IFS Cloud is a robust Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform designed to manage essential business functions—from finance and inventory to manufacturing and supply chain operations. While it offers a strong foundation, making direct changes to it often does more harm than good. Manual customization risks breaking future upgrades and ends up increasing your IT team's backlog of requested features.
Fortunately, keeping pace with growth and adopting new technologies doesn’t require replacing your ERP or taking unnecessary risks. By extending your IFS system with Mendix low code development, you can quickly add a flexible layer on top, enhancing functionality without disrupting the stability of your core systems.
Short on Time? Here's a Brief Overview
- Preserve your investment: You can keep your stable IFS Cloud system for essential business operations while adding new capabilities.
- Speed up innovation: You can build new features in weeks instead of months with visual development tools.
- Reduce development costs: Create custom applications without expensive specialized programmers.
- Connect everyone: Give employees, customers, and suppliers intuitive access to your ERP data.
- Protect your upgrade path: You can add functionality without modifying your core ERP system.
The Innovation Bottleneck: Why ERP Alone Can't Keep Up
ERP systems are great for standardized processes like accounting, inventory management, and order processing, but this standardization makes rapid change difficult.
Customization problems
Organizations running IFS often find themselves weighing the benefits of new functionality against the risks and costs of customization. Customize your ERP directly, and you can face several practical problems:
- Direct code modifications often break during system upgrades.
- Each customization requires specialized developers who charge premium rates.
- The more you customize, the harder future changes become.
- Testing and quality assurance consume significant resources.
IT backlogs delay critical business capabilities
Your business constantly evolves, and technological requirements only get more complex. For instance, sales teams request mobile apps for field representatives, operations departments need enhanced reporting dashboards, and finance requires specialized approval workflows. Every request joins an ever-growing queue that your IT department must try to address even while maintaining existing systems.
When organizations lack effective ways to handle these needs, departments often create independent solutions, such as stand-alone spreadsheets, isolated databases, or unauthorized shadow systems. Such fragmentation creates inconsistent data, wastes time, duplicates efforts, and increases error rates throughout your organization.
What Is Mendix and How Does It Work Alongside IFS?
Mendix is a low code development platform—a visual environment where you build applications by dragging and dropping elements instead of writing thousands of lines of code. The platform transforms complex programming into visual design, making application development more accessible to a wider audience across your organization.
Let’s see how it would work in a real-word example. Creating a customer portal with Mendix would typically involve:
- Visually designing screens by dragging elements like tables and buttons.
- Connecting these screens to your data using point-and-click tools.
- Adding logic with visual flowcharts instead of complex programming.
- Testing and deploying with built-in tools that handle technical details automatically.
With IFS, Mendix works as an extension layer that connects through secure APIs (application programming interfaces—essentially code that lets systems share information). This allows your extensions to leverage IFS Cloud's Industrial AI features, bringing advanced analytics and intelligent automation into your business workflows.
The result? Create modular, composable applications that can be quickly adapted as needs change.
For example, you can maintain customer master data in IFS but use a Mendix application where sales representatives update contact information and view order history on their tablets. The information stays synchronized automatically, without duplicate data entry.
Use Cases: How Organizations Extend IFS With Mendix
Companies in manufacturing, retail, energy, and financial industries use Mendix to enhance their IFS systems in various ways without disrupting core stability.
1. Self-service portals
Many businesses need to give external partners access to ERP data. Mendix excels at creating intuitive portals for vendors, customers, and field personnel.
With Mendix portals connected to IFS, organizations can provide real-time access to relevant data while maintaining security controls. Suppliers can view purchase order statuses and delivery schedules, customers can track their orders and access invoicing information, and field personnel can access work assignments and update job progress—all without requiring direct ERP system access or consuming internal resources for routine inquiries.
2. Mobile workforce solutions
Field service management works better when mobile apps connect technicians with your ERP. Mendix applications let field teams access work orders, update job statuses, and record time—even offline.
VodafoneZiggo, a Dutch telecommunications provider, had technicians complaining about juggling multiple systems during service calls. Its new application integrates data from multiple systems into one unified mobile tool. With technicians saving an average of 10 minutes per truck roll, VodafoneZiggo has seen significant efficiency gains.
3. Process automation and workflow
IFS offers standard workflows, but companies often require custom approval sequences or specialized notifications. Mendix can handle these unique workflows while keeping transactions in the ERP.
CED, a European specialist in claims management within the insurance industry, transformed its entire claims process using Mendix. Previously, handling the approximately one million claims worth more than €2.5 billion annually involved extensive paper processes, manual work, and duplicated efforts. Working with CLEVR, CED developed a platform that handles all process flows related to a claim—from initial damage report to final payout. The new automated system reduced the time required for the entire claims handling process by 50%.
4. Legacy application replacement
Many IFS customers have older applications alongside their ERP. These aging systems often create problems due to outdated technology and high maintenance costs. Mendix applications can replace these systems while connecting smoothly with IFS. This digital transformation strategy focuses on step-by-step modernization rather than replacing everything at once.
Integration and Governance: IT Still in Control
For IT leaders worried about system sprawl and security risks, Mendix offers governance features that maintain central control while enabling broader development capabilities.
Security and access control
Mendix applications integrate with your existing security infrastructure through multiple layers of protection. For instance, single sign-on seamlessly connects with your identity providers, while row-level security and role-based permissions ensure that users access only the appropriate data. Additionally, comprehensive audit logging tracks all system activity for compliance and security monitoring purposes.
Deployment management
IT maintains control through a structured deployment pipeline with dedicated environments for development, testing, and production use. The platform offers one-click deployment between environments and provides full version control with rollback capabilities, eliminating the need for complex manual processes.
Enabling citizen development safely
Mendix's visual development tools enable business analysts to build applications within guardrails established by IT, utilizing pre-approved components, standardized templates, and secure integrations. Automated quality and security checks prevent common mistakes throughout the development process.
Why CLEVR? Your Partner in IFS + Mendix Excellence
At CLEVR, we bring specialized expertise in connecting Mendix with ERP systems, such as IFS. With nearly 300 professionals across 18 countries serving over 500 clients, we understand both the technical details and business considerations in these integrations.
What really sets us apart is the fact that we work closely with business and IT teams to identify opportunities for enhancing their IFS environment. Our experts design Mendix applications that connect securely with your IFS ERP while meeting your specific business requirements. Using agile methodologies, we build, test, and refine applications with regular feedback to ensure they deliver exactly what you need.
Extend, don't rebuild
The best enterprise systems today use a single platform that combines specialized tools working together, rather than one system that does everything poorly. The IFS and Mendix combination gives you:
- Speed: Build customer portals, mobile apps, and workflows in weeks instead of months.
- Right Fit: Create exactly what your business needs without compromising.
- Safety: Protect your core ERP investment and upgrade path.
- Flexibility: Adapt quickly as your business evolves without expensive rework.
Creating a "best of both worlds" scenario, your trusted IFS system handles core business transactions while Mendix provides the agility to address changing market needs quickly. You can build an interactive user experience that puts the right information at your staff's fingertips. And governance topics like security, compliance, and system management remain straightforward with clear processes and responsibilities.
Mendix and IFS can work together for your company. Contact CLEVR for a personalized demo of our integration capabilities.
Research Methodology
This article combines insights from customer case studies with technical information from IFS and Mendix platform documentation. All implementation details reflect actual capabilities verified through practical application in enterprise environments.
FAQs
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No. Mendix applications connect through supported APIs, allowing you to maintain your IFS upgrade path without modifying core code. When upgrading IFS, integration points typically need only minor adjustments rather than complex rewrites.
","title":"Does extending IFS with Mendix affect our upgrade path?"},{"content":"
Most organizations deploy their first applications within six to 12 weeks. Simpler solutions may take just three to four weeks, while more complex applications require eight to 12 weeks—still much faster than traditional development approaches.
","title":"How long does it typically take to implement Mendix extensions to IFS?"},{"content":"
You'll benefit from having business analysts who understand your processes, IFS specialists who know your ERP configuration, and Mendix developers who build the applications. People can become productive Mendix developers with just two to three weeks of training, even without extensive programming backgrounds.
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