NocoBase

Posted on Mar 18 • Originally published at nocobase.com

Rapid Development with NocoBase: Driving Digital Transformation in Construction

#opensource #lowcode #nocode #api

Originally published at https://www.nocobase.com/en/blog/rapid-development-with-nocobase.
Author: Youchao Digital

About Youchao Digital

Youchao Digital is a leading innovator in the construction and transportation industry. The company is dedicated to providing smart digital solutions. Its services cater to government regulators, construction firms, contractors, project supervisors, and monitoring agencies.

By integrating BIM, GIS, IoT, and other cutting-edge technologies, Youchao Digital is reshaping the construction landscape. Our mission: to make construction smarter, more efficient, and more sustainable—one innovation at a time.

Accelerating Smart Digital Transformation in Construction

The construction industry is experiencing rapid growth in smart digitalization.As demand for intelligent solutions grows, Youchao Digital has continuously evolved its technology stack.

The company has transitioned from a monolithic architecture to a microservices framework, moved from full-stack C# development to a C#+Angular frontend-backend separation, and ultimately adopted a SpringCloud+Angular architecture.

Youchao Digital has overcome numerous obstacles in product and project development—and continues to tackle new ones.

Challenges Faced

Navigating Unclear User Requirements

Digital adoption in construction lags behind other industries. Many professionals find it challenging to define their digital needs, leaving us to bridge the gap—translating abstract ideas into practical solutions.

This simultaneous design-and-execution approach not only intensifies communication challenges between product and development teams but also adds uncertainty to project delivery.

Moreover, the industry is highly diverse, spanning technical fields such as building construction, bridges, tunnels, electromechanical systems, water services, surveying, and testing. It also includes functional areas like safety, materials management, equipment, business operations, and finance. Each domain has its own specialized terminology, further complicating the digitalization process.

The Pressure of Rapid Delivery

In large-scale infrastructure projects, every milestone is under scrutiny. Digital applications often take center stage, with clients expecting today’s ideas to become tomorrow’s reality—live and operational in record time.

Adding to the pressure, the industry operates on a relentless 7×11 schedule, with no holidays. Late-night remote meetings are common, and all-nighters become unavoidable to meet tight deadlines. In this high-intensity environment, development teams must adopt more efficient strategies to keep pace with the industry's demanding expectations.

Industry Shift and Rising Competition

In recent years, the construction industry has shifted from rapid expansion to a focus on efficiency and quality. Companies are now prioritizing cost-effectiveness and streamlined operations.

At the same time, many firms have established their own digital technology subsidiaries, transforming former partners into direct competitors and intensifying market competition. This evolving landscape pushes us to adopt new technologies that enhance efficiency and reduce costs for project delivery.

Transforming Our Technology with NocoBase

To tackle these challenges, we redefined our technology strategy—cutting costs, boosting efficiency, and sharpening our competitive edge.

Between September and October 2024, we explored key advancements in code generation, modular components, SaaS productization, microservices architecture, and low-code platforms. After evaluating nearly 20 development frameworks across more than 30 criteria, we ultimately chose NocoBase as our technology foundation.

NocoBase’s plugin-based architecture unlocked limitless possibilities for us. While some features required further refinement in the early stages, its flexibility allowed us to rapidly build, adjust, and iterate on functionalities. Additionally, our collaboration with the NocoBase team was truly inspiring—their passion, expertise, and drive deeply motivated our own team and reinforced our confidence in this transformative shift.

Remarkable Progress

After adopting NocoBase, we assembled a dedicated team and quickly immersed ourselves in mastering the new technology stack. Shifting from Java and Angular to Node.js and React was no small feat. But with NocoBase's expert guidance, our team quickly overcame the learning curve, unlocking new efficiencies in the process. In a short time, we not only embraced this new approach but also delivered tangible results, reinforcing our confidence in the platform.

Building a Suite of Custom Plugins

In less than six months, we have developed nearly 10 custom NocoBase plugins, including Data Dictionary and Automatic Encoding. Looking ahead, we plan to standardize and refine these plugins, gradually introducing them to the NocoBase Plugin Marketplace to contribute to the ecosystem’s growth.

At the same time, we are actively exploring ways to enhance NocoBase’s capabilities, expanding plugin functionality and improving adaptability to meet evolving industry needs.

Enhancing Internal Systems with NocoBase

NocoBase is not only the foundation for our client solutions but also the backbone of our internal management system. By implementing hands-on internal projects, we gained deep insights into its features and identified key areas for optimization. Our feedback contributed to several important improvements in the platform.

This has significantly enhanced our internal management efficiency while deepening our understanding of NocoBase’s potential and extensibility.

Record-Breaking Project Delivery in Two Months

Partnering with our client, we developed a railway safety management platform to comply with new safety regulations. In just one week, our team built a fully functional system from scratch, and within two months, we completed full deployment—our fastest project delivery to date.

Completing deployment in just two months showcased NocoBase’s ability to accelerate development while seamlessly adapting to complex industry requirements

Shaping the Future with NocoBase

As our collaboration with NocoBase deepens, we plan to transition our product expertise to the framework, developing standalone plugins and core applications such as IoT cloud platforms, BIM+GIS, digital twins, and digital dashboards. These innovations will streamline development and enhance usability for industry professionals. Moving forward, we will continue refining NocoBase-based solutions, delivering efficient and reusable digital transformation tools tailored for the construction industry.

Our technology journey has been one of continuous evolution—from monolithic architecture to microservices, from full-stack C# development to the NocoBase no-code platform. Looking ahead, we are excited to collaborate with the NocoBase team, driving the future of digital intelligence in construction and equipping our clients with smarter, more efficient solutions.

As NocoBase’s ecosystem grows, we see it becoming a cornerstone of construction’s digital future—powering the next wave of industry innovation and growth.

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