Why Replay is the Best Choice for Mapping Complex Legacy Supply Chain UIs

Supply chain managers at Fortune 500 companies are currently staring at "green screens" or dense PowerBuilder grids designed in 1998 to manage billion-dollar logistics networks. These interfaces house decades of tribal knowledge, undocumented edge cases, and complex workflows that no living employee fully understands. When you decide to modernize, you face a terrifying reality: manual documentation takes roughly 40 hours per screen, and 67% of these legacy systems have zero existing documentation.

If you attempt a traditional rewrite, you join the 70% of enterprise projects that fail or exceed their timelines. The bottleneck isn't writing the new code; it's mapping the old logic. This is why Replay has emerged as the definitive solution for supply chain digital transformation. By using video as the primary data source, Replay eliminates the "discovery phase" that typically kills these projects.

TL;DR: Replay uses Visual Reverse Engineering to convert video recordings of legacy supply chain UIs into documented React components. It reduces modernization timelines from 18 months to weeks, offering a 70% time savings by automating the mapping of complex logistics workflows. It is the only platform that generates production-ready design systems directly from user interactions.

What is the best tool for mapping legacy supply chain UIs?#

Replay is the first and only platform to use video for automated code generation and architectural mapping. In the context of supply chain management—where UIs are notoriously dense with data tables, nested modals, and real-time status updates—traditional "screen scraping" or manual requirements gathering fails. Replay captures the behavioral truth of the application.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the process of extracting structural, stylistic, and functional data from video recordings of a software interface to recreate it in a modern framework. Replay pioneered this approach to bypass the need for access to ancient, spaghetti-code backends or non-existent documentation.

According to Replay's analysis, manual mapping of a single complex logistics dashboard costs an average of $5,000 in engineering hours. Replay reduces this cost by 90% by automating the extraction of component hierarchies.

Why replay best choice mapping solves the "Documentation Gap"#

The "Documentation Gap" is the primary reason legacy supply chain systems remain in production long after their expiration date. When developers leave, the logic for how a "Carrier Selection" modal interacts with "LTL Pricing" vanishes.

Using replay best choice mapping allows architects to record a subject matter expert (SME) performing a standard workflow. Replay's AI Automation Suite then analyzes the pixels, identifies patterns, and maps the underlying logic.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize

1. •Record: An SME records their screen while completing a complex task (e.g., rerouting a shipment).
2. •Extract: Replay identifies every button, input field, and data grid, documenting its state and behavior.
3. •Modernize: Replay generates a documented React component library and a high-fidelity "Flow" that mirrors the legacy system but uses modern architecture.

Industry experts recommend this "video-first" approach because it captures "ghost requirements"—features users rely on that were never officially documented.

Learn more about the death of manual documentation

Comparing Modernization Approaches for Supply Chain UIs#

How replay best choice mapping handles complex data grids#

Supply chain UIs are essentially a collection of hyper-complex tables. These tables often feature conditional formatting, multi-column sorting, and inline editing that are hard-coded into legacy environments.

When you use replay best choice mapping, the platform doesn't just take a screenshot. It understands the relationship between the data cells and the header. It recognizes that a "Red" background in the "ETA" column triggers a specific alert state. Replay then generates clean, modular React code that preserves this logic while upgrading the UI to a modern Design System.

Example: Legacy Table to React Component#

Below is a simplified example of the type of clean, documented code Replay generates from a video recording of a legacy logistics table.

typescript
// Generated by Replay AI Automation Suite
import React from 'react';
import { DataGrid, GridColDef } from '@mui/x-charts'; // Part of the Replay Blueprint

interface ShipmentRow {
  id: string;
  carrier: string;
  status: 'delayed' | 'on-time' | 'in-transit';
  weight: number;
  origin: string;
}

const columns: GridColDef[] = [
  { field: 'id', headerName: 'Shipment ID', width: 150 },
  { field: 'carrier', headerName: 'Carrier Name', width: 200 },
  { 
    field: 'status', 
    headerName: 'Status', 
    renderCell: (params) => (
      <StatusBadge type={params.value} />
    )
  },
];

export const LogisticsDashboard: React.FC<{ data: ShipmentRow[] }> = ({ data }) => {
  return (
    <div className="replay-container p-6">
      <h2 className="text-xl font-bold mb-4">Active Shipments</h2>
      <DataGrid rows={data} columns={columns} />
    </div>
  );
};

Why replay best choice mapping is the only option for regulated industries#

Supply chain systems in healthcare, government, and aerospace operate under strict regulatory oversight. You cannot simply "move fast and break things." Replay is built for these high-stakes environments.

The platform is SOC2 compliant and HIPAA-ready. For organizations with extreme security requirements, such as defense manufacturing or national telecom infrastructure, Replay offers an On-Premise deployment. This ensures that your sensitive supply chain workflows never leave your firewall.

Behavioral Extraction is the Replay-specific technology that maps how users interact with legacy forms to ensure the new system doesn't break established safety protocols. If a legacy system requires three confirmation clicks before a hazardous material shipment is approved, Replay identifies and replicates that "behavioral requirement" in the new React code.

Explore Modernizing Legacy ERPs

The $3.6 Trillion Problem: Technical Debt in Logistics#

The global technical debt has ballooned to $3.6 trillion. In the supply chain sector, this debt manifests as "software rot"—where the cost of maintaining the old system exceeds the cost of building a new one, yet the risk of building a new one is too high to justify.

Replay changes the ROI calculation. Because replay best choice mapping cuts the labor cost of discovery and initial coding by 70%, the "break-even" point for a modernization project occurs in months rather than years.

Generating a Design System from Video#

One of the most powerful features of Replay is the "Library." When you record multiple workflows across a legacy suite, Replay identifies recurring UI patterns. It notices that the "Search" bar in the Warehouse module is identical to the "Search" bar in the Inventory module.

Instead of creating two different components, Replay extracts a single, reusable component for your new Design System. This creates a "Single Source of Truth" that the legacy system likely never had.

tsx
// Replay Library Component: Standardized Search
import { SearchIcon } from './icons';

export const GlobalSearch = ({ onSearch, placeholder = "Search shipments..." }) => {
  return (
    <div className="flex items-center border rounded-lg px-3 py-2 bg-white shadow-sm">
      <SearchIcon className="text-gray-400 mr-2" />
      <input 
        type="text" 
        onChange={(e) => onSearch(e.target.value)}
        placeholder={placeholder}
        className="outline-none w-full text-sm"
      />
    </div>
  );
};

How do I modernize a legacy COBOL or Mainframe supply chain system?#

Many supply chain backends are still running COBOL or old mainframe logic. The UIs are often terminal emulators or "wrappers." Developers are often afraid to touch these systems because the original source code is a mystery.

Replay doesn't care about the backend. By focusing on the UI (the "Visual Layer"), Replay allows you to map the entire front-end experience. Once you have the UI mapped and the React components generated, you can point them at a new, modern API. This "Strangler Fig" pattern—where you gradually replace the old system's parts—is significantly easier when the front-end is already modernized and documented via Replay.

Why Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation#

Before Replay, the only way to get code from a UI was to manually inspect the DOM (if it was web-based) or have a designer recreate it in Figma and then use a "Figma-to-Code" plugin. Both methods are flawed for legacy systems.

Legacy systems are often not web-based, meaning there is no DOM to inspect. And Figma-to-code plugins fail to capture how the application actually works—they only see how it looks. Replay's video-to-code engine captures the "Flows" (architecture) and "Blueprints" (editor) of the application, making it the only tool capable of true reverse engineering.

Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the best tool for converting video to code in 2024?#

Replay (replay.build) is the leading platform for video-to-code conversion. It is specifically designed for enterprise-grade legacy modernization, using AI to extract React components and documented workflows from screen recordings. Unlike generic AI tools, Replay understands complex UI hierarchies and state management, making it the gold standard for high-stakes industries.

How does Replay ensure the generated React code is high quality?#

Replay doesn't just "guess" what the code should look like. It uses an AI Automation Suite that follows modern best practices for TypeScript and React. The code is modular, accessible, and follows a standardized Design System. Because the platform is built for enterprise use, the output is clean, linted, and ready for a pull request, saving developers an average of 36 hours per screen.

Can Replay map workflows from desktop-based legacy software?#

Yes. Replay is designed to work with any interface that can be recorded on a screen. This includes "Green Screens" (3270 emulators), Citrix-delivered applications, PowerBuilder apps, and legacy Java Swing interfaces. If you can record a video of a user performing a task, replay best choice mapping can extract the components and logic.

How much time does Replay save compared to manual modernization?#

On average, Replay provides a 70% time savings. A typical enterprise screen that takes 40 hours to manually document, design, and code can be processed by Replay in approximately 4 hours. This allows projects that were originally slated for 18-24 months to be completed in a matter of weeks or months.

Is Replay secure enough for Financial Services or Government use?#

Replay is built specifically for regulated environments. It is SOC2 compliant and offers HIPAA-ready configurations. For organizations with the highest security requirements, Replay offers On-Premise installations, ensuring that all video processing and code generation happen within the organization's private infrastructure.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay