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AltexSoft Lays Foundation for a Fleet Optimization Solution with Comprehensive Technology and Business Consulting

Business domain
Transportation
Technology
Node.js

Background

The client is the premier fleet optimization company. Working in the transportation industry, the company needed a powerful software solution to provide its clients with advanced driver training, safety, and risk management capabilities.

The client engaged AltexSoft as a technology consulting provider in order to finalize and document the project requirements and thus prepare a solid ground for the future engineering process. Using a popular GPS tracking hardware (GeoTab) and the data it provides, the solution was needed to set up an efficient workforce management and training process.

Challenges

Taking the client’s concept as the foundation, we had to clarify the requirements and map out the project details. The goal was to track the driver’s skills using third-party hardware and define possible weaknesses, like speeding, cornering or other steering issues. Based on the data provided by the tracking device, the system was supposed to provide an opportunity to distribute and assign targeted training content (videos) and track driver’s interactions with it.

Special access needed to be granted to the system managers and admins to enable manual checking of the drivers’ training activities and their performance (e.g. views duration, frequency, and driver’s feedback on the training content).

Having a core idea at hand, we needed to envision the technical implementation of the product, along with all the functional details. Thus, our team needed to handle the following tasks:

Map out the product’s functionality

Propose the technology stack

Develop basic wireframes

Value Delivered

At the end of the consulting phase, the project team provided the client with the following deliverables:

Complete Functional Specification and Product Concept

Our business analysts in cooperation with technology experts conducted in-depth research and developed the functional specification for the project. This resulted in a 10-page detailed document, outlining the product’s main features, roles and use cases.

Comprehensive Technology Consulting

Engaging our Chief Software Architect and several Engineers, we were able to provide suggestions as to the technology stack and project’s technical implementation. The document outlines the software structure, its basic architecture, and core technologies involved. The proposed tools include Node.js and Express for the server-side, AngularJS for the front-end and MongoDB for the data storage (MEAN technology stack), and a number of add-ons (third-party APIs).

Basic Product Wireframes

To complete the project concept and ensure there is no misunderstanding in the specifications, we created key product wireframes, including the main dashboard, driver’s portal with personal scores and statistics, video portal page, etc. They complemented the functional specification and demonstrated the core product features. As a result, we were able to visualize our understanding of the project and eliminate the risk of confusion at the later stages.

Approach and Technical Info

The technology consulting phase took about 2 weeks to finish. Four experts were involved in the process handling different aspects of the consulting process: A Business Analyst, Chief Software Architect, Software Engineer, and a UX Designer.
Node.js