# Slipway > Wisdom Engineers' own product, not client work. A crewing app we built for a retained fire station: live 13 days after the prototype review, all 11 serving members signed up, database in Ireland. Slipway: Live 13 days after the prototype review, with all 11 serving members signed up. Slipway is our own product. It is a crewing app for retained firefighters. One station's crew use it free, as our way of giving back to the community the station serves. Before Slipway, the crew worked from a WhatsApp group, a wall planner and memory, alongside the official availability system. All 11 serving members have claimed an account. It went live 13 days after the prototype review. Read on for what we built, what it measured and what it means for your business. ## Problem What needed solving. Slipway is a crewing app for retained firefighters. Members book on or off against the station's week-on, week-off rota from their phones. Members can also ask a colleague to cover part of a rostered week. Before Slipway, the crew worked from a WhatsApp group, a wall planner and memory, alongside the official availability system. ## Constraints The limits the work had to fit. Slipway's design rules are not negotiable, because breaking any one would be an adoption failure, not a missing feature. Four of them: - **No signal.** It works with no signal: it writes on the phone and syncs later. - **No re-authentication.** It never asks a member to sign in again. - **Everyone sees the crew.** Live crew state is visible to every member, not only the officer. - **No rankings and no location.** It never ranks members by availability, and it never tracks location in the background. ## What we built What we built, and how. Release 1.0.0 went live on 5 September 2026. As of 15 October 2026, Slipway does this: - **Booking from the phone, offline.** A member signs in, claims their row and books on or off against the week-on, week-off rota, with or without signal. - **Cover without swaps.** A member can ask for cover over part of their rostered week, and a colleague can take it. Nobody has to give anything back. - **On the home screen, with no signal.** It installs to a home screen and opens with no signal. - **A warning when the appliance is short.** It sends a push notification when the appliance is short. - **Sick reasons kept private.** A certified-sick reason is visible only to the member and the station's administrators. The database enforces that rule itself, and the sync service, which keeps each phone's copy up to date, applies the same rule. - **Database in Ireland.** Its database runs on Supabase, in the Ireland region of Amazon Web Services. - **Checks on every push.** Every push to its main branch runs the full test suite, a type check and a scan of the whole history for leaked passwords and keys. ## What it measured What we tracked, and what it showed. Slipway went live on 5 September 2026, 13 days after the prototype review on 23 August 2026. It shipped 76 releases between 29 July and 6 October 2026. A test is a small program that checks one thing the app should do. At release 1.0.0, Slipway had 1,439 tests in 79 test files, all passing. On 15 October 2026 it had 2,136 tests in 129 test files, all passing. All 11 serving members of the crew have claimed an account, measured on 7 October 2026. Between 10 September and 7 October 2026, the app recorded 30 requests for cover and 12 acceptances. The whole station has used Slipway since its release on 5 September 2026 (self-reported). ## What this means for you ### Working software, fast Slipway went live 13 days after the prototype review. Piotr Gospodarczyk, one of our two founders, wrote all of its code and shipped 76 releases. ### The whole crew signed up All 11 serving members claimed an account. From 10 September to 7 October 2026, the app recorded 30 requests for cover and 12 acceptances. ### Data handled with care Its database runs in Ireland. A certified-sick reason is visible only to the member and the station's administrators. Every push to its main branch runs a scan for leaked passwords and keys. ## What we handed over What was left in place at the end. Piotr Gospodarczyk is a retained firefighter at the station. Wisdom Engineers built Slipway, and as of 10 October 2026 the station's crew use it at no charge (self-reported). Slipway is our way of giving back to the community the station serves. Slipway is not the official record of availability. The station reads its own changelog in plain words, separate from the maintainer's. An automated check fails when the two do not name the same releases. A written guide to installing the app on a handset is what somebody carries to the station on install night. If order entry and invoicing eat hours in your business, [AI Automation and Agents](https://wisdomengineers.ie/services/ai-automation/) automates one defined workflow end to end. Do your staff paste company data into ChatGPT without training or an agreed policy? The [AI Literacy Workshop](https://wisdomengineers.ie/services/ai-training/) covers safe use with company data and drafts an AI use policy. If you need a new product built, [Product and MVP Development](https://wisdomengineers.ie/services/product-development/) runs from first commit to first paying user, with weekly demos. ## Where to start Two ways in. Pick whichever suits you. ### Talk to a founder. Tell us what's eating your week. You leave with an honest answer on whether we can help, and where we would start. No preparation needed. [Book a free 30-minute call (opens Google Calendar)](https://calendar.app.google/68i8SZpvW5XfCv2n6) ### Prefer to write? Tell us the problem in your own words: what takes the time, who it affects and what you have tried so far. A founder will reply within 24 hours. [Write to us](https://wisdomengineers.ie/contact/)