Platform app or standalone product?
At SME scale the answer is usually the platform’s own app. A standalone handheld product keeps its own view of stock and locations, which then has to agree with the platform holding the orders. That reconciliation is permanent overhead, and when the two disagree the argument consumes someone senior every time.
The exception is a large operation with genuine warehouse-execution needs the platform cannot meet, where the integration cost buys capability worth having. If you are not sure which side of that line you are on, the WMS decision covers the triggers.
Check these four workflows individually
Vendors commonly have two or three of these and describe them as a warehouse app. Ask about each one separately and ask to see it.
| Workflow | What to ask | In MaxInvent |
|---|---|---|
| Receiving | Against a purchase order, in multiple batches, with scan evidence? | Yes |
| Put-away | To a specific bin, with scanning assisted or required? | Yes |
| Stock counts | Blind, with the expected quantity hidden and variance recorded by cause? | Yes |
| Pack verification | Does a mismatch block the pack, or only warn? | Blocks |
| Marketplace wave picking | Waves, pick paths, zone routing? | Not in the current release |
Devices: what “installable web app” buys you
An installable web app is added to a device home screen from a browser rather than deployed through an app store. Operationally that means onboarding a new device is a URL and a tap, with no per-device app-store approval or update cycle to manage across a shift’s worth of handhelds.
It also means keyboard-wedge scanners work without a device-specific integration, because they present themselves as a keyboard. Phones cover goods-in, counts and pack verification in most SME warehouses; rugged devices earn their cost in cold stores, dusty environments, high-drop settings and all-day continuous scanning.
The question to press hardest on
Ask what happens in a dead zone, and then test it by walking the actual aisles with the actual device before rollout. This is where vendor answers are vaguest, and the failure mode is not a friendly error message — it is a scan that appeared to work.
Two more worth asking: whether the handheld writes to the same stock record as the orders (if not, you have two records), and whether a supervisor can see who is doing what right now, or only what remains outstanding.