Sector · Construction & installation

App development for construction. For the building site and the office.

We build apps that work where construction work happens: on a wet building site without signal, in an installer's van, in a Revit working environment for a BIM coordinator and in a contractor's office. A tailored flow per discipline, integrations with 2BA and BIM 360, and compliance with Wkb, VCA and GDPR.

DisciplineContractors

DisciplineInstallers (electrical & plumbing)

DisciplineProperty developers

DisciplineBIM firms & architects

Arrange an introductory call View a construction app case

The Dutch construction sector in figures.

~80.000

Construction and installation companies

~500.000

Workers in the construction chain

100%

Under Wkb supervision since 2024

68%

Companies lagging in digitalisation

Source: CBS Construction 2024, Bouwend Nederland digitalisation monitor, ILT Wkb reporting.

Off-the-shelf software doesn't fit how construction works.

On a construction site, conditions change by the hour. Signal drops out in the basement, a concrete lorry driver needs to know exactly where to unload at half five in the morning, a site manager takes photo reports on a wet morning with gloves on, and an inspector walks through six flats with a tablet on Friday afternoon to record the handover. A generic package was never designed for that.

Contractors need a site app that works offline and links V&G and RI&E to the instructions. Installers in E&W want a field service app with time registration, material booking and route planning between jobs. Property developers want a client portal where buyers can follow the handover. BIM firms and architects want a mobile BIM viewer that shows an IFC model on site.

The common thread: no off-the-shelf package does all of this in one integrated system, the way your company works. A custom app solves it. Sprint by sprint, we build the flow your site managers, fitters and project leaders recognise, and connect it to the existing ERP, planning or BIM environment you don't want to replace.

What we hear most often from construction firms: three to five SaaS tools already sit side by side, nobody fills them in consistently, and a shadow administration grows in WhatsApp groups and Excel files. Everyone knows it's awkward, but nobody has time to change it. A custom app doesn't help by adding yet another tool, but by building one app that sits so close to how your people already work that they switch over naturally. That's not a design claim, it's a design discipline: in the first sprint, someone from our team joins you on site to see how things really run.

There's also something else at play: construction has a labour shortage. Ten per cent fewer people doing the same work means productivity per hour has to rise. That won't happen through working harder; it only happens with better tools. An app that saves a site manager half an hour a day on admin, across 200 working days, is a hundred hours per person per year. Multiply that by your whole field team and the business case stacks up.

Apps that fit every role in the construction chain.

A dedicated app or module per discipline, with its own integrations and compliance requirements. Here's what we typically build for contractors, installers, developers and BIM consultancies.

Contractors: site and handover

A site app is where all the traffic comes together. The concrete lorry driver who reports at quarter past six that he'll arrive in ten minutes. The site manager who opens the working day with a VCA briefing. The carpenter who photographs a damage item and attaches it to the right work order. We build that flow so the work happens within a single app: briefings, delivery check-in, H&S reports, photo reports, and a punch list that is ticked off with the client during handover.

The difference from a SaaS tool: the app runs offline on a phone without signal, syncs as soon as coverage returns, and connects to your own ERP, so a timesheet entry or materials order lands straight in your administration. To see what this looks like for fitters and site managers who work out of the van, take a look at how we build field service apps.

On delivery, you need to be able to show which declaration of performance belongs to which delivered product. There is a separate page about the declaration of performance app for the construction site.

Site briefing & H&SDaily start with VCA toolbox talks, risk assessment reports straight from the phone.
Driver briefings & delivery checkAccess route, unloading point and photo confirmation for every delivery.
Punch list & handoverA room-by-room list of outstanding items, with photos and the client's signature.
Photo reporting with locationDamage, progress or snagging items with GPS and automatic work order linking.
Offline-first syncKeeps working when signal drops; uploads are queued and sent automatically.

What we typically build for installers, developers and BIM practices.

The three disciplines from the tabs above, with the modules tailored to each role. Not a generic "also for installers", but specifically which flows, which integrations and which compliance requirements apply to you.

Installers · M&E

Field engineer as the main user

An installer lives in their van. Between eight and six they are at five to eight addresses. Our installer apps are designed around that rhythm. Each morning the engineer opens their route, sees what they need to do that day, gets the materials list per job, and can close off a work order with the client's signature afterwards without ever having to phone the office.

The material integration runs via 2BA and ETIM so an order lands directly in the wholesaler's order pool. Time registration writes back to your ERP (AFAS, Exact, Navision). For a more detailed explanation of the flow, see the field service app page.

Daily route planning, with traffic updates
Materials booking via 2BA and wholesaler API
Work order with the client's digital signature
Installation photo inspection (before + after)
Maintenance reporting for V-keur and SEI

Property developers

Client portal as a product layer on a project

A property developer does not hand over a home to an experienced construction professional, but to a buyer who may be buying a house only once in their life. That calls for a portal that avoids jargon, catches mistakes easily and streamlines communication between buyers and the project management team. We build those portals from the buyer's perspective.

Under the bonnet it is thoroughly professional: additional-works choices are booked straight into the developer's cost-calculation flow, construction-phase photos are uploaded from the site app, and the handover file is passed to the Wkb quality assessor through the same data pipeline.

Personal buyer dashboard with phase status
Additional-works choices with prices and deadlines
Construction photos and build blog per project
Handover calendar with appointment slots
One-to-one chat with the project manager

BIM practices & architects

BIM mobile: the model on site

A BIM coordinator works in Revit or ArchiCAD, and an architect in the same stack, but on site you want to view that model on a tablet, filtered to the discipline relevant at that moment. We build mobile viewers that partition an IFC export locally, so a site manager can switch on the services layer above the structure without the whole tablet grinding to a halt.

BCF issue management connects to BIMcollab or Solibri, and for on-site overlay we use ARKit (iOS) and ARCore (Android). The full BIM stack is explained on the BIM software page.

IFC viewer with local model cache (offline)
Discipline filters: structure, M&E, fit-out
BCF integration with BIMcollab and Solibri
ARKit / ARCore overlay on site
Revit and ArchiCAD export automation

What our construction apps run on.

The tech stack behind a construction app differs from an ordinary consumer app. Two things are crucial: it has to work offline on a phone with no signal in a basement corridor, and it has to render heavy models (IFC, photo batches, video reports) quickly on hardware that lives in the site van.

Mobile

Native iOS & Android

Swift and Kotlin for the most demanding workflows. Native for offline storage, camera access and GPS reliability on site.

Cross-platform

Flutter

For lighter apps where the same flow has to run on iOS and Android. Quicker to build, and the codebase stays single.

BIM rendering

IFC.js & xeokit

Open-source IFC renderers we have tested on tablet hardware. Local partitioning keeps heavy models workable.

On-site AR

ARKit & ARCore

For overlaying a Revit model on top of a real building shell on site — not as a gimmick, but for measurements and checks.

Backend

Node.js / .NET / Python

We choose per project — followed by PostgreSQL or MS SQL, depending on the client's existing IT environment.

Sync layer

Offline-first databases

Realm, WatermelonDB or CouchDB sync. Local write actions with conflict resolution on the server.

Hosting

Azure / AWS / on-prem

Most construction firms already have a cloud strategy. We connect to what is in place, rather than starting over.

Security

SSO & encryption

SSO via Azure AD / Google Workspace, data encryption at rest, and audit logs per user and per action.

Built within the rules of construction.

Compliance is not an afterthought. From the first sprint, we work within the framework of the Wkb, Arbo Act, GDPR and the relevant sector standards.

Housing Quality Assurance Act (Wkb)

File for the quality assurer

Mandatory since 2024 for consequence class 1: submitting the handover file to the quality assurer. We build capture flows so that photo evidence, material certificates and test reports automatically end up in the file, without the site manager spending an extra hour on it in the evening.

Working Conditions Act & VCA

Health and safety on site

On a VCA site, a worker may only start work after mandatory toolbox talks and instruction. We build a daily start flow with instruction confirmation, RI&E reporting and incident registration that automatically updates the occupational health administration.

GDPR & client portals

Personal data of buyers and tenants

For client portals used by property developers or housing associations, the privacy layer is built into the design from the outset. Consent, purpose limitation and retention periods are documented in a DPIA that you can hand over to the DPO.

WAS (Working on Railway Safety)

Safety management for rail projects

For contractors working for ProRail or a railway contractor: WAS procedures, task risk analyses and safety blocks in the site app, with an audit log per department.

BENG & MPG

Energy performance and environmental performance

When integrating with material databases (NMD, 2BA), we include the MPG properties and BENG indicators, so that a developer or architect can immediately see the effect of a material choice on the performance requirement.

Seamlessly connected to the construction ecosystem.

We connect to the software you already use: your ERP package, BIM environment, materials databases, planning tool and client portal. No migration of your entire stack, the app complements it rather than replacing it.

2BA

Product data for the installation sector

ETIM

Classification standard

STABU

Construction specification classification

GS1

Article identification

BIM 360 / ACC

Autodesk Construction Cloud

Solibri

IFC model checking

BIMcollab

BCF issue management

Revit / ArchiCAD

BIM authoring

Standard integrations, not one-off integrations.

We have standardised the integrations above across multiple construction projects. For a new engagement we set up the integration on the same abstraction layer, which means fewer bugs, a shorter lead time, and your IT team can manage it themselves once we step away. For BIM-specific flows, such as an IFC viewer running on a tablet, syncing BCF comments with BIMcollab, or an ARKit overlay of the Revit model on top of the real shell, we have separate BIM software recipes.

For specific construction software (your own middleware on a legacy AS/400, Navision integrations, or a customised version of AFAS Profit), we build case by case. This takes extra time in the planning phase but prevents integration debt later. For production overlap with machine builders and industrial manufacturers, we have a dedicated manufacturing track.

From site visit to go-live in clear steps.

An implementation project for a construction firm has its own rhythm. Five phases that we follow in the same order for every assignment.

01 · Site visit

Site mapping

A day on an active construction site, with a site manager and a planning engineer as your guides. Result: current workflows mapped, bottlenecks highlighted, blackspots and coverage issues noted.

02 · Design

Scope per role

Per discipline, which workflow goes into the app, which integrations take priority, and which processes will stay as they are for now.

03 · Build

Two-week sprints

One working workflow delivered every sprint. Site managers and fitters test along as you go, on the site where the real work happens, not just in a demo environment.

04 · Cutover

Phased rollout

First one project or branch, then the next. With each rollout: toolbox training on site, a short video walkthrough and a handover to your planning engineer and IT coordinator.

05 · Maintenance

Ongoing

We adapt with every OS update, legislative change (such as amendments to the Housing Act or new Working Conditions guidelines) and BIM library update. Fixed monthly price, first-line support on working days.

Work for the construction sector.

Contractor · Commercial construction

Site app with safety checks and deliveries check

Offline-first iOS and Android app for site managers, with a daily start, H&S risk assessment reports, driver instructions and photo reporting linked to your ERP.

−42%

failure costs per project

9 branches

running on a single codebase

Installer · Electrical & plumbing

Field service app for fitters

Hours registration, route planning, material booking via 2BA, and job completion with customer signature on the phone.

−68%

paper job sheets

140 fitters

active in the app

Property developer · Residential construction

Customer portal for buyers

A "my home" portal for 380 buyers, with an extra-work options list, construction photos, a handover calendar and direct communication with the project manager.

−55%

buyer emails per week

2 projects

live on the same basis

Trusted across construction and installation.

Bouwend Nederland Digitalisation Monitor 2024

"The biggest time savings for construction firms lie in custom apps that connect site managers, fitters and the office in one chain, not in separate SaaS tools for every subtask."

Cobouw, spring 2025

"The combination of offline-first site apps and mobile BIM is, for mid-sized contractors, the difference between keeping up and falling behind the larger players."

Customer review, Hendriks Bouwgroep

"The app cut our failure costs on handovers by almost half. The difference was working offline on site and the direct link with our ERP."

Answers for the construction industry going digital.

The questions we hear most often from management, planning engineers and IT coordinators.

Does the app still work when there's no signal on site?

Yes, that is a hard design requirement. Our construction apps are offline-first: all input is stored locally and synchronised as soon as the phone regains signal. For inputs that genuinely need to be real-time (a driver arriving on site), we use fallback flows via SMS or a lightweight Bluetooth beacon on the site cabin where possible.

How do you handle BIM models on a tablet?

An IFC model is impractical on a phone, but on a tablet it works well if you partition the model smartly locally and load only the relevant layer. We work with IFC exports from Revit and ArchiCAD, and integrate with BIMcollab or Solibri for issue tracking. For on-site overlay (AR) we use ARKit and ARCore. For a more detailed explanation of the BIM stack, see our BIM software page.

We run on AFAS / Navision / Exact. Do we have to move away from that?

No. In almost all cases the ERP is the source of truth, and that is what we want to connect to. We build the app as a layer on top of what you already have: project and cost structure from your ERP, hours booked back, and material orders via 2BA linked to your creditors. An ERP migration is a separate project that we do not include in this scope.

What do you do about Wkb file documentation?

Since 2024, you must hand over a completion dossier to the quality assessor for consequence class 1. We build it so that inputs from the site (photo evidence, material certificates, test reports) go straight into the correct chapter of the dossier, complete with metadata and signatures. By the end of the project, the dossier is ready — no evenings spent catching up at the office.

We work for housing associations. Does that suit you too?

Yes. For property maintenance and tenancy changes we have a separate track that overlaps with housing association software. That covers the tenant portal, the change-of-tenancy flow, and integrations with housing association ERPs (NCCW, Aareon Tobias-AX). The construction app connects to that, so contractors and in-house maintenance work in the same flow.

Who pays for the 2BA, BIM 360 or Autodesk licence?

Those subscriptions run through your company. We do not have a retainer or pass-through charges. We do advise which licence model suits your volume (per user, per project, or via a reseller), and we help with the connection application or API access.

How much does a construction app cost?

An MVP for a single role (for example, field engineers only, or handover snag lists only) is a more compact project. A connected app that combines the site, the office, a client portal and BIM is a larger project, depending on scope, integrations and compliance requirements. We work with a fixed sprint budget and provide a concrete price for the full build after the planning phase. An introductory conversation is always no-obligation.

How do you ensure site managers and engineers embrace the app?

Sprint 1 always includes a site session with site managers and engineers. Their input shapes the workflow — not the management or the planning engineer. At handover, we hold a toolbox talk on site and provide short videos for each screen. We find that projects where people in the field take part from the start are fully running on the app within a few sprints.

Ready to future-proof your construction firm?

A half-hour introductory conversation with a site manager, planning engineer or director. We listen, ask questions and suggest a first direction. No obligation, on site or online.

Schedule an introductory call Email fabian.vandijk@appfront.nl