Glico’s Smart Manufacturing and Digital Transformation Journey with Mendix

Manufacturers are increasingly adopting smart digital solutions to optimize processes on the factory floor and throughout their supply chains.

Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd. (Glico), a leading Japanese food manufacturer with 13 factories in Japan and 3 overseas, employs over 5,000 people. As it continues to expand globally, Glico is driving smart factory initiatives to improve production efficiency and sustainability.

In 2022, Glico introduced the Mendix platform as a strategic “third option” bridging the gap between traditional in-house development and rigid commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software. With Mendix, Glico would support continuous innovation, enable faster software delivery, and empower production teams to co-create tailored digital tools.

Since adopting low code, Glico has accelerated application development, improved business processes, and begun solving long-standing operational challenges, especially in areas previously constrained by outdated systems and manual workflows.

Bridging Gaps in Software Delivery

Glico had traditionally navigated between building software in-house and purchasing COTS. While these approaches helped address immediate business needs, they increasingly constrained Glico’s ability to respond quickly to evolving requirements, particularly in production environments.

Over time, this reliance on fragmented systems and vendor-driven development led to several critical challenges:

• Data silos caused by the lack of standardized, flexible data structures, making it difficult to integrate and share data across departments and factories
• Manual and inconsistent processes where important information like inspection records, contact logs, and schedules were managed through paper, Excel, whiteboards, and Microsoft Teams
• Solutions that didn’t match Glico’s on-site workflows, forcing teams to work around rigid systems, often leading to low adoption and inefficiencies
• Overdependence on external vendors, limiting Glico’s control over system evolution and increasing long-term costs

These issues weren’t just technical, they reflected a structural problem common in manufacturing: trying to modernize complex, site-specific processes without disrupting what already works.

“The complexity of our on-site work processes made it practically impossible to achieve complete standardization,” explained Hajime Suzuki, R&D Group Manager at Glico. “Without compromising the strengths of streamlined local practices, we needed a smarter way to digitize operations.”

During their search, Glico discovered Mendix, what they viewed as a strategic third option between rigid packaged software and slow, resource-heavy custom builds. Mendix met several critical criteria:

• Flexibility to support evolving business needs and site-specific workflows
• Loosely coupled integration with leading technologies AWS, IoT, and generative AI
• End-to-end lifecycle capabilities, from prototyping and feedback to deployment, version control, and rollback
• Tools to support rapid iteration and co-creation with business users
• Strong industry reputation as a Siemens-backed platform

Mendix gave Glico the ability to connect disparate factory data rapidly and securely while building applications that fit operational realities, not the other way around.

In parallel, Glico adopted an Agile development culture, enabling business teams to work closely with developers from the requirements phase through prototyping. This shift accelerated delivery timelines, improved usability, and fostered stronger field-developer collaboration.

Applications were no longer seen as “finished” at launch. Instead, Glico embedded a mindset of continuous evolution, where insights from everyday use drive iterative enhancements, a cultural shift that’s been key to success.

Transforming Facility Maintenance

In food manufacturing, the stable operation of equipment is essential to deliver high-quality products consistently. As labor shortages intensified, Glico recognized the urgency of automating and modernizing its maintenance operations to reduce risk, downtime, and inefficiencies.

For years, Glico attempted to implement an effective equipment maintenance management system using COTS tools, but faced ongoing limitations: inflexible features, fragmented data, and heavy reliance on experienced personnel.

Mendix finally enabled Glico to address these long-standing challenges by providing a platform to:

• Eliminate dependency on individual expertise through standardized, digitized maintenance workflows
• Centralize equipment lifecycle data and enable preventive, data-driven decision-making
• Improve transparency and collaboration between maintenance teams and production leadership

Development of the new Facility Maintenance Management System began in June 2022 and delivered its first release in just seven months, going live in January 2023.

The application includes several critical features:

• A comprehensive asset ledger that tracks equipment details, work history, breakdowns, and part replacements
• End-to-end planned maintenance management, from scheduling to execution workflows
• Inventory control for spare parts, integrated with warehousing and shipment data
• Advanced KPI dashboards to monitor metrics such as mean time between failures (MTBF), inventory turnover, and task completion rates

“This frees our teams to focus on more strategic, high-value tasks,” Suzuki added.

Suzuki emphasized that the goal is not merely to improve operational efficiency, but to leverage data to optimize the entire business process in a sustainable way that secures long-term market competitiveness.

For example, reducing waste through smarter inventory management and minimizing unplanned downtime through preventive strategies gives Glico a significant edge in terms of quality, cost, and supply stability.

The platform’s flexibility also allowed Glico to develop and refine the system iteratively based on direct feedback from the field.

“The key to this project was building a development system that could respond flexibly and quickly to feedback from the field,” explained Project Leader Kentaro Nakamura. “That responsiveness deepened trust and created a shared sense of ownership.”

According to SCM-DX Team Leader Koka Kin, this new mindset represents a major cultural shift:

Enhancing Smart Manufacturing with AI

In the era of smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence is no longer a future vision, it’s a present-day enabler of innovation and operational advantage. Glico has strategically positioned itself to stay ahead of the curve by using Mendix to seamlessly integrate emerging technologies like AI, IoT, and cloud infrastructure.

With its strong foundation in low code, Glico can rapidly prototype and scale new capabilities without disrupting core systems. This makes it possible to explore high-impact AI use cases including:

• Predictive maintenance based on real-time equipment monitoring and historical data
• Automated inventory management optimized through demand forecasting and intelligent restocking
• Knowledge utilization systems that capture and recommend field insights to improve decision-making

These initiatives are already underway and will deepen over time, unlocking new levels of productivity, quality control, and operational responsiveness.

Glico sees AI not as a standalone technology but as a core enabler within its broader smart factory strategy, powered by Mendix’s adaptability and integration capabilities.

From Production Line to Enterprise-wide Innovation

Glico is setting a new standard for how low code can transform the factory floor and beyond. What began as a targeted initiative to modernize maintenance has evolved into a company-wide strategy for accelerating digital transformation, increasing agility, and building smarter operations at scale.

By combining Mendix with their existing Java-based systems, Glico can quickly create powerful applications without disrupting legacy architecture. When evaluating future development projects, the company now follows a deliberate platform strategy:

• Use Mendix for medium to large-scale, complex solutions, especially those requiring integration with IoT, AI, or cloud services like AWS
• Use PowerApps for lightweight, single-function tools within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem

“Factories often have individually optimized processes and systems, and while ‘fit to standard’ is the ideal, it’s challenging. We believe Mendix can serve as the bridge to make this happen,” Suzuki explained.

Glico is now preparing to integrate Mendix with their core MES, ERP, and logistics systems, enabling seamless workflows across factory operations and business functions. This system-wide connectivity will help standardize where possible while preserving the flexibility needed to innovate at the local level.

“It’s all about creating value, and we’re ready to keep delivering products that exceed customer expectations,” he concluded.