Cost-Efficient Development of Web and Mobile Apps for a Car Washing Service

Customer

The Customer is a European startup that provides automated car washing services. Their service works as follows: when ordering and paying for an automated car wash via a mobile app, a client shares their car’s license plate number, which is then stored in the wash station’s server queue. When a car drives in the wash, a camera scans the license plate, and the wash starts if a match is found in the active server queue.

Challenge

To bring their automated car washing concept to life, the Customer had developed image recognition software and the main server. They also had set up all communication between the server, the cameras, and car wash hardware. To complete the solution, the Customer needed to implement client mobile apps (to order a wash, input a license plate number, send payment) and a web administration app (to enable queue monitoring for different wash stations and allow manual wash launch in case of automation errors). However, the Customer lacked competencies in developing such software.

Solution

The Customer turned to ScienceSoft and received consulting on web and mobile solutions from a BA. Since the Customer wanted mobile apps to target both Android and iOS, it was decided to choose React Native as the core technology.

ScienceSoft’s team of a React Native developer (responsible for developing an admin web app and client mobile apps), a backend engineer (web app back end and integrations with the existing software infrastructure), and a testing engineer was assigned to work on the project under the Agile methodology. The project lasted for about a year.

The functionality of the iOS/Android apps include:

• Login/registration.
• Wash station search and selection.
• Order details (including license number input).
• Wash order payment.
• Wash start confirmation (received from the admin web app’s back end after it confirms a license number from the camera and triggers a wash).

The features of a wash station web admin panel are:

• Login.
• Order statistics.
• List of wash stations.
• Client queue list.
• Wash station camera views.
• Manual start of the wash (in case the camera couldn’t scan a license plate number).

Results

Thanks to ScienceSoft’s team leveraging cross-platform React Native technology, the Customer was able to minimize development investments. The Customer is now expanding their business to target organizations in need of bulk car washing, and plans to involve ScienceSoft in this initiative.

Technologies and Tools

React Native, React, Flux, Material-UI, Docker, NGINX, Git, Firebase, Laravel, MySQL, Google Cloud Platform.