tesa is a multinational company that develops adhesive tapes and self-adhesive product solutions for industrial and consumer applications, with a strong focus on sustainability and energy-efficient processes.

In Greater China, tesa has been represented for over 25 years, with its regional headquarters in Shanghai and around 850 employees across the region. Since 2005, tesa has also been producing precision adhesive tapes at Site Suzhou—working closely with customers to meet the needs of both established and emerging industries.

Over time, increasing production volumes and the coexistence of multiple systems fragmented visibility across manufacturing. Teams had more data than ever before, but acting on it quickly and consistently became increasingly difficult.

A bold new target, improving Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) by 12% within three years, made it clear that traditional ways of managing operations were no longer enough.

For a manufacturing site built around continuous improvement and lean thinking, this became a defining inflection point. With Mendix, tesa Site Suzhou began building what it now calls the “digital MOM” of the factory — a connected operational platform designed to help teams respond faster, coordinate better, and continuously improve execution.

Unlocking Operational Intelligence

Before Mendix, tesa Site Suzhou’s digital environment had developed organically. The site migrated from Microsoft Navision ERP to SAP and replaced a customized OA platform with standard software, but surrounding systems for manufacturing, HR, customer collaboration, and administration still operated largely in silos.

As operational demands increased, IT teams faced pressure to deliver faster while managing multiple systems, long implementation cycles, and rising maintenance complexity.

The challenge was never a lack of data. It was turning operational signals into faster, more coordinated action across the manufacturing site.

To move faster and operate more consistently, tesa focused on two priorities:

1. Process standardization— reducing waste, minimizing quality fluctuations, and bringing consistency to manufacturing operations.
2. Management standardization— improving workflows and problem management, increasing operational transparency, and building internal digital capabilities and talent.

Building Toward a Digital MOM

tesa site Suzhou’s transformation unfolded through several phased investments:

• 2019: SAP launched with MES integration, establishing the foundation for production tracking and analysis
• 2023: Honeywell MES adopted; localized energy management and maintenance systems added, aligned with German HQ standards
• 2024: Strategic OEE improvement target defined; need for a unified event management platform recognized; management methodologies began to be embedded into daily operations

By 2024, the operational foundation was in place, and the next opportunity was bringing systems together to strengthen coordination and decision-making across the site.

Choosing the Right Path Forward

tesa recognized that the next step would require more than continuous fine-tuning. The company needed a platform that could evolve alongside factory operations.

Three options emerged:

• Option 1: Extend the German headquarters maintenance system. This offered global alignment but came with limited flexibility and higher development costs that didn’t match the local site’s pace of change.
• Option 2: Deploy a standardized local MOM platform. Broader functionality, but long implementation cycles and high maintenance complexity.
• Option 3: Build a custom MOM platform with low-code, offering agility, scalability, lower cost, and long-term internal knowledge accumulation.

tesa also evaluated Microsoft and several domestic low-code platforms before selecting Mendix. The decision came down to depth.

“We learned that low-code platforms could not only solve conventional OA workflows but also be extended to the production field,” said Mikey Mi Jianxin, tesa’s DIT Manager & Business Partner.

Mendix also stood apart on four dimensions:

• Scalability capable of growing with tesa’s ambitions
• Rich integration across sensors, SAP, and existing MES systems
• Multi-platform deployment on a 21V private cloud environment
• Flexibility approaching high-code depth without high-code cost

The vision extended far beyond application development. tesa wanted a unified operational platform that could bring together MES, maintenance, energy management, AI, and factory workflows into a single execution environment.

“tesa’s vision was to integrate a new platform with existing MES, LOT, and other systems to ultimately build a Digital MOM platform,” Mi Jianxin added. “Mendix met this expectation.”

Instead of operating independently, these systems would work together to support faster decisions and more consistent execution across the site. The “digital MOM” concept was born.

Creating the Digital MOM

tesa Site Suzhou launched its Mendix journey in August 2024 and had six applications in production within months.

Orchestrating Manufacturing-Wide Operations

At the center of the ecosystem was ePDCA, a manufacturing-wide platform for managing issue escalation, resolution, and continuous improvement across departments.

Before ePDCA, issue escalation depended on emails, spreadsheets, and disconnected follow-up processes that slowed coordination and created inconsistent follow-through across departments.

ePDCA centralized these workflows into a single operational management layer capable of handling:

• Frontline issue reporting
• Equipment-generated event signals
• Cross-functional escalation workflows
• Hierarchical meeting coordination
• Continuous improvement tracking
• Root cause analysis methodologies including 5 Whys and 8D
• Pareto-based operational analysis

The platform integrated with MES, HRIS, SAP-connected workflows, and the Paledo maintenance management system while supporting access across PC browsers, enterprise mobile devices, all-in-one production terminals, and war room visualization screens.

This improved response times while giving leadership a shared operational view across departments.

“ePDCA has established a full-process event management platform for the Suzhou factory, enabling traceability, visualization, and closed-loop management of events,” Mi Jianxin said.

The operational impact was immediate: faster maintenance response times, standardized quality issue tracking, improved meeting efficiency, and fewer missed follow-ups. When PLC data was combined with AI predictive models, quality incident closure rates improved by 50%.

Extending the Impact

Five additional applications expanded the platform across factory operations:

1. Paperless Quality Inspection: The QA application digitized end-to-end quality inspection workflows and integrated directly with SAP and factory inspection equipment. Inspection data could now be captured automatically at the source, reducing manual entry and improving visibility into quality performance across production lines.

2. R&D-to-Manufacturing Coordination: D2M streamlined the transition from R&D samples to production execution by creating a standardized process for sample tracking, approval workflows, and production handoff coordination. The platform improved coordination between engineering and manufacturing while reducing delays during product introduction cycles.

3. Digital Safety Inspection Management: The EHS platform replaced manual safety inspection processes with structured digital workflows covering inspection scheduling, issue escalation, corrective action tracking, and compliance documentation. Teams gained centralized visibility into safety performance and follow-up execution.

4. Integrated Visitor Management: The Visit application modernized facility access and visitor coordination by replacing a legacy platform with a integrated digital workflow supporting registration, approvals, on-site coordination, and traceable visitor records.

5. Frontline Workforce Operations: FEM centralized frontline employee management into a single operational platform covering certification tracking, workforce scheduling, training compliance, and performance management. The application standardized workforce coordination while improving visibility into operator readiness and qualifications.

Together, the applications formed the operational data layer powering tesa’s broader “digital MOM” vision.

The platform now powers OEE battle command dashboards, Pareto analysis, hierarchical reporting, and real-time operational visibility across the site.

Building Capability from the Inside Out

Alongside the Mendix rollout, tesa launched a citizen development program that brought business users directly into application delivery and process improvement.

The initiative combined Mendix training, internal community-building, and real project participation across DIT and operational teams. Rather than separating IT delivery from factory operations, tesa adopted a collaborative model where frontline employees, engineers, and developers worked together to define workflows, refine interfaces, and iterate applications in real time.

“When business users see their ideas gradually transformed into real functional modules, it becomes a strong source of motivation,” said Jason Wang, tesa Suzhou’s Head of Production Plant.

This marked a shift away from traditional waterfall development approaches that slowed implementation cycles and made requirement changes difficult to manage.

The model also helped tesa build internal digital capability instead of relying on external vendors. While external Mendix partners supported the initial rollout, citizen developers across manufacturing, operations, and DIT teams became increasingly involved in delivery and optimization efforts.

Strategically Leveraging AI

As internal digital capability matured, tesa also began exploring how AI could further accelerate operational responsiveness and decision-making.

The team deployed an AI-powered maintenance knowledge assistant built using Mendix AI connectors and inspired by ChatGPT experimentation. Integrated into maintenance workflows, the solution gives frontline teams instant access to troubleshooting guidance, historical maintenance knowledge, and operational expertise, reducing response times while allowing senior engineers to focus on higher-value work.

The long-term vision is to embed AI more deeply into factory operations to support predictive maintenance, issue resolution, and faster decision-making.

Maintaining an Intelligent Factory

What began as an effort to improve operational visibility evolved into a broader transformation in how tesa’s site coordinated systems, workflows, and decision-making across teams.

“Don’t use ERP thinking to build Mendix — use a LEGO spirit to construct a digital ecosystem,” Wang emphasized. “The ultimate goal of digital transformation is to make every role a data commander.”

The next phase is already underway. In 2026, tesa plans to expand its Mendix portfolio with 10 additional applications, establish a formal Center of Excellence, and deepen citizen developer enablement.

“This year, we will also continue to add AI technologies into business process management,” Wang said.

Following the success in Suzhou, the model is also expanding to operations in Shanghai and Vietnam, while tesa headquarters in Germany has selected Mendix as the company’s global low-code platform for manufacturing-related applications.

“The impact we are seeing today started with headquarters’ trust and investment in China market and digitalization development three years ago,” concluded Stephen Hauber, President and Regional Manager in Greater China.

With Mendix as its digital MOM, tesa Site Suzhou is no longer simply digitizing factory operations. It’s building a manufacturing environment where systems, workflows, agents, and people continuously learn and improve with every production cycle.