Cisco Chemicals - B2B Manufacturing Platform
B2B procurement and distribution portal for industrial chemicals. Search product catalogs through an intelligent inventory assistant, submit custom bulk quote requests (RFQ), and generate automated commercial invoices.
Executive Summary
The Challenge
Manual quote-to-order bottlenecks, slow multi-tier RFQ approvals, and AI hallucination on complex chemical catalog specifications.
The Solution
Headless PayloadCMS 3.0 on Neon Postgres, RAG-grounded Gemini 2.5 Flash query pipeline, and React-PDF serverless compilation.
Measurable Impact
Under 2s dynamic invoice compilation, grounded catalog accuracy, and fully automated Stripe-to-Resend billing lifecycles.
Technologies
Key Decisions
Why PayloadCMS over traditional headless CMS?
PayloadCMS runs directly inside Next.js without a separate server. Its native TypeScript schema generation and collection-level hooks gave type-safe RBAC and direct database access with zero API latency.
Why RAG for the AI?
LLMs hallucinate. By using Retrieval-Augmented Generation, we forced the AI to only answer using the exact stock data from our database.
Why React PDF?
We needed pixel-perfect, automated invoice generation. React PDF allowed us to build invoices using the same component logic we use for the web.
Retrospective
Hardest Part
Orchestrating the post-purchase webhook lifecycle where Stripe confirms payment, triggers Payload hooks, generates a PDF, and emails the client via Resend.
Biggest Insight
Serverless databases (Neon) are incredible for scaling, but managing connection pooling in serverless functions is critical to prevent cold start timeouts.
Do Differently
I would introduce a queueing system like Upstash/Redis for the email processing to ensure the checkout UI resolves instantly regardless of third-party API delays.
Key Highlights
B2B RFQ System
Complete 'Request for Quote' workflow allowing admins to approve custom prices & quantities.
AI Product Assistant
RAG-based Chatbot using Gemini 2.5 Flash that answers queries based on live inventory data.
Dynamic Invoicing
Automated generation of downloadable PDF invoices with unique transaction IDs post-payment.
Admin Analytics
Visual dashboard using Recharts to track monthly sales, quote conversion rates, and inventory.
Open to opportunities