u/ScaryZookeepergame15

I'm a forklift operator, not a developer.

At work we handle something like 115,000 items a month and traceability is basically... paper.

We don't actually have that many errors, which almost makes it worse. When a customer finds one, suddenly everyone is angry, we're going to make procedures, meetings happen, solutions are discussed...

Then nothing happens because the problem doesn't happen again for a while.

Until it does.

A lot of the mistakes don't even come from us. We work from Excel files coming from above, sometimes they're wrong. Sometimes customers desperately need something and take it before it's properly registered. And we can somehow have the same product with 3 or 4 different delivery dates. Sending something too early can actually be a problem too.

So I got annoyed and made a small Android app for our team.

I'm literally a forklift operator who started coding because I wanted to stop sending stupid mistakes to customers.

And... it worked.

People were using it every day. Management saw it working and basically told me:

"Wow, this actually works really well on Android, you should keep working on it."

Then:

"But we'll probably never be able to make it official. IT already has trouble approving an Excel macro."

Fair enough 😂

Then one day a coworker told me my app was useless.

Which was interesting because he was using it every day.

So I thought OK.

I sent an email saying basically: test successful, management has seen that it works, I'm removing the app now.

The next day.

Literally the next day.

Same coworker: "You need to do something, the old system is putting us in the s***."

So anyway, management is still looking for a solution.

Volume has gone up, but customer complaints have gone up even faster.

And we're back to paper and highlighters.

I wish I was joking.

Anyone had something similar happen at work? I'm curious how it ended for you.

I’m a forklift operator and built an offline barcode/QR app. What else could scanning solve?

I’m a forklift operator, not a developer. I just like building small tools for practical problems.

It started because I wanted to scan product barcodes and build a list at work. We only have one computer, from the 2000s, and it isn’t always accessible — while I always have my phone with me.

So I built an Android app that works completely offline.

At first it just collected codes. Then I thought: if I’m already scanning something, why only save the code?

Now it can also check codes against an expected list, record quantities and destinations, display information from Excel/ODS/TXT files, and even let several phones build the same list together over Bluetooth.

Those features came from problems I encounter myself.

Now I’m curious about the problems I don’t encounter:

What simple real-world task — at work, at home, for a hobby, whatever — could be made easier by scanning a barcode or QR code completely offline?

Even stupidly simple ideas are welcome. Those are often the most useful ones.

If you want to try what I built, the Google Play testing links are on my profile.