[ In short ]
Lunarion Labs helps Houston companies in energy, healthcare, shipping, engineering and construction modernize and secure the software they depend on. We take over legacy and abandoned systems, build business software and SaaS, ship field apps for iOS and Android, add AI agents and automation, and improve search visibility. We work remotely, one hour ahead of Houston, with one senior lead per project, and every project starts with a fixed-price audit that ends with a written diagnosis and a detailed quote.
01The Houston market
Houston is known worldwide as an energy city. Oil and gas producers, oilfield service companies, refiners, petrochemical plants and a growing number of firms working on power, renewables and carbon capture all have a large presence here. The Texas Medical Center, one of the largest medical complexes in the world, anchors a big healthcare and life sciences sector. The Port of Houston and the Houston Ship Channel connect the region to global trade, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, home of Mission Control, keeps aerospace engineering close by.
Around those anchors sits a dense layer of engineering firms, industrial contractors, inspection and maintenance companies, construction groups and equipment suppliers. Rice University and the University of Houston feed engineering and research talent into the region, and the Ion innovation hub in Midtown has given startups and corporate innovation teams a visible home. Much of Houston's software talent works inside large companies, which means smaller firms and mid-size contractors often rely on vendors for their technology.
That shapes the kind of software Houston companies run. It deals with crews in the field, equipment and maintenance records, safety and compliance documents, patient workflows and shipping data. These systems tend to live a long time, often built by a vendor or an internal developer many years ago, and they cannot simply be switched off. What they need is careful modernization: secure access, reliable data, better mobile tools for the field and automation between systems that were never designed to talk.
Sectors we know well in Houston
- Energy and oil and gas services
- Healthcare and life sciences
- Port, shipping and logistics
- Engineering and industrial services
- Construction
02Software challenges we see in Houston
Field apps without a vendor behind them
Inspection, maintenance and field-service apps are critical for crews working at plants, pipelines, rigs and job sites. When the vendor that built a custom app stops shipping updates, the app slowly breaks as phones and operating systems change. Crews fall back to paper and photos sent by text, and the data never reaches the office in a usable form.
Equipment and compliance data in silos
Asset registers, maintenance histories, certifications, permits and safety records often live in separate tools, spreadsheets and shared drives. Pulling a complete picture before an audit or a customer review takes days of manual work. Connecting those sources, or building one focused tool on top of them, gives managers answers in minutes and reduces compliance risk.
Legacy applications facing security reviews
Energy and healthcare companies, and the contractors who serve them, face growing security expectations from customers, insurers and regulators. Older web applications often run outdated frameworks, unpatched servers and shared logins. Hardening them step by step, with access control, logging, patching and backups, is usually the fastest way to pass a review without a risky replacement.
Operations that have to keep running through disruption
Houston businesses plan around hurricane season, plant turnarounds and market swings. Software that depends on one server in one office, or on one person who knows how to restart it, is a liability. Moving systems to properly managed hosting with backups, monitoring and documented recovery steps protects operations when conditions are at their worst.
03What we do for Houston companies
Software rescue
For a Houston company whose critical application was built by a vendor or developer no longer around, we start with a fixed-price audit of the code, servers and accesses. We recover accounts into your company's name, add backups and monitoring, patch what is exposed and document how the system works. Then we modernize step by step, keeping the application running for the crews and staff who use it every day.
SaaS & business software
We build business software for Houston operations: asset and maintenance tracking for industrial contractors, job costing and project dashboards for construction firms, document and certification management for engineering companies, scheduling and intake tools for clinics and healthcare service providers. We also build SaaS products for energy and industrial startups, with roles, permissions, Stripe billing and clean integrations.
Mobile apps
Field teams need apps built for real conditions: gloves, glare, poor coverage and long shifts. We build iOS and Android apps for inspections, work orders, safety checklists, time tracking and equipment photos, with offline mode that syncs when the connection returns. Data lands directly in your back office systems, and the developer accounts are opened or moved into your company's name.
AI & agents
AI agents help Houston teams handle the volume of documents their work generates: extracting data from inspection reports, permits and invoices, searching years of maintenance records in plain language, drafting first versions of reports for engineers to review, and answering staff questions from your own procedures. We set access rules and logs, keep sensitive data in your accounts, and keep qualified people in charge of final decisions.
Automation
We connect the systems Houston companies already run: ERP, accounting, scheduling, document storage, CRM and field apps. Typical work includes turning completed work orders into invoices automatically, alerting managers when certifications or permits are about to expire, syncing equipment data between tools and sending daily summaries from the field to the office. Every automation has error alerts so failures do not go unnoticed.
SEO & AI visibility
Industrial and healthcare buyers search for specific capabilities, certifications and service areas. We fix the technical side of your site, then build clear pages for each service, industry and region you cover, so engineers, procurement teams and patients find exactly what you offer. We also work on how AI assistants describe your company when someone asks for a contractor, supplier or provider.
04Typical situations in Houston
- A field-service or inspection app that crews depend on is maintained by a vendor who stopped shipping updates. We take over the code, fix what newer phones broke, add offline sync and get updates published again.
- Equipment, maintenance or compliance data is scattered across tools that do not talk to each other. We connect the sources and build one dashboard that answers audit and customer questions quickly.
- A legacy web application needs security hardening before an audit or a customer review. We patch and upgrade it step by step, add access control and logging, and document the changes for reviewers.
- A company's core application runs on a single server in its own office, with no tested backup. We move it to properly managed hosting with backups, monitoring and written recovery steps.
05How a project runs, step by step
- Fixed-price audit. We review the code, access, hosting and contracts, then deliver a written diagnosis with a prioritized, costed plan.
- Secure. Every account and the repository are moved into your company's name, backups are in place and exposed secrets are rotated.
- Fix and build. We stabilize what is fragile, refactor step by step and build what is missing, on a copy of your product.
- Launch and hand over. We publish only after checking, then hand over documentation any senior engineer can pick up.
06How we work with Houston teams
We work remotely on Eastern Time, one hour ahead of Houston, so your entire working day overlaps with ours. Calls fit easily into your morning or afternoon, and field supervisors or project managers can follow progress in the Lunarion client app without joining every meeting. We work in English and French, which helps companies with European partners, parent groups or equipment suppliers.
One senior lead owns your project from the first call to launch and stays the person you talk to. We can sign an NDA before reviewing anything, which matters for proprietary engineering and patient-related systems. Changes are built on a copy or staging environment and published only after checking. At handover, code, repositories, servers, cloud, app store and other accounts are in your company's name and fully documented.
07What shapes the scope of a Houston project
We do not publish prices: every project is different, and the audit is what sets the quote. These are the factors that weigh most:
- The age of the existing application, its frameworks and its hosting
- Offline use, device types and field conditions the mobile app must handle
- Security, privacy and compliance requirements from customers and regulators
- The number of systems to connect, from ERP and accounting to document storage
- How much historical data has to be cleaned, migrated or made searchable
08Frequently asked questions
Can you modernize legacy software without a big rewrite?
Yes. We refactor step by step instead of rewriting everything at once, so the system keeps running while it is modernized, secured and documented. Each change is tested on a staging copy before it reaches your teams.
Can you build a field app that works without coverage?
Yes. We build apps with an offline mode that stores inspections, photos and work orders on the device and syncs them when the connection returns. The audit or scoping phase defines exactly which data must be available offline.
Do you work on Central Time?
We work remotely on Eastern Time, one hour ahead of Houston, and schedule calls within your business hours. We do not make on-site visits, so the work relies on shared access, video calls and the Lunarion client app.
How does a project start?
Every project starts with a fixed-price audit of the code, access, hosting and contracts. You receive a written diagnosis and a detailed, prioritized quote, with security and continuity risks clearly separated from improvements that can wait.
Who owns the code and the accounts?
Your company. The code, repositories, domains, cloud, app store and payment accounts are moved into your company's name and documented at handover. If a former vendor still controls an account, recovering it is part of the work.
Can you sign an NDA before seeing our systems?
Yes. We can sign an NDA before you share any code, documents or access. For sensitive systems, we also agree on which environments and data we can see, and limit access to what the work requires.
09Other cities we work with
[ Lunarion audit ]
Need an outside view?
The Lunarion audit takes stock of your project: a written diagnosis, priorities and costs.