# Low-Code as Enabler of Digital Transformation in Manufacturing Industry
## 2 Context Analysis
### Other Information Sources  
As the number of results obtained in the search performed in scientific databases is scarce, due to the novelty of this domain, alternative information sources are used to analyse the current status of the low-code paradigm. For this purpose, Google Academic is the information source selected. As it is shown in Table 1, the number of results found is higher than in the other two scientific databases.  
When the search is more narrowed down, adding \"application, \"platform\" and \"app\" to the set of originals keywords (\"low-code\"), the number of results decreases considerably. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that more than 40% of the results identified in the search do not correspond to the purpose of the present research, as they are focused on the low code-rates when they are studying the error corrections codes. This concept is used for controlling errors in data over unreliable or noisy communication channels. To avoid problems, redundant bits are added to support the decodification and find out the true message encoded in the communication. The code-rate is defined as the ratio between the number of information bits and the total number of bits in a specific communication channel. A low code-rate close to zero means a strong code that uses many redundant bits to achieve a good performance, while a large code-rate close to 1 implies a weak code [9; 25; 26].  
Taking this into account, it seems that low-code development platforms that provide the necessary functionalities to users to configure operational apps are a novel topic that currently is emerging. Narrowing down the results of the search \"low-code\" from 2014, that is the year when \"low-code\" was firstly coined to 2019; and deleting those related to \"low-code rates\", the total results are only 33% of the original results, what evinced that not too many references study this concept.  
With regard to the type of documents, google academic provides as results, scientific publications but also other documents such as reports developed by prestigious global enterprise software companies and market research companies such as OutSystems [27] and Forrester [28]. These companies perform technological vigilance and report the results of such observance. Moreover, they perform surveysaddressed to application developers, managers, or information technology (IT) leaders to analyse their challenges with digital transformation, application development, delivery speed, among others.  
The market of the low-code development platforms (based on 42 suppliers of these services) generated $1.7 billion in revenue during 2015 [6]. Moreover, in a survey addressed to developers, 23% reported that they used low-code development platforms in 2018, and another 22% planned to do so within a year [29]. [PERSON] [30] points out that the average cost of a software development project ranges from $434,000 for projects implemented in small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) to $2,322,000 for larger projects [31]. Besides these figures, authors state that 31.1% of projects are not finished and they are finally cancelled, 52.7% of the projects exceed the budget in an 89% more, and only 16.2% are completed according to the planned schedule and budget [31].  
Based on these results it seems that the low-code topic, more specifically its application through platforms, is a reality and will be a trend in coming years. However, when this topic is searched in scientific sources, not too many evidences are found, what points out the fact that this topic seems to be under-researched and only few low-code development platforms have been developed and launched. This is also more critical when the target markets are the industrial sector where the apps should also take into account Industry 4.0 aspects such as for example data coming IoT devices.