Bruker's Oxford Superconducting Technology Low-Code Manufacturing App Case Study

Business Analyst at Superconducting Technology Company Speeds Development of Manufacturing App with Low-Code Development

Business Challenge

As with most manufacturing companies, Oxford Superconducting Technology, has a corrective and preventive action (CAPA) system to identify and fix any issues in its manufacturing process, and to institute safeguards to prevent these problems from occurring again. Oxford Superconducting Technology was managing the second part of this system—preventive action—with a legacy application built in Microsoft Access.

The company was experiencing scalability and performance issues with the application, and needed to migrate the back-end from Access's workgroup-class database to a robust enterprise SQL database. The migration, however, introduced a whole new set of problems, because the old Access front-end didn't map well to the SQL fields on the new back-end. Complicating this, company officials decided the time was right to modernize the application to take advantage of the web and, ultimately, mobile devices.

The organization wanted a contemporary cloud-based system that would let shop floor workers reliably manage preventive action efforts directly from their tablets as well as desktops. Raising the stakes even higher, company officials set a two-month deadline to prototype and produce the new B2B mobile enterprise app.

Solution

Leading the project was Oxford Superconducting Technology's Business Analyst Sagrika Mehta. While Mehta holds a computer science degree, she focused her career on IT analysis rather than programming. She started to work on scoping the project as a citizen developer, and estimated the app build would require a large team of skilled programmers and lots of late-night man hours. Hearing this, a colleague recommended Alpha Anywhere. Mehta downloaded the  Alpha Anywhere low-code app development platform from Alpha Software's site and started playing around with the low-code app development IDE.

To her surprise, in just two days she had prototyped three mission-critical forms. She leaned back in her chair and realized Alpha Anywhere could get Oxford Superconducting Technology on the fast track to launching their new preventive action app, and at a substantial cost savings to boot.

One month later, after attending a course offered by Alpha Softwares training partner, Twin Peaks Research, Mehta had completed the design, build, and test of the new business application. Using Alpha's low-code components, wizards, and "coding optional" technology, she rapidly and visually designed the database, forms, and business logic; and then connected that design to cloud, mobile, and desktop user experiences—all with no past programming experience.

Results/Benefits

When Mehta unveiled the app, her colleagues told her she should get a "Best Programmer Award" for her amazing results building the app. Alpha Anywhere let Mehta—a non-developer—create the enterprise-class B2B mobile business app Oxford Superconducting Technology needed with a single code base that meets 100% of the company's front- and back-end requirements, including support for tablets, smartphones, laptops, and desktops, as well as Microsoft SQL Server. Replacing the old Access database would have taken two to three months and multiple developers to build, yet it took one developer just 30 days with Alpha Anywhere, beating the project's deadline by half.

Thirty Oxford Superconducting Technology workers now use the app to easily and securely manage preventive action efforts from wherever they are on the shop floor, using tablets, continuing to ensure the company upholds its strict manufacturing policies and procedures. In fact, Mehta's success prompted Oxford Superconducting Technology to migrate several other applications to Alpha Anywhere, expanding the platform into a core piece of the company's IT infrastructure across multiple operational areas.