From enterprise models to low-code applications: mapping DEMO to Mendix; illustrated in the social housing domain

Due to hyper-competition, technological advancements, regulatory changes, etc, the conditions under which enterprises need to thrive become increasingly turbulent. Consequently, enterprise agility increasingly determines an enterprise’s chances for success. As software development often is a limiting factor in achieving enterprise agility, enterprise agility and software adaptability become increasingly intertwined. As a consequence, decisions that regard flexibility should not be left to software developers alone. By taking a Model-driven Software Development (MDSD) approach, starting from DEMO ontological enterprise models and explicit (enterprise) implementation design decisions, the aim of this research is to bridge the gap from enterprise agility to software adaptability, in such a way that software development is no longer a limiting factor in achieving enterprise agility. Low-code technology is a growing market trend that builds on MDSD concepts and claims to offer a high degree of software adaptability. Therefore, as a first step to show the potential benefits to use DEMO ontological enterprise models as a base for MDSD, this research shows the design of a mapping from DEMO models to Mendix for the (automated) creation of a low-code application that also intrinsically accommodates run-time implementation design decisions.