Manufacturing enterprises must strike a delicate balance between standardization and customization to meet their customer needs. This production objective is equally reflected in the business’ requirements for software.

For engineering, supply chain, and manufacturing solutions provider Jabil, which operates in 25-plus countries with more than 100 production sites situated around the globe, this balance is being struck by developing software with low-code. Since adopting the Mendix platform in 2022 they have delivered nearly 100 applications that are optimizing workflows, extending MES capabilities, and harnessing Generative AI.

Jabil has a sharp focus on empowering its regional teams with Mendix as a globally supported development platform. Today, groups from Mexico to North Asia can develop new applications at a rapid pace that meet their unique digitalization needs on the shop floor and beyond.

Establishing a Global Development Standard

Before 2022, Jabil’s IT team was facing a lengthy development backlog. Delivery timelines would take longer than was acceptable for the business, leading to shadow IT across the organization.

Each of Jabil’s production sites has its own unique requirements based on its products and customers, which further added onto the list of software requests. The bottom line was clear: Jabil’s customers were demanding more.

Jabil quickly determined that a low-code development platform could bridge this gap, and in 2022, they selected Mendix due to its:

• Strength of partnerships and compatibility with existing Jabil systems of record, such as SAP and AWS.
• Strong out-of-the-box capabilities from testing to deployment.
• Flexibility and scalability, as a cloud-native platform with a predictable licensing model.
• Global availability of experts, whether from partners, Mendix Expert Services, or platform support team.

Setting Teams Up for Success

To meet these objectives, Jabil needed to bring Operations and IT closer together across the software development lifecycle. Doing this effectively required thoughtful messaging and change management as new processes were introduced.

“Digitalization is difficult because there can be resistance if people worry that it will make their work more difficult or make them redundant. This is not the case, and it’s not what we are trying to achieve,” said Lukazs Lubas, Senior Operations Development Manager at Jabil.

Jabil has introduced several tactics to promote the availability of Mendix and incubate new ideas across the organization, such as:

• Creating four regional Centers of Excellence that disperse Mendix best practices and development standards put in place by global IT.
• Implementing a ‘one-to-few’ learning model where interested Mendix developers can start with the foundational courses and certifications from the Mendix Academy. If they progress to become Intermediate Certified, Jabil will provide them with guidance and the necessary resources to begin coaching others.
• Establishing regular touchpoints where Operations and IT team members can come together to review successes, challenges, and ideas for Mendix — such as their Product Review Board and portfolio review meetings.
• Setting clear KPIs and providing visibility into the number of applications developed, the volume of reusable components, and overall cost avoidance from their work to showcase tangible platform value.

Global Process Transformation

The Jabil team kick-started their Mendix development with several proof of concepts to learn the ropes of the platform while garnering some early wins. Their first applications would test the platform’s compatibility and connectivity with Jabil’s MES. This included an application for global material purging and a standard quoting tool.

“We worked with Mendix Expert Services on these early applications so that our internal teams could learn alongside them. We’ve always enjoyed working with them because they enable us, push us, and challenge us. We were able to get their guidance, and then they could disengage when our team members were ready to take things forward on their own,” said Ferreira.

Today, Jabil’s roughly 100 Mendix applications are supporting them in multiple strategic areas. This includes replacing legacy tools, extending core systems, and developing bespoke digitalization solutions.

“Typically, our priority requirements are to improve performance and the user experience. Most importantly, in these cases, we also need to deliver something fast and keep the requester involved in the development process from start to finish,” said Sergiy Dyolog, Digital Factory Manager at Jabil.

Jabil’s Mendix applications touch a range of processes across the organization, including:

• Extending their MES with custom views and dashboards
• Enabling operators to conduct assessments on the shop floor
• Supporting engineers with evaluating test performance
• Allowing technicians to log measurements
• Streamlining incident management
• Managing visitors and meetings in Jabil offices
• Re-platforming and optimizing operational workflows

“Mendix is very applicable to develop these kinds of complex workflow systems,” said Eason He, Regional Operations Director for North Asia at Jabil. Here, the team is in the process of bringing hundreds of workflows from K2 applications to Mendix.

“We are not limiting ourselves in terms of what we can do in Mendix. If there is a clear business case, justification, and benefit, then we will use Mendix wherever we can ,” Lubas added.

Tailor-Made Digital Experiences

On the shop floor, Dyolog shares that Jabil’s goal is to “create a fully connected and intelligent production environment.” Standardization is required to do this at scale, however the unique requirements of each site and its customers introduces complexity.

Specific sites – like Kwidzyn, Poland – are implementing larger strategic shifts in production to meet their customer needs better. For example, Jabil’s Kwidzyn site produces millions of smaller products, like cameras or heaters, every year.

Now they have customers with larger products – such as electric cabinets for wind turbines and industrial-sized printers – which are produced in quantities in the tens or hundreds.

“It’s a different way of working. The processes are very complex, so we need different solutions as we change the way that we address our customers’ needs,” said Krzysztof Kanarek, Operations Manager at Jabil in Kwidzyn.

Where these variations arise — whether it’s related to the products being ordered, the customer’s data structure, or a customer-specific KPI that needs to be met — Jabil must figure out how to collect the appropriate data from internal and external sources and surface it to the shop floor team members properly.

Using Mendix, Jabil can create common reusable components around application design, functionality, or integrations. These components bring a level of standardization while still allowing flexibility in the user experience.

“We are benefitting from two worlds here. We have a globally controlled and globally defined best-in-class process to manage a particular activity for the customer. Then the local teams can bring in that dash of customization and tailoring that is so needed when we are talking about customer satisfaction and delivering what is important for that customer,” said Lubas.

One of the key strategic areas that Jabil has focused on is supporting their new global MES. Senior IT Manager Leonel Garcia oversees a group of 8 SCRUM teams responsible for Jabil’s global MES. Their priorities and resources are focused on keeping the system stable and optimizing its performance and quality.

With over 400 customers across Jabil, there is an ongoing need for specific views and customizations, which can be delivered with Mendix. Furthermore, the modularity and reusability of developing these custom experiences in Mendix make them more scalable.

“Mendix is a key element of our MES rollout. We have some examples where one site developed a specific screen that is custom to their needs, and then later another site could take that view and iterate on it. Those iterations are all helping us improve the usability,” said Gustavo Oliveira, a Senior Operations Development Manager at Jabil in Brazil.

Maintaining Quality & Governance at Scale

As Jabil democratizes local development with Mendix there is also a need for governance to ensure consistency across their application portfolio.

“The global Center of Excellence upholds and maintains governance by providing frameworks and monitoring our landscape, ensuring that product owners are conforming with our technical checkpoints and that we’ve met our architectural guidelines,” said Ferreira.

Several ‘out-of-the-box’ tools from Mendix make it easier for Jabil to scale its development globally, such as multi-lingual capabilities or Mendix Quality & Security Management (QSM).

Jabil also emphasizes reusability and adding common components, APIs, or functionality to their internal private marketplace. All new Mendix applications begin with a common ‘starter app’ template that has built-in quality controls.

“One of the things that I like is having the security and identity and access management done right out of the gate,” said Jabil Global Digital Factory Lead Jeffrey Dunn. “When you create a new microflow or page, that’s going to be baked into the application already. That is a key advantage with Mendix.”

Intelligent Apps Made Accessible

As Jabil matures its Mendix capability, they are tackling more ambitious projects and experimenting with the latest product innovations.

Jabil is already running some AI-driven proof of concepts with Mendix. In one case, they created a chatbot to answer questions for employees about how to start or follow internal processes.

The chatbot is ingesting Jabil process documentation from SharePoint and other repositories and then leveraging an out-of-the-box AI connector from the Mendix Marketplace that was adapted for Jabil’s internal private marketplace. Another area is leveraging AI to support incident management and help reach resolutions more quickly while reducing downtime.

Beyond enriching applications with AI, the team is also exploring how to better incorporate generative AI into their development operations.

“I am excited to see how we can use Maia – Mendix’s AI-assisted development agent. Having a more agentic workflow within Mendix where you don’t have to query a detached LLM on how to solve something or build something in Mendix — that makes the whole workflow more efficient,” said Dunn.

Bridging OT and IT with Workstation

Jabil has been an early adopter of Mendix Workstation — a new development in the Mendix product roadmap that provides client-side communication with local peripheral devices on the shop floor.

Their current proof of concept enables operators to scan a product and instantly view its information and instructions on an application. The application then guides the operator through the next steps and captures the in-progress data as they carry out their work.

The benefit is twofold: making work easier for the operators by providing them with regular instruction and visual aids, while also capturing production data that can be used in other applications or to identify potential process improvements.

“There is one project that we are doing using Mendix Workstation. The idea is to interact with tools that are on the station on the shop floor. We want to leverage more from Mendix Workstation, learn more about it, and use it for data collection on the shop floor… We already see benefits where it is easy to connect to screwdrivers or to pick-to-lights. It was a rapid development to do that, and this is a global solution that we can replicate in a lot of sites,” said Oliveira.

Developing a Culture of Resilience

In just three years, Jabil has made incredible strides with Mendix. Having an established low-code capability allows their teams to manage change more readily.

The team stressed the value of low-code in several areas:

• Improved customer experience, as the team can be more agile and responsive to customer needs around the globe.
• Supporting and protecting Jabil’s core system investments by augmenting or extending their functionality.
• Improved employee experience and collaboration, where business and IT teams have their requirements met and work together towards solutions that make people’s work better.
• Lowering the barrier to entry for innovation where proof of concepts leveraging AI and IoT can come to fruition at a much lower time and resource investment.
• Reduce development costs yielding $14.5 million in cost avoidance to date.

“The capabilities of standard coding languages and Mendix are similar. It’s not that we can create applications that wouldn’t be possible with coding – but it’s opened opportunities on how easily and quickly we can create them, and at a lower cost,” Lubas reiterated.

“If we can do something quicker and easier with the same level of quality, that’s a huge win because it already covers two major improvement areas which are necessary to remain competitive.”

What can be felt most prominently amongst the Jabil team is a sense of pride in the partnerships that have been solidified along their low-code journey. Both IT and Operations are working towards a common goal to make their employees and customers even happier.