Custom software studio
Software for the gapbetween the work andthe people deciding.
What is actually happening and what management can see are rarely the same thing, and most of what a process costs you lives in the distance between them. We find what is worth changing, then build it: reporting, internal tools, integrations, AI where it earns its place, and apps for the people doing the work.
Fixed-scope pilots. On site in Czechia and across the EU.
The gap
Where the gap shows up
The pattern repeats whatever the company makes or sells. The people doing the work know what is happening. The people deciding find out later from a number somebody assembled by hand for a week that is already over.
Reported / Actual
- Reported
- Actual
A chart with two lines from the same starting point. The reported version rises as a straight line. What actually happens rises unevenly and stays below it, and the vertical distance between the two at the end is marked as the gap.
Visibility
Management sees last month. The floor sees today.
Reporting is assembled by hand after the fact, so by the time a number reaches the person who could have acted on it, the week it describes is over. We put the live number in front of them instead.
Spreadsheets
The process lives in one person's spreadsheet.
It works until they are on holiday. Approvals, handovers, checklists and planning end up in files nobody else can safely touch, with no record of who changed what or why.
Systems
Two systems, one person retyping.
The ERP, the CRM, the shop, the supplier portal and the accounting export each hold a piece of the truth. Somebody keeps them in sync by hand, and that somebody is the integration.
Production
On a line, the same gap is measured in minutes.
Manufacturing is one example of many: output counted on paper, downtime remembered rather than recorded, traceability reconstructed after the complaint arrives. The same shape of problem, closer to the machine.
Starting point
There is nothing to compare against yet.
Plenty of companies cannot point at the gap because there was never anything written down to measure it against. They only know that something takes too long, costs more than it should, or depends entirely on one person. Working out what is worth changing is the first piece of work, and it does not start by buying software.
Where we work
Different industries, the same gap
Production is the example we are asked about most, and it is not the only one. The work is the same wherever the people doing something and the people deciding about it are looking at different information.
- Manufacturing and automotive
- Logistics and warehousing
- Field service and maintenance
- Wholesale and distribution
- Professional services
- Back office and finance
Scope
What we build
Custom software, sized to one problem at a time. The first item is not software at all.
- Process analysis and an improvement plan
- The deliverable is the plan, not software. We map what actually happens, find where the time and the money go, and write down what is worth changing and in what order. Some of it will not need software, and we say so.
- Deliverable: written scope
- Reporting and live dashboards
- One live number in front of the person who can act on it, with enough history behind it to put it in context. Usually the fastest way to close the information gap.
- PostgreSQL / BI
- Internal tools and workflows
- Approvals, checklists, handovers, planning boards. We put the process your company already follows into something built for it, rather than an overgrown spreadsheet.
- Web / role-based
- System integration
- ERP, CRM, e-shop, accounting, supplier portals. We build the integration as an interface with a contract, not as a nightly CSV nobody owns.
- REST / SQL / EDI
- AI where it removes the typing
- Reading invoices, orders and supplier emails into structured data. Searching your documents and procedures and answering questions in plain language. Classifying, routing and flagging the odd case for a human. Hosted in the EU or on your own hardware.
- LLM / on-premises option
- Mobile and field apps
- For people working away from a desk: technicians, drivers, warehouse and shop-floor staff. Large controls, offline-first operation and clear behaviour when the signal drops.
- iOS / Android / offline
- Machine data and OEE
- Where the process is a production line, we read availability, performance and quality straight from the equipment, with serial-level traceability behind it.
- OPC UA / Modbus / MQTT
- Custom web applications
- When nothing on the market fits the process, we build the thing that does, and hand over the repository with it.
- Web / self-hosted
Routing
How we work
The steps are numbered in tens, the way a routing sheet numbers operations, so another step can be inserted later without renumbering the rest.
OP 10
Walk the process
Half a day on site. We follow the process end to end, talk to the people running it, and find the point where the information stops moving. You do not need to know what to fix beforehand, because that is what this step is for. You get a written scope out of it whether or not you continue with us.
OP 20
Fixed-scope pilot
One process, one problem, a fixed price and a date. It runs on your real data before anyone signs up for a company-wide rollout.
OP 30
Rollout
The pilot becomes the standard: more teams, more sites, the integrations and the user management that make it survive without us in the room.
OP 40
Run
Monitoring, backups, a number to call when a stoppage turns out to be software-shaped, and changes as the process changes.
Terms
How we run a project
You own the code
The source code, repository and deployment scripts are handed over. No licence trap, no vendor who has to be paid to read your own data.
Your data stays on your network
On-premises by default, including the AI parts. We use the cloud only when you ask for it, and then in the EU, under a DPA.
Fixed scope before fixed price
We quote a written scope, not an hourly guess. If the scope changes, that is a decision you make with a number in front of you.
Engineers, not account managers
The person who walks your process is the person who writes the code and answers the phone at 22:00.
AI only where it pays
We do not put a language model on a problem a database query solves. Where AI does fit, such as reading documents, searching procedures or flagging the odd case, we tell you up front what it will get wrong and what a human still checks.
Sometimes the answer is not software
If the fix is a change to the process itself, that is the recommendation you get, even though it is the smaller invoice.
Working with
- PostgreSQL
- Node.js
- .NET
- React Native
- Docker
- REST and EDI
- Claude API
- Local LLM
- OPC UA
- Modbus
- TimescaleDB
- On-premises
Contact
Tell us where the gap is.
Tell us about the process, the systems around it, and the thing you cannot see today. If you are not sure yet what needs fixing, that is a normal place to start. You get an answer from an engineer, usually within a working day.
Write to us- hello@appforgap.com
- Based in
- Czechia, working across the EU
- Languages
- Czech, English