plants and equipment on both smartphones and tablets. As a native app, this version offers an outstanding user experience in the everyday use and requires little effort to install.

The Modbus TCP industrial bus protocol allows the app to communicate with practically any machine. Users can learn the status of the plant at any time and send commands to its control unit.

Challenges

provide possibility to create HMI for plants and equipment on smartphones and tablets and share it with colleagues
allow to control directly plants and machines which support Modbus Protocol
provide stable work when data transmission is slow
create an outstanding user experience for daily use