Citizen Developers: Building Bridges between the Operations Department and IT?

Dec 19, 2022 | News

The demand for skilled labor such as professional developers vastly exceeds the availability of qualified talent. Global competition, the high cost of uncoordinated skilled labor are driving companies to become more amenable to agile and sustainable digital transformation in manufacturing. Increasing customer-specific requirements in production are causing bottlenecks in the IT resources of companies.

 

What is a Citizen Developer

The idea of using a no-code application development platform to empower users in production is extremely attractive – especially in a world where IT capacity is a competitive advantage and demand for IT resources from business units is
significantly greater than IT’s capacity to meet that demand. As a result, the “Citizen Developer” is becoming more and more mainstream in enterprises – including manufacturing.

What exactly is a Citizen Developer? A Citizen Developer is a person, not a title or a specific role. Citizen developers can act as link builders between the business unit and IT to create model-oriented software-based applications for production.
They report to the production business unit and not to IT.

How does NC-Vision support Citizen
Developers?

Citizen Developers have no programming skills and rely on supporting tools.
Citizen Developers working in production can use NC-Vision’s No-Code Software Toolbox, which offers them unique flexibility through the NC-Builder. The No-Code development platform which is integrally embedded in the NC-Vision platform is the optimal tool for this purpose.
With the NC-Builder, it is possible to very quickly adapt workflows using a model-driven language and/or to very quickly adapt, in addition to the standard modules, the customer’s specific processes that have not yet been mapped, without having to manually write source code. In the intuitive no-code editor, Citizen developers easily and quickly extend the MES modules to meet all customer requirements. Adaptations of the standard MES application are thus easy, even in the long term, and as agile as your requirements.

 

What advantages does NC-Vision
bring for manufacturing companies?

The used software can be thus easily configured with and by the users over the entire period of use, adapted, further integrations enabled, and extensions made without the need to program source code.
Citizen developers are offered the full functionality of programming languages such as C++, JavaScript or Rust, while avoiding the complexity of these programming languages. This allows self-business critical processes to be implemented with a high-performance runtime. Thus, for the first time in the
field of production, a hard-coded core can be completely eliminated and a fully flexible, all-modular architecture can be used.

In addition to the optimal ability to react to changes, the manufacturing customer gains independence from both the in-house IT and the software manufacturer by having control over his own IT system. The adaptability, among other things, through the person of the Citizen Developer, who comes from the business users
in production, also offers further advantages, including:

  • significantly faster implementation of projects due to the increased flexibility resulting from the Citizen Developer resource in the business department
  • higher iterative-agile approach in the development of new business processes due to the independence of Citizen Developers from the IT department
  • Possibilities for improvisation under high time pressure, as Citizen Developers come from the business departments and know the requirements for the software and its workflows best.

 

The Route to Digital Transformation for Your Production

NC-Vision’s No-Code Software Toolbox is the world’s first software platform for building custom enterprise applications for manufacturing companies. The platform is fully based on a no-code technology specialized for the production environment. 

In addition to the modularity of NC-Vision’s No-Code Software Toolbox, the flexibility provided by the NC Builder is essential to the Citizen Developer’s skills. In the combinatorial modularity of the no-code software toolbox and the toolbox for the Citizen Developer, new technologies and new modules can thus be tried out very quickly during the entire life cycle with minimal effort, and customer-specific requirements can be easily expanded and integrated during operation.

Adapt with Ease

Respond to new products, variants, regulations and guidelines. Improvise effectively when things have to move fast.

Implement Fast

Go live in days instead of months with your individual composition. Add plug & play solutions from the marketplace later.

Bring Down Costs

Avoid lengthy project planning and overpriced customizing, while keeping operating costs in check.