Vytal Speed-up API

Vytal, a smart and sustainable packaging system that helps you avoid packaging waste!

The problem

To keep track of orders and dishes sent to customers, the kitchen used the Vytal app to scan boxes via QR codes. The app was developed for use in a restaurant/café to sell a few boxes, scan them, or accept them back. The use case in our client's kitchen extended this to about 500-1000 boxes per hour. The challenge here was the speed of the app, because it is designed to handle 2-3 boxes at a time, as described, rather than 500-1000 per hour. Also, the QR code scanner supported by the vytal app occasionally caused the app to crash, which delayed the entire process.

The solution

To solve this problem, we divided it into 3 steps

Understanding the architecture of the vytal system and app - this allowed us to look more closely at the issues we could fix and focus on things we could improve. Database structure, API endpoints, and limitations were the focus of this step.

Understanding the pain point - if the API limit was the cause of the slowdown, we needed to store everything in our database and then transfer it to vytal at a later time independent of time. However, if the architecture does not support this, then this way of working might not be practical for the vytal system.

Creating a test MVP to see if we could solve the problem - by creating a test application, we were able to test each of these issues - scan speed, API performance, and API limitations - and eventually solve each of them. Thanks to this approach, major problems were discovered and solved before implementation.

Some challenges

The challenges we faced in each of the above steps were solved through creative workarounds based on a fundamental understanding of the architecture and database design of such a circular system for tracking a product throughout its lifecycle. That the stages are separated enough to compensate for errors in the system, and that they are interconnected enough to track the item at each step - these are improvements we have also implemented in this system.