A barcode-scanner app tied to hardware that was going to be sunset — rebuilt as a native Android app that runs on any device.
The client's Direct Store Delivery process ran entirely on a proprietary barcode scanner — a device heading toward end of life, with no clear replacement path. Every part of the workflow that depended on that hardware was a dependency on a product that wouldn't be supported much longer.
The scanner ran across 115 stores along the East Coast, used by store employees to scan items as they came off the truck — confirming deliveries and keeping inventory accurate. The problem wasn't reliability — the devices didn't fail outright — it was that they were bulky and genuinely difficult to navigate, which slowed down receiving at every stop.
Before any redesign, the real question was what the proprietary scanner was responsible for day to day — scanning, data sync, offline handling — so nothing got lost moving to a general-purpose device.
Conversations with drivers, warehouse staff, and IT surfaced the same theme from every angle: real frustration with the old proprietary scanner — not because it broke down, but because it was bulky and awkward to actually use on every stop, day after day.
The goal wasn't to copy the old app onto a new device — it was to separate what the delivery process actually needed from what had just been a workaround for the old hardware's limitations.
That meant two firm requirements: move the app onto Android OS, and replace the proprietary scanner's function with third-party image recognition software, integrated against the phone's own native camera instead of a dedicated scanning module.
The new app was designed as a native Android application, so the client was no longer locked into a single proprietary device — any Android hardware could run it.
That opened the door to faster rollouts and easier hardware replacements going forward, since the app and the device were no longer tied to each other.
Prototypes went in front of the store employees who'd actually be scanning deliveries, testing ease of use head-to-head against the old devices — not just whether the new flow worked, but whether it was genuinely easier to pick up and use.
[Add a number here if you have one — number of devices/stores migrated, cost saved on hardware, rollout time.]