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Information Technology Germany

A custom system to support a carsharing service built from scratch allowing up to 60% drop in process costs

Executive Summary

Challenge: The company needed to replace an off-the-shelf system with custom and flexible digital solutions supporting all the domains of a carsharing business model.

Approach: Thanks to a thorough analysis and design phase, as well as expertise in software development, tech consultancy, UX design, and project management we delivered the whole system in under four months.  

Result: Our bespoke management system build in less than 100 days supports the an innovative carsharing business model. It consists of the back office portal, a website, and Android and iOS mobile apps for customers.  

Table of Contents

About the client

Linde is a leading industrial gas and engineering company with around 80,000 employees in more than 100 countries worldwide.

The company’s mission is to make our world more productive every day by providing high-quality solutions, technologies and services which are making their customers more successful and helping to sustain and protect our planet.

The company serves a variety of end markets including chemicals & refining, food & beverage, electronics, healthcare, manufacturing and primary metals.

What is Beezero?

In 2016, Linde Group’s newly founded subsidiary – Linde Hydrogen Concepts, launched the world’s largest and friendliest hydrogen-powered carsharing service – BeeZero®.

BeeZero® is the first hydrogen, zero-emission car-sharing service in the world. Thanks to its state-of-the-art technology, BeeZero®’s users can help to reduce pollution and traffic noise without having to forego the amenities a car has to offer.

When we started with Future Processing we just wanted to leverage additional development capacity. Although we thought we had a running organisation, we weren’t able to implement all the requirements that came up from the business. This was the start of our cooperation. When we decided to go together for the platform relaunch, our decision was not only based on the additional manpower, but also on the way Future Processing develops software.

Thomas Felber
IT Manager, The Linde Group

Business challenge

BeeZero® has initially been using a software solution for the management of their carsharing service that was developed and maintained by two different departments of a company. The core software was an off-the-shelf solution designed for traditional, station-based car rental, rather than for car sharing, which, in the case of BeeZero®, was based on a modern, zone-based model.

Scaling up the business model resulted in business-critical service degradation. Due to these issues, The Linde Group decided to look for a new technology partner.

The reason for The Linde Groupto start looking for a new IT partner was to become flexible and to gain full control of its systems and processes which would enable entrepreneurial business building.

Scope of work

Initially, our role was to create custom modules that would become integrated with the existing off-the-shelf solution, targeting a hybrid organisation.

As matters developed, BeeZero® decided to have a custom system that would support all their function domains (i.e. user management, booking service, fleet management, invoicing and many more) built from scratch by Future Processing. Since then, we have provided Linde with software development capabilities to implement the new BeeZero® carsharing experience.

Beyond software development

The aim of this service is to have an idea or a user’s need investigated by experts who conduct a thorough analysis of the problem and propose the best solution.

Our team performed the analysis of user’s needs and business processes – they tried out the BeeZero® car experience themselves, spoke to its users and looked into each process at a time.

The team also prepared product backlog in form of user stories and user story maps and created all necessary mock-ups, diagrams and documentation.

The carefully thought out design and well-prepared technical architecture set the product’s direction and guide a development team.

The final product of all this was a concept for the BeeZero® bespoke carsharing management system consisting of the back office portal, the BeeZero.com website and iOS and Android mobile apps for customers.

Developing the solution

We started with the development of the new system with a goal for the switchover within a tight timeframe of less than 4 months. Our job was to:

  • develop a mobile application that included a loyalty programme and gamification,
  • create a web application for the management of car fleet, the servicing and the first line of support for the users,
  • conduct hardware integration of smart devices fitted in cars with the software system,
  • build a Microsoft Azure-based API Gateway that would connect all existing BeeZero® services,
  • serve a true DevOps organisation, covering development, 2nd-Level and system operation.
99%

drop in customer-facing incidents in the first month in relation to GPS/ telematics, even though car utilisation rate increased

100 days

was the time taken to develop applications and system that perfectly suit the client’s way of working

50-60%

drop in process costs for car servicing

20 experts

of different roles adept at a variety of software development-related activities made the project lightweight for the client

I’m very happy with our cooperation. Future Processing delivers a true added value to our project. Team-wise they are offering a true full-stack skill matrix with a great mindset and expertise in agile software development. We accomplished to establish a true lean organization, focusing on high quality and reliability of the system. The lightweight organisation requires only a very small overhead in steering and controlling the project, therefore enabling us to concentrate on the customer-facing business development.

Thomas Felber
IT Manager, The Linde Group

Main benefits of our partnership

  • Less than 100 days of work to develop a system that perfectly suits ways of working and is open for further development
  • IT partnership referring to the entire service lifecycle, from design through the development process to production support and building a hybrid organisation
  • IT partner handling most of the issues and filling the gaps in skill set missing in the client’s initial team, especially in relation to User Experience
  • Change of the project management model and achieving an agile way of work

Technologies used in the project

Successful IT partnership

With less than 100 days of work, BeeZero® now have a system that suits their ways of working. The IP rights for the system belong to The Linde Group, so the client is can develop the system as requirements change, or new come up. The BeeZero® carsharing no longer needs to rely on an inflexible, off-the-shelf system.