Introduction

This case study highlights one of Hungary’s leading telecommunications service providers, recognized for its comprehensive offerings across telephone, TV, home, and mobile internet services. In addition to its dominant market presence, the company’s website ranks among the most visited in Hungary, and its webshop consistently places in the top 10 busiest e-commerce platforms nationwide.

The Story

The primary goal of the project was to automate and optimize logistics and warehouse operations, combining both software development and physical infrastructure enhancements. A key physical upgrade was the implementation of an automated shelving system, which significantly improved packaging speed and service efficiency.

On the application side, the team automated various warehouse processes to support this new system, including communication with the shelving infrastructure and other support applications such as inventory management. Previously, these interactions required manual intervention, but the new setup enabled full automation of these workflows.

The team collaboratively designed the process by breaking it down into individual steps and mapping out the required data flows. The application was deployed in a Kubernetes (K8s) environment and developed using Kotlin with Spring Boot. While the internal team followed agile methodologies, the external company operated under a waterfall model, which occasionally complicated collaboration and alignment.

The Challenge 

Several challenges emerged during the project:

• Cross-team collaboration: Coordinating development efforts with the external, international company required careful management. Differences in working styles and decision-making processes occasionally made information flow and interface definitions more complex, requiring extra alignment and clarification.

• Internal process integration: Aligning internal workflows with the physical shelving system introduced new layers of complexity. To support the system effectively, the team had to develop several asynchronous processes that hadn’t previously been part of the workflow. This prompted a broader optimization effort and additional internal development to ensure smooth operation.

The Results

The project was ultimately successful, despite taking longer than initially anticipated. Communication challenges led to multiple iterations of certain application processes, but these were resolved through ongoing collaboration and refinement. The resulting system expanded delivery windows for same-day and next-day options, enabling later orders to be fulfilled on time by shipping partners. This improvement directly contributed to higher customer satisfaction.

Overall, the project demonstrated how thoughtful integration of physical infrastructure and digital solutions can meaningfully enhance operational efficiency and responsiveness—key advantages in a competitive market.