Mendix at City of Rotterdam

First Mendix Application

The RAD team started with Erik as coordinator, a solutions architect, and 2 junior developers. The first application was built for the supervision and enforcement department. The 300 employees of urban management (boa's) were using an application that no longer met the security & privacy requirements of the City of Rotterdam. The RAD team successfully rebuilt the application with Mendix. So successfully that they won an Impact Award at Mendix World 2019 for the application. A great start.

Erik coordinates the organizational and financial matters of the RAD expert team. The solutions architect deals with technical matters, links, and data sources. Since the first Mendix application, they continuously implement improvements to make RAD even more successful and ensure quality.

The Success Explained

At this moment, the RAD team is 40 colleagues large and growing. Erik explains the success: "A frequently heard frustration was the long development time of applications by the IT department. Some applications were already outdated upon implementation. The rapid development of Mendix applications was immediately experienced as positive. Users feel heard because they are asked to think along and see their own work reflected in the delivered applications. The collaboration between business and IT can count on much enthusiasm. Employee engagement (often the users) is therefore high."

"Mendix meets our needs. Also because they continuously develop further."

Mendix Applications Target Groups

The City of Rotterdam continuously develops applications for 3 target groups: citizens, employees, and chain partners. For citizens, applications have been developed, among others, for registering visitors for parking and for reporting street issues. Application development for municipal employees focuses primarily on process improvement, speed, and quality improvement of services.

The City of Rotterdam also builds applications for and with chain partners, such as CityTec. They manage, among other things, traffic light installations in the city. Together they developed Vamos: an application that handles everything related to malfunctions, such as logging malfunctions and notifications of resolved malfunctions.

"The biggest advantage of Mendix is that applications can be adapted to new requirements within a day."

No Limitations

Mendix knows no limitations for the municipality. Erik: "Mendix meets our needs. Also because they continuously develop further. For example with React Native since Mendix 8. Also in the area of storage around IoT applications, the company is making great strides. And we regularly participate in Mendix's beta program. For example with the Datahub and the ControlCenter. This way we are in the front row and have influence on new functionalities within the Mendix platform. A very big plus point: everything is done in the Mendix-cloud. With high stability and speed. So no longer on-premise."

Accelerated Digitalization Due to Corona

Corona has only accelerated the digitalization of the City of Rotterdam. Erik: "In March and April 2020, we were able to develop applications very quickly with Mendix for our services to self-employed people and the GGD. For example, an application for applying for financial schemes. The biggest advantage of Mendix compared to traditional development tools is that applications can be adapted to new requirements within a day and can be rolled out by the builder. This means you continuously align with the user's wishes. Especially important in these times."

"A frequently heard frustration was the long development time of applications by the IT department."

A Pleasant Collaboration

Qualogy is one of the City of Rotterdam's partners for hiring Mendix specialists. The collaboration is appreciated from both sides. Erik: "Qualogy is a reliable partner that delivers good people. The RAD team has specialist requirements for hired professionals. Qualogy's Mendix Business Engineers meet these requirements."

About Erik van der Steen

After working in the newspaper world for 25 years, Erik van der Steen has been working at the City of Rotterdam since 2008. First as Information Manager, now as Rapid Application Development Coordinator. In 2017, he writes a proposal to introduce Rapid Application Development (RAD) with agile scrum working and to accelerate application development speed. Following his proposal, the low-code Mendix platform is chosen for agile scrum application development. Erik coordinates the organizational and financial matters of the RAD expert team.