Recently, Forrester, one of the world's most influential research and consulting companies, released the report "Case Studies: Manufacturers In China Accelerate Value Delivery With Low Code", which is a case study of Chinese manufacturing manufacturers using low code to accelerate value delivery. Forrester selected and focused on four cases to show how Chinese manufacturing companies use low-code platforms to develop new businesses and explore new business models, and analyzed the trend of the gradual increase in the value of low-code platforms.
The low-code story of Defan's benchmark customer "JAC" is included in this report.
1. China's manufacturing industry is facing severe challenges
In this report, Forrester believes that Chinese manufacturing companies are facing the following severe challenges:
Labor shortages exacerbated by restrictions on the freedom of movement of people and disruptions in logistics due to COVID-19;
Fluctuating raw material prices and severe chip shortages complicate supply chain management.
In this case, manufacturing players must be more adaptable and resilient in order to survive in this highly uncertain business environment, and digital technology plays a key role here, in other words, the value of low-code platforms is gradually expanding.
According to Forrester's 2022 survey data, 38% of business and technology professionals in manufacturing companies with 2,500 or more employees in China said they will implement or expand the adoption of low-code and no-code platforms in the next 12 months range. However, recent development trends show that the needs of manufacturing manufacturers are not only to use low-code and no-code platforms to improve development efficiency.
2. Manufacturing manufacturers adopt low-code technology to meet more needs
Through the analysis and research of the cases provided by low-code manufacturers, Forrester believes that Chinese manufacturing manufacturers are adopting low-code development platforms to meet the following needs:
Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of workflow to meet the digital demands of cost reduction and efficiency increase.
To make IT operations more flexible, IT technical teams can use low-code platforms to support the company's digital transformation plan.
Strengthen the cooperation between business personnel and IT technical personnel.
A typical case is used to illustrate the above content, that is, JAC uses Defan’s low-code technology + data middle-end products to eliminate data islands, improve data management methods, improve delivery efficiency, and accelerate troubleshooting with applications built with low-code And prevent potential data risks.
3. The original text of the report "The Low Code Story of Defan and JAC"
JAC Motors Enhanced Its Data Middle Office Strategy
Over the past 20 years, JAC Motors has built more than 100 systems to support its operations. But theresulting data silos now prevent it from delivering applications quickly, hindering the company’s growth. JAC Motors planned a “data middle office” strategy to improve data management and make application delivery more efficient and effective. The company adopted a low-code development platform together with integration and data management platforms from Definesys to design a unified data system and tech architecture. With these platforms, JAC Motors:
•Accelerated delivery by breaking down silos. The firm broke down data silos by connecting heterogeneous systems like ERP, product lifecycle management, and dealer management systems. It built more than 100 APIs on the Definesys DeFusion integration platform, making data more accessible to both citizen and professional developers. Combined with the Definesys DeCod low-code development platform, the new solution accelerates application delivery and reduces development costs. JAC Motors delivered a project previously expected to require 1,000 person-days within 200 person-days.
•Accelerated troubleshooting with insights. As part of the data middle office strategy, JAC Motors needed to build an enterprise data foundation that keeps data in sync with analytics and enable insights. The firm built low-code applications to capture and ingest data from experts. Feeding this data to its business intelligence platform gave JAC Motors a 360-degree view of order-to-delivery processes in its global business.The firm also built a web app to display the collected raw data;this enabled traceability, which improved troubleshooting efficiency.
•Enabled citizen developers and improved collaboration. More than 20 business users at JAC Motors can now deliver custom software for simple, routine workflow processes or formbased apps. For more complex projects, the low-code platform facilitates collaboration between business experts and developers, who can use a WYSIWYG development environment to discuss and confirm requirements based on visual prototypes. The low-code development platform gave JAC Motors’ business users a modern, effective way to collaborate.
《Case Studies: Manufacturers In China Accelerate Value Delivery With Low Code》
作者：Guannan Lu