Global giants in the automotive, industrial, and aerospace sectors rely on cutting-edge technologies from Schaeffler Group. Renowned for their commitment to progress, Schaeffler filed over 1,250 patents in 2022, underscoring their mission to be a leading supplier through innovation, agility, and efficiency.

To maintain this level of innovation and swiftly address evolving user needs, Schaeffler recognized the necessity to transform their software delivery methods. Traditional programming languages adequately covered many core systems, but the creation of personalized or bespoke solutions remained a significant challenge.

In response, Schaeffler adopted the Mendix low-code platform in 2021 to enhance their development capabilities. Over the span of two years, they built a robust low-code practice, fostering a community of hundreds of innovators contributing to software development across the enterprise. This effort led to the creation of over 30 applications that digitalize manual work and shop floor processes.

Closing the Software Delivery Gap

Before embracing low-code, Schaeffler’s process for new software solutions followed a typical IT demand and delivery pipeline. A committee of IT stakeholders would evaluate and prioritize new software ideas, often resulting in projects being either deprioritized or taking months to years to complete. This cumbersome process drove some employees to create their own solutions using tools like Excel VBA, Python, and Java, often without IT oversight or security controls.

Jakob John, Digitalization and Solutions Platform Manager in Schaeffler’s Operations IT group, oversees citizen development tools within the operations domain. He highlighted the need for a more agile approach to software development to meet growing digitization demands

A pivotal moment came when a Schaeffler executive tasked the Operations IT department with evaluating six low-code platforms to complement traditional development methods. Mendix emerged as the best fit due to its wide applicability, ease of integration with other technologies like SAP, and support for applications requiring interaction with external vendor and customer systems.

Beyond the Platform

Implementing a new approach to software development in a company of Schaeffler’s size—84,000 employees—was no small feat. The Operations IT team leaned heavily on Mendix’s best practices for digital execution, which included establishing a low-code Center of Excellence (CoE), identifying initial applications, structuring the platform around Schaeffler’s technical requirements, and promoting Mendix internally to build awareness and support.

Schaeffler launched their Mendix program in late 2021, with the CoE at its core, ensuring consistency and oversight across various development groups. This hub-and-spoke structure facilitated coordinated efforts among Operations IT, business technologists, and third-party contributors.

One notable success story is Risheek Thamatham Reddy, a career developer with experience in C# and .NET, who transitioned to Mendix with guidance from the CoE. Within weeks, Reddy was delivering solutions on the new platform, demonstrating the platform’s accessibility even for those with traditional coding backgrounds.

Selecting the Right Projects

At the end of 2021, Schaeffler chose their first Mendix application—a lighthouse project addressing a common challenge within the company: a paper-based checklist documentation process related to customer complaints. This was transformed into a workflow-based Mendix application, showcasing the platform’s potential.

The first project was developed by a colleague new to both Schaeffler and low-code, emphasizing the platform’s ease of use and accessibility. This success illustrated the range of people capable of developing with Mendix, fostering a culture of innovation and learning.

Ensuring Standardization and Scalability

As the number of contributors grew, maintaining consistency and quality became paramount. Mendix’s composable nature allowed Schaeffler to standardize design, common components, and integrations, making them reusable across the organization. A Schaeffler app template evolved, incorporating all necessary components and a standard UI/UX design.

Standardizing the enterprise starter app template also facilitated natural demand management, identifying common areas of overlap and efficiency between teams. By leveraging out-of-the-box features and functionalities from the Mendix Marketplace, developers could rapidly build applications, enhancing speed and simplicity in development.

The cloud-native nature of Mendix enabled Schaeffler to implement a multi-cloud strategy, deploying internal applications to their private cloud and external-facing applications to the Mendix Public Cloud. This flexibility ensured that all security guidelines could be met, regardless of the application’s data security requirements.

In conclusion, Schaeffler’s adoption of the Mendix low-code platform has significantly enhanced their software development capabilities, driving innovation and efficiency across the enterprise. By fostering a community of developers and standardizing best practices, Schaeffler has positioned itself to meet the evolving demands of the automotive, industrial, and aerospace sectors with agility and precision.

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM (unsplash.com)