Low-Code as Enabler of Digital Transformation in Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

Currently, enterprises have to make quick and resilient responses to changing market requirements. In light of this, low-code development platforms provide the technology mechanisms to facilitate and automate the development of software applications to support current enterprise needs and promote digital transformation. Based on a theory-building research methodology through the literature and other information sources review, the main contribution of this paper is the current characterisation of the emerging low-code domain following the foundations of the computer-aided software engineering field. A context analysis, focused on the current status of research related to the low-code development platforms, is performed. Moreover, benchmarking among the existing low-code development platforms addressed to manufacturing industry is analysed to identify the current lacking features. As an illustrative example of the emerging low-code paradigm and respond to the identified uncovered features, the virtual factory open operating system (vf-OS) platform is described as an open multi-sided low-code framework able to manage the overall network of a collaborative manufacturing and logistics environment that enables humans, applications, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices to seamlessly communicate and interoperate in the interconnected environment, promoting resilient digital transformation.

The evolution of software development orchestration: current state and an agenda for future research

“…The other is the creation of joint collaboration spaces and artefacts on digital platforms. The low-code movement reflects the emergence of digital platforms that enable the development of simple applications through the design and configuration of graphical user interfaces (Sanchis et al, 2020). With a basic understanding of modelling principles -e.g., universal modelling diagrams, activity diagrams, etc.…”

Low-code engineering for internet of things

“…The current trend of low-code development platforms (LCDP) catches people's attention due to their capabilities in easing the development of fully functional applications mostly cloud-based. The primary goal of LCDP is to facilitate people with less or no experience in software engineering to develop business applications using simple graphical user interfaces [23]. Lowcomote project [32] aims to push that advancement to a more technical and sophisticated era of "Low-code Engineering" by employing the concrete basic engineering principles to the modeling world.…”

A Technological Platform and a Process to Implement the Informative Marketing Strategy

“…In other words, by making recourse to such a generator, potential stakeholders will be able to instantiate by themselves the digital platform that best responds to the needs of their businesses. The work by Sanchis et al [4], for example, emphasises the role of the low-code paradigm as an enabler of digital transformation in the Manufacturing Industry.…”