Building FrontSigns: Automating Crew Scheduling for Sign Installation Operations

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Company profile

FrontSigns is a US-based company specializing in manufacturing and installation of commercial signage. Their operations depend on coordinating installation jobs across multiple locations, installers, and vehicles, often within tight schedules and client availability windows.

As the company scaled, the manual operational complexity of scheduling installations became a growing bottleneck.

The challenge

Before working with Flexy, FrontSigns managed all installation scheduling manually using Trello. Each new job required an operator to review incoming tickets, assess installer availability, consider locations and timing, and manually assign work.

This process created several business risks:

• Scheduling decisions depended entirely on one operator’s judgment
• Travel inefficiencies led to wasted time and higher operational costs
• No structured way to evaluate scheduling options before committing
• Trello worked as a task list, but not as a decision-support system

As the number of installers and jobs increased, this approach became increasingly fragile and difficult to scale.

The challenge wasn’t replacing Trello. It was adding structure, visibility, and decision support on top of an existing workflow without breaking it.

Solution

Flexy built a custom scheduling platform that integrates directly with FrontSigns’ existing Trello-based workflow, introducing structure and optimization without forcing the team to abandon familiar tools.

Instead of manual, intuition-driven scheduling, the platform creates a clear operational layer where decisions can be evaluated, adjusted, tracked, and synchronized.

“Working with Flexy felt like adding an experienced product and engineering team overnight. They asked the right questions early, executed cleanly, and stayed accountable until the system worked end to end.”

— Gevorg Hambardzumyan, CEO, FrontSigns

Flexy’s Approach

We treated FrontSigns as an operational systems problem, not a UI exercise. The goal was to support better scheduling decisions while keeping the operator in control.

Research (operational mapping)
Flexy started by mapping how scheduling actually worked day to day: who created Trello tickets, how time slots were chosen, what constraints mattered most, and where delays and rework happened.

Design (system structure + flows)

Next came the system blueprint. Trello stayed the source of incoming jobs, while the platform became the scheduling layer that makes availability, timing, and assignment options visible before a decision is made.

Development (build + integration)

Flexy then implemented the platform and Trello sync so scheduled updates stay consistent across both systems. Instead of “auto-deciding,” the platform presents viable options, supports adjustments and re-evaluation as conditions change, and pushes updates back to Trello to keep operations aligned.

Deliverables

Flexy delivered a custom-built scheduling platform focused on operational clarity and scalability:

• A custom platform synced with Trello for job intake and updates
• Structured scheduling views showing available time slots and installers
• Decision-support logic for evaluating assignment options
• Status tracking across scheduled jobs
• Two-way synchronization to keep Trello tickets up to date

This ensured automation where it adds value, without removing human oversight.

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The results

The platform turns scheduling into a lighter, more repeatable operation. Instead of hours spent coordinating assignments and keeping Trello accurate, teams work from a clearer schedule and spend less time on admin overhead. The result is more time returned to operations and more predictable execution as job volume grows.

• About 62% weekly time reduction (15–25 hours/week) on scheduling and Trello coordination
• About $18k–$42k/year in operating cost efficiency (based on typical US scheduling/operator compensation)
• About 1.7–5.0 hours/day of installer capacity regained across about 10 installers (less downtime from coordination and reshuffling)

We’re grateful to the FrontSigns team for their trust and collaboration throughout this project. Their openness and operational insight helped shape a solution grounded in real-world needs, and Flexy remains committed to delivering this same level of rigor, reliability, and partnership for every company it works with moving forward.