Streamlining Development, Improving Efficiency & Increasing Revenue for an Amusement Park Leader

Streamlining Development, Improving Efficiency & Increasing Revenue for an Amusement Park Leader

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The Challenge

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Universal Destinations & Experiences (UDX) aimed to tackle two major challenges: 

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• Unify its park mapping experience across mobile and web while maintaining a single, efficient codebase
• Enhancing mobile food and drink ordering in their Universal Studios and Universal Hollywood apps

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Park Mapping
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UDX’s existing map setup required separate development efforts—Angular for web and Flutter for mobile—leading to inefficiencies. To streamline operations, reduce maintenance overhead, and drive engineering scalability, they wanted to integrate a Flutter-based mapping component that could function seamlessly across both environments. 

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There was also a need to align the web team, which was primarily focused on Angular, on the benefits of Flutter as a cross-platform solution. The initiative aimed to demonstrate that Flutter could effectively support both web and mobile, fostering adoption within UDX’s broader engineering organization.

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Mobile Food & Drink Ordering
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UDX aimed to enhance and optimize their existing mobile food and drink ordering (MFDO) functionality as a self-service kiosk in restaurants. With an increasing number of guests relying on digital experiences, UDX needed to improve operational efficiencies by reducing staff dependency during low volume times, and driving additional revenue—all while ensuring seamless integration with existing restaurant point-of-sale (POS) systems.

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With strict deadlines ahead of park openings, Universal needed an efficient, scalable, and cross-platform solution that streamlined operations without creating redundant codebases.

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Our Solution

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Park Mapping
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We partnered with UDX to develop a unified Flutter Map component, designed as a shared mobile and web widget. The approach included:

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• Flutter + Angular Integration: Seamlessly embedding the Flutter Map component within UDX’s existing Angular-based web application, ensuring a consistent experience across platforms.
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• Engineering Scalability: Creating a shared Flutter codebase that serves both mobile and web, reducing the need for separate development efforts and enabling long-term scalability.
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• Proof of Concept (PoC) Implementation: Demonstrating Flutter’s feasibility and performance on the web, showcasing its ability to extend beyond mobile. This successfully built confidence in cross-platform adoption and influenced UDX’s web team to embrace the technology.

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Mobile Food & Drink Ordering
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We refined and expanded the MFDO experience within Universal’s Flutter-based mobile apps. VGV conducted an in-depth code and services audit to assess feature readiness and priority, then nine weeks of iterative build sprints and QA, resulting in:

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• Enhancing the User Experience: Introducing new features that offer guests more information and choice while integrating contextually relevant features to increase engagement and revenue.
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• Kiosk Integration: Rewriting the existing mobile food and drink app into a Flutter-powered kiosk solution, enabling seamless self-service ordering without staff involvement during low-traffic hours and improving overall operational efficiency.
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• Streamlining Systems: Engineering a single-source Flutter codebase running on Windows machines—a first-of-its-kind implementation.
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• Future-State Planning: Delivering a scalable, reusable solution, reducing overhead for additional expansions.

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The Impact 

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Park Mapping
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With VGV’s unified map component, we increased efficiencies while streamlining digital experiences, providing: 

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• Engineering Efficiency: Reduced code duplication, enabling a single codebase for both web and mobile mapping experiences.
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• Cross-Team Alignment: Successfully demonstrated Flutter’s web capabilities, leading to increased buy-in from UDX’s web engineering team. 
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• Long-Term Scalability: Provided a foundation for future cross-platform development, reducing operational complexity and increasing flexibility.

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"VGV is very adaptable. They do things we don't even ask. Their team says 'Here is some value we can provide, can we do this?' and it's great."  – Mikal Wessel, Director of Global Product Management, UDX

Mobile Food & Drink Ordering
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By optimizing mobile food and drink ordering, we not only streamlined operations within Universal Studios parks, but also enhanced the guest experience. This includes:

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• Improved Operational Efficiency: Streamlined kiosk operations and reduced overhead with one scalable codebase.
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• Enhanced Guest Experience: Provided a seamless, user-friendly mobile ordering process.
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• Increased Mobile Engagement & Revenue: Drove higher adoption of Universal’s mobile apps and boosting in-app transactions.
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• Successful On-Time Delivery: Met critical deadlines for all projects, ensuring a successful launch on a very tight timeline.

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“Love the stuff you guys are doing. Your contributions and general vibe, the energy and new thought processes to the team—it’s really, really helpful. It’s been very encouraging.” – Lawrence Wisne, Director of Mobile Solutions Engineering & Operations, UDX

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