How to Streamline Your Business with Mendix Applications Integrated with SAP

Mendix is a leading low-code development platform that has gained prominence due to its advanced features that surpass those of its competitors. To further expand its capabilities, Mendix partnered with SAP to enhance SAP’s digital capabilities through low-code rapid app development. This collaboration enables businesses to efficiently develop new and unique solutions on top of SAP products such as SAP Hybris, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP S/4HANA.

By integrating Mendix applications with SAP products, businesses can unlock endless opportunities and gain a competitive advantage. This integration allows them to utilize the power of SAP solutions to streamline their operations and improve efficiency. We have compiled a comprehensive article on how SAP-integrated Mendix applications can help transform your business, along with a real-life success story to demonstrate its effectiveness.

Why Integrate Mendix Applications with SAP?

When integrating Mendix applications with SAP, you can leverage the strengths of both platforms to optimize app development and automate various processes, resulting in streamlined business operations. Here are the top 5 benefits of integrating Mendix applications with SAP:

1. Improved Data Accuracy

Integrating Mendix applications with SAP enables seamless data sharing between the two systems, creating a single source of truth for your business. By accessing data from both systems in one platform, you can save the time required for searching for information. This integration ensures that data used by your business and both systems are up-to-date and consistent, minimizing the chances of errors associated with manual entry.

2. Improved Visibility

Integrating Mendix applications with SAP provides real-time visibility into your critical business processes, allowing business leaders to make informed decisions based on up-to-date and accurate information. By accessing real-time data from SAP, your business can identify trends, analyze performance metrics, and optimize processes to improve profitability and efficiency.

In addition, enhanced visibility enables your business to respond quickly to emerging customer and market needs, giving you a competitive edge. By getting a comprehensive overview of your business performance, integrating Mendix applications with SAP enables your business to make data-driven decisions that drive success.

3. Streamlined Business Processes

Integrating SAP with Mendix applications allows for end-to-end automation of business processes, reducing overreliance on manual intervention and streamlining your business operations. This integration also enables seamless information flow between systems, minimizing errors associated with manual data entry. By automating your business processes, you can improve efficiency, enhance the customer experience, and reduce operational costs. This puts your business in a stronger position in the highly competitive market.

4. Increased Productivity

Boosting productivity is a goal for every company, but achieving it can be challenging. Integrating Mendix applications with SAP, however, can significantly increase your business productivity. This is because employees can directly access data from SAP within the Mendix app, eliminating the need to switch between systems. This results in reduced task completion time and enhanced efficiency.

In addition, streamlined access to accurate information enables employees to make informed decisions faster and more efficiently. Real-time data access also helps your company respond more quickly to customer needs, improving overall satisfaction and driving more sales. A satisfied customer is loyal and can bring new business to your company.

5. Scalability

As previously mentioned, Mendix apps are known for their high scalability. Thanks to the partnership between Mendix and SAP, it has become even more effortless to integrate these apps with SAP. This scalability feature enables your business to seamlessly incorporate new systems and processes without disrupting existing operations. Consequently, your business can rapidly expand its operations to meet evolving market and customer demands, implement new strategies, and venture into new markets, seizing opportunities as they arise.

This is a crucial aspect for businesses aiming to succeed in today’s unpredictable business environment, where companies must be flexible and responsive to thrive.

Also Read: The Power of Low-Code Business Solutions: Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Them

Application of SAP-Integrated Mendix Applications: Case Study

Here is a success story of a client who adopted the SAP-integrated multilingual workshop management Mendix app to streamline business operations.

Status Quo

The Switzerland-based client is a prominent manufacturing company that requires an application to streamline its production processes while maintaining efficiency and quality. The client sought to establish control over its machinery and provide continuous updates to all stakeholders regarding the manufacturing devices, plant workers, and workflow processes. To address the manufacturing plant’s issues, the client needed a SmartProd application built quickly.

Project Overview

The client aimed to streamline their operations by consolidating system monitoring and access into a single application, featuring shop floor management (SmartProd) that integrates seamlessly with SAP. This solution would enable stakeholders to efficiently manage their manufacturing plant data and systems by exchanging updates. This would facilitate timely decision-making, such as dispatching support team members to the plant to fix manufacturing devices that might affect the assembly line or prioritizing urgent tasks in case of a medical emergency.

Business Requirements

• The goal is to develop a flexible application that can operate seamlessly on various platforms, including web browsers, tablets, and smartphones. This will enhance accessibility to vital information and updates, allowing stakeholders to make informed decisions promptly.
• To develop an application that can be effectively utilized by key stakeholders, including plant managers, team managers, employees, and support team members.
• To create connectors that enable seamless integration between the SmartProd application and SAP, serving as the backend system for production tracking.

Proposed Solution

• To effectively divide the tasks and meet the stringent timeline and quality standards, Indium Software suggested a two-phase approach to Mendix development. Phase 1 involved 16 modules while Phase 2 involved 18 modules.
• After considering the latest technology options, the decision was made to implement Mendix 8.1.1 version, and SAP Connectors would be used to integrate with the SAP backend system. The choice was made to ensure compliance with the latest industry standards and to maximize efficiency.

Project Execution

Indium Software utilized multiple tools, including Mendix (cloud), SAP, and PostgreSQL, to develop a comprehensive SmartProd application comprising of 34 modules. This application serves as a multilingual smart operations and management platform, which operators and managers can use on the shop floor. By integrating the application with SAP on the backend, data synchronization with SAP is accomplished in real-time. Additionally, the application features a simplified user interface and facilitates continuous improvement processes in production. Through the SAP integration, users can access machine details and track all the updates from stakeholders.

Other aspects taken into consideration during the application development were:

• The application components were configured to enable multilingual interactions, supporting operations in three languages: English, French, and German.
• Role-based user permissions were set up to match the respective responsibilities of the users, which helped in establishing access restrictions.
• Comprehensive Mendix quality assurance practices were implemented throughout the development process to ensure adherence to quality standards

Here is a high-level architecture of the SmartProd app:

Business Impact

After the delivery and implementation of the SAP-integrated multilingual workshop management Mendix application, the business observed several impacts including:

Reduced reaction time by 80%

The SmartProd application became more robust and efficient in handling critical alerts triggered in case of emergency issues arising in workstations. Consequently, the response time of the support team for such issues reduced by 80%.

40% increase in company productivity

The integration of SAP with the multilingual workshop management Mendix application allowed for cross-platform usage, making the application accessible through web browsers, tablets, and smartphones. This enabled stakeholders to stay informed about the latest updates from the plant floor, resulting in a 40% increase in productivity.

Streamlined communication

The implementation of the SAP-integrated multilingual workshop management Mendix application improved communication between plant managers, team managers, support teams, machine operators, and labor employees, promoting better efficiency and safety within the facility.

Reduced attrition rate

After implementing the SmartProd application, the plant experienced a 12% decrease in employee attrition across all levels. This positive effect was attributed to the application’s efficient functioning, which helped create a better working environment.

Conclusion

Integrating Mendix applications with SAP solutions offers boundless opportunities to streamline your business operations. By adopting this approach, you can equip your employees with real-time, up-to-date information to make informed decisions promptly. Furthermore, this integration enhances visibility and control over your business processes, ensuring that your team has access to the right data at the right time.

In addition to optimizing your business processes, integrating Mendix with SAP empowers you to build responsive and highly scalable enterprise applications. As demonstrated in the success story above, this integration can significantly boost productivity, reduce response time for issues, lower attrition rates, and promote seamless communication between different stakeholders.