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An interesting practical example of the use of Siemens’ low-code platform Mendix: geospatial data specialist Fugro used it to introduce a cloud-based, mission-critical equipment management system in its nearshore site characterization business unit within seven months, replacing its old Equipment Management System (EMS).

Special ship from Fugro (picture Fugro)

The Dutch company Fugro makes more than 1.5 billion US dollars in annual sales worldwide. Fugro provides integrated data collection, analysis and consulting from geospatial data on land and at sea. Unexpected downtime or inaccuracies in deployed equipment are risky and potentially costly. With this in mind, Fugro’s Nearshore Site Characterization business needed to update its EMS.

The EMS application tracks the status of thousands of pieces of equipment and provides information about an item’s location, timeliness of certifications, or need for repair, thus helping Fugro maintain compliance. The old system had reached the end of its life cycle. Fugro planned a complete redevelopment and commissioned Mendix partner EGALiT to develop a new version with low code.

Intuitive and automated user guidance

“We wanted to create a clone of our system. That was the reason we chose Mendix,” says Frank Ruhs, head of asset management for marine site characterization. “It allowed us to replicate what we already had in a secure cloud-native environment and create a solid solution for the next five years. Updating to a cloud-based environment with offline capabilities gives us a new level of speed, accessibility and productivity.”

In addition to migrating to the cloud, Fugro had additional requirements for the new system: it had to be flexible, maintainable over the long term, and work well with the other systems and data sources in the Fugro ecosystem. Fugro also wanted a more intuitive and automated user experience. In addition, the system needed to be accurate and compliant with regulations. At the same time, the EMS was extremely complex, managing more than 60,000 rows of equipment with unique data points, between five and six employee user groups, and hundreds of certification parameters.

EGALiT relaunched the system and organized the transition in just seven months. The low-code EMS application was rolled out in the summer of 2022 without extensive user training.