Digitizing operational processes, here’s what to look out for
In 2019, David Verstricht made the transition from factory employee to Mendix developer after 15 years. Meanwhile, not only is he an Advanced Mendix Developer at Mendify, he also knows better than anyone how operational processes work and what shop floor employees expect from an application. That experience is never lost. In this blog, David talks about what to look for when digitizing operational processes and the value of automation in general and with a low-code platform like Mendix’s in particular.
Important aspects in digitizing operational processes
If you’re going to digitize operational processes, there are a few things you need to consider beforehand. To begin, you need to properly identify the purpose of the process and who is participating in the process. For example, that could be just factory employees, or it could be that a process affects all employees in a manufacturing company. If inventory also plays a role in the process, then you must somehow ensure that the inventory is always correct and up-to-date. After all, if you are going to digitize, you want your records to be passed directly to all adjacent systems. That means you also have to look closely at integrations. To get data into a backend system in real time, it must interface seamlessly with other software or hardware such as scanners. Once you have all this mapped out, only then can you start building the system. Along with that, you should also keep in mind that the system should be as simple as possible for the employees on the shop floor. Finally, the system must validate that what the employee is doing is correct. This is the only way to guarantee that data is reliable at all times.
Value of digitizing operational processes often underestimated
During my former working life in the factory, I learned that the value of digitizing shop floor processes is often vastly underestimated. Many companies are satisfied with paper processes or – at best – recording in Excel sheets. I know from experience that leads to mistakes. For example, if you manually check for weight, an operator – consciously or unconsciously – can always enter a different number on the forms. If you note five grams less on one can of soup or a bucket of paint it won’t be such a problem, but if it happens more often, it will be. The papers may be correct, but the production itself is not. When you start working with automatic weighing and the weight is automatically entered into a system, that kind of margin of error falls away. If underweight or overweight then, virtual alarm bells will always ring somewhere.
What else does digitizing operational processes provide?
Beyond quality assurance, digitizing operational processes delivers even more. Because you no longer have to do the collection and recording of data manually, you save on man hours or you can assign your employees to other work. In addition, synchronizing data between different departments ensures a smoother flow of work processes.
Eight benefits of a low-code platform
1. Integrations
A good low-code platform like Mendix’s easily integrates with ERP systems.
2. Validations
Validations are easy to build AND change as the process demands.
3. User Experience
With the Mendix platform, it is quite easy to optimize the user interface and thus the user experience. For example, if an operator has to enter a number on a touch screen, it works nicely if the input fields are not too small.
4. Device Integration
With the Mendix platform, you create applications that also function in conjunction with industrial devices, such as scanners and tablets, for example.
5. Cloud-agnostic
Mendix allows you to create applications that are cloud-agnostic. They run in any environment and on any operating system, in the cloud but also on-premises.
6. Understanding the process
Digital recording of an operational process from A to Z provides insight into the logistics flows and allows you to continuously monitor the entire process and make timely adjustments as needed. This could be about quality, efficiency or availability. Ultimately, the goal is to increase efficiency.
7. Secure, secure and scalable
Finally, of course, the partner you choose is also very important. A good partner creates low-code applications according to the rules of the art: secure, secure and scalable. Production data is data from the heart of your organization, it is obviously very important to ensure that it is processed in the most secure way.
8. Standard building blocks
With the Mendix platform, not only can you build custom, you can also use standard building blocks. For example, we built a digital planning board and a scanning module. By working with such building blocks, you speed up the development process.
Want to know more about the added value of Mendix?
Wondering how the Mendix low-code platform will help you digitize your operational processes?