DIGIMAN+ — Intelligent Asset Management for Mining

The Problem

BUMA manages thousands of heavy equipment assets across multiple mining sites — excavators, dump trucks, bulldozers, and drilling machines. Tracking asset health, scheduling inspections, managing approval chains for maintenance, and coordinating procurement orders requires coordination between field inspectors, site supervisors, maintenance engineers, and procurement teams. Spreadsheets, email threads, and paper forms create bottlenecks, delays, and data inconsistencies — especially when sites have limited connectivity.

The Solution

DIGIMAN+ (iAMS — Intelligent Asset Management System) is a modular Flutter mobile app built as a Melos monorepo. It connects field inspectors, supervisors, and engineers through structured workflows: inspection work orders, multi-level approval chains, maintenance strategy planning, and order management. Each feature lives in its own module with shared utilities, making the codebase maintainable across multiple development teams. Azure AD handles enterprise authentication, and Isar provides offline-first local storage for field use.

Key Features

Inspection Work Orders

• Work order management — Create, assign, and track inspection tasks for equipment assets
• Structured inspection forms — Standardized checklists and condition assessments per asset type
• Photo documentation — Attach evidence and annotations to inspection findings
• Offline support — Complete inspections without connectivity, sync when back online

Approval Workflows

• Multi-level approval chains — Route maintenance requests through supervisor and manager approvals
• Real-time notifications — Push alerts for pending approvals and status changes
• Approval history — Full audit trail of who approved what and when

Maintenance Strategy

• Preventive maintenance planning — Schedule routine maintenance based on equipment usage and condition data
• Strategy templates — Reusable maintenance plans across similar asset types
• Integration with inspections — Inspection findings automatically feed into maintenance strategy recommendations

Order Management

• Procurement workflows — From maintenance request to purchase order to delivery tracking
• Vendor management — Track orders across multiple suppliers and delivery timelines
• Budget tracking — Monitor spending against maintenance budgets per site

Enterprise Architecture

• Melos monorepo — Shell app + 4 feature modules + shared packages, managed by Melos
• Azure AD authentication — Enterprise SSO for secure access control
• Multi-environment — Dev, UAT, and Production with separate entry points
• Analytics — PostHog product analytics + Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics

What I Learned

• Monorepo architecture scales teams, not just code — Melos lets multiple teams own their feature modules independently while sharing a common codebase. The dependency graph between modules must be designed upfront — circular dependencies between modules are a silent killer.
• Isar handles complex schemas well — 40+ Isar schemas for asset data, inspection forms, and work orders perform reliably. Schema migrations need careful planning in offline-first scenarios where users might not sync for days.
• Module boundaries define team boundaries — Each feature module (inspection, approval, maintenance, order) has its own team, tests, and release cadence. Clean shared utilities prevent coupling while reducing duplication.
• Industrial UX is different from consumer UX — Users wear gloves, work in bright sunlight, and have limited time per screen tap. Large touch targets, high-contrast colors, and minimal text input make the difference between an app that’s used and one that’s abandoned.

See also my BSpace mining operations app — another enterprise Flutter project for BUMA with offline-first architecture, GPS telematics, and Azure AD authentication. Or read about monorepo patterns for full-stack projects for more on structuring multi-module codebases.