Low Code Accelerates Digital Transformation at Major Chemical Company

The Solution

Building the Right Solutions

Part of the team’s exploration was to study the digitalization of the supply chain. They looked at the machinery which formed the backbone of their operations and then dug deeper, using algorithms to extract data from the machinery and procedures to gain intelligence about process workflow. But then the team realized something was missing, so they began to combine this intelligence from their machinery study with usage information from the workers, which is exactly the mission and why the project was formed originally, to combine machinery data from their study and human, real usage, input!

In preparation for the design phase, the team evaluated several low-code app development solutions in the market and chose HCL Volt MX for a variety of reasons — its flexibility on deployment, ability to integrate with other apps/systems/data, and its low-cost compared to other low-code platforms. And, perhaps most importantly, the incredible support and teamwork that was offered by HCL at the start and carried out throughout the project. HCL was quick to help when the company needed new app components that weren’t “in the box” and do co-development work to build those components out for repeatable use. Because of this relationship with HCL, the team could move fast and start to see results almost immediately.

They began to design and develop initial versions of the apps to quickly test basic concepts and get early input from the users. Armed with that knowledge they then did fast iterations on the apps to build out more functionality, bringing the workers with them every step of the way to provide feedback and giving them the opportunity to see reports. In fact, the workers appreciated being asked for their input so much that they soon began to line up to volunteer and test at each iteration.

Once apps were deemed ready for broader use they were rolled out to the other factories, accessible by shareable iPads. This is helping grow awareness and adoption and spread the word about the apps to a global workforce of 60,000.

The company now has more than 15 apps in various stages of development — design, development, and in-use — where it gets an end-to-end perspective on app usage and overall adoption. The company’s mandate is to keep an eye on opportunities for continuous improvement, especially with respect to quality and safety. And the Volt MX platform, hosted on the AWS Cloud, supports this goal perfectly by allowing for a quick, agile cycle to fix/test/deploy as issues arise.

The positive impact from the Volt MX digital applications is being recognized by other departments, from the shop worker to the top-level executive management team.