Feed Plant Data Synchronizer

The Buschhoff feed mixing system stores all production data in a local database on the workstation at the line. Data — recipes, mixing batches, components, audit trails — was inaccessible outside the production floor. An additional challenge was the German software data formats: decimal numbers with commas (50,0), dates in dd.MM.yyyy format, and timestamps in non-standard notation. All of this needed normalization and transfer to a central PostgreSQL database while maintaining referential integrity across tables and supporting multiple production plants.

I designed a Python application with three operating modes: a system tray icon for daily monitoring, a CLI interface for diagnostics, and a background service mode for automated synchronization. The application synchronizes 44 tables, mapping foreign key relationships (e.g., mixing batches → components) and normalizing German number and date formats to ISO standards. The multi-plant architecture allows multiple Buschhoff installations to share a single PostgreSQL database, separating data by plant identifier.