Opcenter Uses Low-Code to Scale Meaningful Front-End Customizations
Opcenter is recognized by Gartner as a Magic Quadrant Leader in Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) for 2023. The industry-defining MES comprises the entire portfolio of Siemens Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) technologies with products that optimize governance, quality, and more. If you know manufacturing operations, then you know Opcenter.
As a mature and prominent MES leader serving diverse industries, Opcenter faces a unique front-end challenge. How does an MES—spanning diverse industries from fine chemicals to aerospace & defense—effectively accommodate every customer while tailoring its products and services to meet the specific needs of each?
The Opcenter Execution team saw an opportunity to complement the strategic vision driving Siemens’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) portfolio. Adding Mendix low-code technology empowered their clients to take part in the development process while creating Opcenter scaling opportunities.
“For us, it was always a matter of providing the flexibility that customers wanted in a very wide range of industries. We tried to be as generic as possible in the past, but customizations were complex and expensive,” said Ben Bozano, Product Manager for Opcenter Execution. “Now, with Mendix, there are no more boundaries or constraints in terms of what kind of personalization customers can put in place.”
Low-code makes it easy to adapt user interfaces
The Mendix low-code, composable framework fits perfectly with Opcenter’s module-based architecture. In addition, Mendix Adaptable Solutions provides customers with a common core model that is easy to configure and extend while offering reliable required functionality. The result is personalized software and applications that integrate seamlessly, in less time, with less effort.
Mendix augments the Opcenter Execution portfolio of intelligent manufacturing solutions by quickly delivering high-quality, tailored interface solutions.
“Mendix really helps us be more efficient with the resources we have,” said Bozano. “We could even have people and resources that were not typically working on the front end approach this new technology and learn it in a quick time frame and become productive.”
Mendix makes Opcenter less complex and more customizable
Creating a bespoke MES front-end for each client is notoriously complex. You can’t accommodate legacy and partner systems, custom builds, or a patchwork of out-of-the-box software with traditional solutions and keep pace with the market. Especially not at scale.
- MES solutions historically require long implementation timelines.
- Customizations are cost-prohibitive and inefficient because of their complexity.
- More time in development reduces win rates as enterprises struggle to keep up with the speed of technology.
With Mendix, Opcenter Execution was able to sidestep many of the challenges to MES development at scale and across industry. Combining the industry-proven MES with the flexibility of low-code, the Opcenter team has created templates for several different industries including IT, automotive, and process-based industries. Built as Mendix Adaptable Solutions, these templates can be used as-is or customized to meet a customer’s needs.
There are two main vertical solution examples built on top of Opcenter Execution Foundation: ·
- Discrete: Built for aerospace, defense, complex manufacturing, industrial machinery, heavy equipment, and automotive industries.
- Process: Built for food & beverage, CPG [Consumer Packaged Goods], and fine chemicals.
Adaptable Solutions reduce and simplify the workload
Mendix integrates with everything. A low-code, intuitive integrated development environment (IDE) makes it easy to create business workflows that span the entire value chain. In addition, Mendix Adaptable Solutions combines accelerated development with architectural flexibility. For Opcenter Execution, Adaptable Solutions provided a path to scalability for an MES with a broad horizontal client base.
“For example, with our Opcenter Execution Discrete vertical product solution come several industry templates, tailored for different customer needs from space and defense to repetitive manufacturing” said Bozano. “Customers buy one single product and then can choose the template that best fits the needs of their industry. We decided to deliver all user interface screens for Opcenter Execution Discrete as Mendix low-code.”
Typically, each Adaptable Solution consists of three parts: the immutable core, the adaptable core, and customer-specific extensions. The immutable core accounts for a significant portion of the solution. That translates to pre-completed dev work—but without the limited palette of a normal out-of-the-box solution.
“We have out-of-the-box industry templates, built with deep industry knowledge, within each product, so customers never have to start from scratch,” said Bozano. “And then, of course, they can also personalize with an adaptable approach.”
For Opcenter Execution, that also means creating opportunity space for adaptations and customizations while keeping their core clean. Let’s look at Adaptable Solutions in another way:
- Immutable core: This part stays clean. It’s the same for all users and provides things like data models, workflow actions, and standard integrations.
2. Adaptable core: This is the middle ground. The adaptable core is where common microflows, templates, and extensions can be tailored to fit the needs of each instance or customer.
3. Customer-specific extensions: Here’s where customers really make each solution their own. Added features, client tech-stack integrations, marketplace features, and other additions live here.
Siemens or an implementation partner can connect to disparate tech stacks, including legacy and custom builds, and harmonize data into one interface output.
“We already provide templates that leverage our knowledge about best practices that we’ve witnessed over the years servicing all these different domains—we know how these industries work, we know the manufacturing processes,” said Bozano. “And we’ve built these templates to serve those needs. But, always, you can modify, you can adapt with low code.“
For instance, Opcenter industry template could be easily adapted in the specific customer factory so the UI is more familiar to the shopfloor operators. A System Integrator could quickly extend or adapt an Industrial Machinery template into a bespoke model for pump manufacturing. The update could change the look and feel of the page and even the content and layout to align with the user experience.
Low-code accelerates app development
For Opcenter Execution, it’s essential to get solutions in front of customers as fast as possible, while still meeting their needs. When it comes to UI design, increasing calls for customizations and increasingly complex implementations always stand in the way.
Opcenter chose low-code to eradicate unnecessary development redundancies and create reusable value. They wanted holistic horizontal integration so that they could align
their vision of a templated, modular approach to manufacturing. Other modular areas within the Opcenter Execution portfolio include complex manufacturing, quality execution, and overall equipment effectiveness.
But further, Opcenter Execution empowers clients to collaborate and even take ownership of their front-end user interface and user experience through low-code technology. Business users can use their expertise to modify screens—with IT-imposed guardrails—so that they best suit the use case without scheduling dev work and ending up on a backlog for months.
The Adaptable Solution framework combined with low-code, modular development makes it easier for Opcenter to reduce front-end complexity and create customizable front-end solutions that scale. With Mendix, project teams extending Opcenter Execution solutions realized a 75 percent reduction in time to production with full access to the Opcenter Execution products.
Opcenter Starter Kit helps customers create their own UIs
Out-of-the-box industry templates are one way a vendor can help customers accelerate their MES front-end optimization. Another is to take advantage of the Mendix Opcenter Execution Foundation Starter Kit, available in the Mendix Marketplace.
“Ideally, our out-of-the-box templates are so rich they already fit the specific industries that they are targeting. In those cases, customers would probably prefer to extend those templates with some personalization,” said Bozano. “But sometimes it’s more appropriate to build from scratch using the Starter Kit.”
With Mendix embedded into the Opcenter Execution experience, users can compose new workflows that span business systems. They can also create user interface updates based on actual business requirements. The intuitive Mendix Studio Pro has a swift learning curve for system integrators who are not front-end developers. The Starter Kit contains:
- Guides and easy-to-follow walkthroughs for self-enablement
- Working examples that read and write data
- Useful links for learning
- Standard UI controls and modular building blocks
Most of the time, the fastest option is to extend an out-of-the-box solution that already has robust UI opportunities tailored to their representative industries. However, even with the Starter Kit option, Opcenter clients still reach their front-end goals faster and build products with much better outcomes. Let’s take a look at how DAB Pumps reduced their development lift by 30 percent when compared to traditional development.
DAB Pumps uses Opcenter with Mendix to revamp shopfloor UI
DAB Pumps was founded in 1975 and specializes in water movement and management technologies. Its portfolio includes residential, civil, and commercial applications, as well as agricultural irrigation systems.
In the process of rehashing an antiquated production line user experience, DAB Pumps needed to update the user interface so that it was optimized for Opcenter while minimizing the need for workforce change management or unnecessary retraining.
Utilizing the embedded Mendix experience within Opcenter Execution, DAB Pumps worked with Siemens’ partner Engineering Industries eXcellence to spin up their new fully custom operator front-end solution in less than one month. Engineering worked with DAB Pumps throughout the research and development phase, accelerating prototyping and acceptance timelines.
After the project was deployed, the DAB Pumps team reported immediate engagement improvements. Users were pleased with the modernized UI, intuitive workflow, and enhanced capabilities. Mendix low-code was deemed a project accelerator by the team, who also noted the following benefits:
- No ramping up vendors: Internal business users can build end-to-end workflow solutions and modify the UI by leveraging their domain experience.
- Saves time and cost: Mendix designed its low-code experience to move quickly and to be accessible to all users regardless of their IT acumen.
- Increased collaboration: No more internal back and forth between IT and business. While IT sets the guardrails, Mendix requires no coding experience and no IT resource time to ramp up and understand the project.
“They made a sizable upgrade and migration from an old version to one of the latest versions in just three months, and for an MES project that usually it takes much longer,” said Bozano. “Within that process they rebuilt all their screens with Mendix.”
Mendix adds low-code component to Opcenter excellence
With Mendix, Opcenter Execution synthesizes two powerful frameworks for creating meaningful innovation in the MES space. Manufacturers can create UI/UX personalization that saves time, reduces thrash, and boosts revenue with shorter times to market and less user error.
Business customers can leverage the power of their own knowledge base to create bespoke solutions to their front-end needs. Implementation and maintenance costs go down so that additional time and resources can be invested in innovation and Opcenter Execution feature improvements.
The low-code journey for Opcenter Execution is just beginning as the MES team continues to expand its Mendix portfolio. “We release a new version every three months, and then with each new version there are new features and new capabilities,” said Bozano. “Sometimes entirely new templates for a new industry or a new persona or some other times it’s just improvements but we see continued growth for the next months and years.”