The Client
CDA Polska is an award-winning chilled glass installation provider that has served business clients in the construction industry for the past 20 years. To see some of their impressive work showcases, check out this video.
The Challenge
No two projects are the same at CDA Polska. Each construction requires the high personal involvement of CDA’s design experts, from glass doors to elevator installations. As a result, the design process can become a bottleneck for the entire business.
To address this issue, the company decided to create a custom application that would simplify and automate the designer’s workflow. The goals were to automate as many of the designers’ tasks as possible, allowing the management to oversee the company structure and ensure the proper certification of all employees.
The new application would be a placement for old software used in the design process that added redundant work for experts. CDA Polska reached out to us with the mission of cutting out the legacy solution and building an optimal application from scratch.
The application supports automated sales as well. Every finished project contains a list of parts that can be ordered directly from CDA. Moreover, the app generates projects ready to be processed and sent into the glass hardening plant.
The Process
We started by carrying out a workshop with CDA Polska to learn how they used the program and the main pain points. Together, we defined a list of features for the new application. Next, our CTO audited the old software’s architecture and designed a new one.
Our product designer worked with the client and the CTO to create a clean UX and UI. Once this was done, the development team started the implementation stage. The application’s backend is written using Java’s Spring framework and Python – we implemented these two technologies due to the diversity of services within the project. The Java services fulfill the business needs and external system integrations, while Python handles the data processing and mathematical algorithms within the glass installation design process. The application’s frontend was built with React. For hosting, we used AWS cloud solutions.
Our team collaborated with CDA’s senior installation designer, who tested the new features and provided expert feedback.
The Results
CDA Polska contractors use the new software to configure glass hardware and quickly create customer quotes. By entering the glass size, selected components, hardware, and other key information, they can generate a ready-made cost estimate from the price list assigned to a given customer. The configurator also generates a technical drawing in the AutoCAD format, so designers can immediately upload, edit, and send it to the glazier.
Designers can choose from a catalog of prefixed projects and adjust the required parts rather than build from scratch. Once they start a project, the application automatically puts an order for components at CDA’s warehouse. Once the designer completes the installation, the project is immediately converted for a CNC machine to cut the glass. The program constantly validates the project to avoid making any mistakes.
The main advantage of the new application is the final results it delivers: estimates for contractors, ready-made designs, and their careful validation.
We knew we could be calm about the collaboration right from the start. Michal clearly has vast experience with software architecture for domain expert applications, so the communication went smoothly. He was able to specify our requirements and prevent many complications before they occurred. 4soft converted our business requirements into a functional piece of software. This has a direct impact on the core processes within our company.
