# Low-Code as Enabler of Digital Transformation in Manufacturing Industry
## 1 Introduction
Due to the reduction in the development cycle from a time viewpoint, the cost is also reduced whether the app is developed by the company or by external developers [4]. * Complexity reduction. As the apps are not built from scratch, the apps development is simplified and this fact enables to focus more on customizing the software to fulfil users' requirements. * Easy maintenance. The maintenance phase of software is vital to be able to quickly change what already has been developed to guarantee a permanent alignment between the service offered by the app and the business requirements. In light of this, as the essentials of the low-code development platforms are to offer little code, there is little code to maintain [3]. * Involvement of business profiles. These platforms provide simple and intuitive interfaces as a development environment for the deployment of apps. In this context, no technological knowledge is required, and the final users of these apps become the developers of such apps as they are the ones who have a deep knowledge about the business needs [5]. According to [3] 44% of the low-code development platform users are business users in collaboration with IT. * Minimisation of unstable or inconsistent requirements. In the current software development process, potential conflicts might arise among requirements and the impacts on the app design of requirements' changes. However, following the idea of the previous benefit, the use of low-code means that developers quickly build minimum viable products to validate ideas and customer requirements before wasting resources on features and functionalities that customers may not value [6]. Based on the 'The State of Application Development' report [3] that shows the results obtained through a survey answered by more than 3300 IT professionals across different continents, the main reasons for using low-code development platforms are detailed in Figure 1. Of the respondents, 66% chose accelerate digital transformation and increase responsiveness to the business as the main motives why they use or will use low-code development platforms; 45% of the surveyed professionals pointed to the reduction of dependency on hard-to-hire technical skills. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [6] state that low-code development platforms bring several benefits, but some risks have also to be taken into consideration. Based on the previous advantages, low-code development platforms provide useful solutions in automating and speeding application delivery, and high vendor growth rates. However, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [6] also highlight the risk of dozens of small vendors selling outside of tech management, and customers with little consensus about how low-code development platforms fit into their broader portfolios. [PERSON] et al. [2] also highlight three main limitations that hamper the use of the low-code development platforms:  
* Scalability: the authors point out that low-code development platforms are mainly addressed for the development of small apps but their application in large-scale projects and mission-critical enterprise applications is not covered currently. * Fragmentation: different low-code development paradigms can be defined depending on each vendor and their specific programming model. * Software-only systems: while enterprise developers have little expertise of programming, they are often experts in some other engineering areas. These experts expect to be able to use their knowledge in the application, at the right level of abstraction and using familiar formalisms. Along the same lines, the survey conducted by [3] shows that the main reasons why organisations are not using a low-code platform, or are not thinking to use one are the lack of knowledge closely followed by concerns about lock-in, flexibility, scalability, and security (Figure 2).