To become a truly digital company, D-Marin wanted to extend the benefits of technology to all stakeholders, including field workers who keep marinas operating and maintain guests’ vessels. D-Marin planned to make their work easier by launching an enterprise mobile application, StarFlow. Initially, our role was supposed to consist of integrating an external solution into our ecosystem of D-Marin services. However, as the vendor was failing to deliver results for months, we took over the entire project.
This partnership catapulted the marina industry into the digital era. Future Mind, a Solita company has taken us from passing hand-written notes to digitalised everything, completely overhauling our workflows and empowering us to unlock the full potential of our marinas.
Matthias Gehring Chief Digital Officer, D-Marin
StarFlow has transformed D-Marin experience for the field workers who ensure smooth everyday operations. Thanks to StarFlow, even employees who do their work away from computer screens can take advantage of the company’s digital transformation.
Enhanced marina operations
Improved work conditions for field employees
Increased visibility of field work status
Real-time data on actual marina conditions
We needed to build an enterprise-grade mobile app from scratch in under four months, integrate it seamlessly with the marina management system and IoT sensors protecting sailors’ vessels, and ensure the software remained intuitive for users with limited technical experience.
Taking over the project from another vendor meant an extremely tight deadline, but we were happy to accept the challenge.
As the application would be used by D-Marin’s field workers on devices provided by the company, we would build the software for one system of D-Marin’s choice: Android. We started the project by analysing the business requirements and studying the everyday reality of marina employees.
Based on the typical tasks that managers assign to field workers, we performed an iterative process of constructing high-fidelity mockups, collaborating with D-Marin to fine-tune the app concept. Throughout the process, we took into account that many of our future users were not technologically advanced and would need an extremely simple interface in a local language version.
With the final UX design confirmed, we set out to develop the backend and frontend layers of the application. Thanks to the design system we had built for D-Marin, the product design phase was over in a flash, and our frontend developers could deliver milestones much faster by using pre-made code snippets of the necessary visual components.
We engineered the application by using Native Android technologies on the frontend and Node.JS on the backend for easy integration with the remaining systems.
Thanks to IoT sensors, the nearest field worker can be dispatched to deal with an emergency.
D-Marin’s long-term guests receive smoke, bilge, heat, and battery sensors to equip their boats with. Their readings can always be displayed by boat owners on their D-Marin mobile apps.
In case an emergency is detected, e.g. the vessel is at risk of sinking, front office employees are informed and StarFlow will soon ensure a field worker is promptly directed to mitigate the situation.
We are currently conducting R&D work on implementing AR (Augmented Reality) that will overlay on the marina.
Once the feature has been released, employees will see which vessel should be present in each berth on their phone screens. This will make their daily boat counting rounds even easier.
It will be enough to compare the reality with the AR overlay by pointing the camera to each berth instead of manually marking incorrect boat placement in the app.
We work with D-Marin to ensure that employees know how to take full advantage of StarFlow.
Marina management is instructed on how to assign tasks and control their completion within the system, while field workers learn how using the app will make their everyday responsibilities easier and faster.
with top facilities and services
in the Mediterranean and Gulf region
on 2 continents
Product design: UX high-fidelity design, Design system
