How SimpleMES Built a Universal MES System on the SimpleOne Low-Code Platform
updated at: 24 March 2026
The SimpleMES team developed a manufacturing process management system on the SimpleOne low-code platform in a year and a half. Most of the functionality was built using low-code tools, which made it possible to create a flexible solution that works across a range of industries.
Yuri Dudnikov, Product Owner at SimpleMES, and Ilya Bednyakov, Project Manager, shared the details behind the development process.
How the MES Market Took Shape
When demand for MES systems first emerged, some vendors were the first to respond. They had a significant head start — dozens of mature, ready-made solutions backed by years of investment. Local developers found it difficult to compete in an open market against established, feature-complete products, and the time and money required to build the necessary knowledge, skills, and in-house solutions were hard to justify.
Still, in certain industries, some developers built strong, narrowly focused MES functionality of their own. Few, however, could offer a complete package covering the full range of MES capabilities.
Once market conditions shifted, existing MES vendors naturally began expanding on what they had already built, extending their strengths into more complete systems.
"Many MES systems historically grew out of solutions built for a single manufacturing company. A manufacturer with specific requirements looks at the market, doesn't find a good fit, and decides to build its own system. Once that system proves itself, the company starts selling it to similar businesses — say, a food producer sells to other food companies. That's how functionality keeps developing around a specific industry. The result is a landscape of highly specialized, often industry-specific solutions."
Right now, the market lacks flexible, platform-based MES solutions. Integrators either have to work with several vendors across different industries — meaning extra spend on training and added complexity when upgrading — or rewrite the system substantially for each new industry. Both paths make implementations slow, when a flexible, universal solution could let an integrator configure the system for different industries faster and more cheaply.
At the same time, a fully universal solution that works for everyone without any adaptation will never exist. Every production facility is unique as a physical environment.
"There's no such thing as an out-of-the-box MES rollout — it always needs adaptation. Even moving a solution from one factory to another plant owned by the very same manufacturer still requires customization. It might be minor or substantial, but it's the accumulation of small details that determines how long and how complex an implementation ends up being."
About SimpleMES
SimpleMES is a manufacturing process management system that sits between the planning layer (ERP) and the execution layer (process control systems).
The system takes in customer orders from the planning layer (the ERP), converts them into shop-floor production orders and operations, collects production and machine data from the execution layer, and feeds that real-world data back into the management loop.
SimpleMES's target customer is mid-size to large-scale discrete or batch manufacturers — companies that need to manage the full production cycle and product quality using planning, dispatching, transparent production-data collection, and traceability tools.
SimpleMES is a universal platform: rather than being built for one industry or one customer, it was designed as a solution that can be adapted to different types of manufacturing. That versatility comes from core functionality covering common MES needs, combined with flexible configuration tools for industry-specific adaptation and the ability to go as deep as needed for unique processes.
"Because every production environment is different, the solution will always look somewhat different for each customer — but the platform approach means that adaptation can happen quickly, without the vendor needing to be involved in every small change."
Building the System on SimpleOne
The SimpleMES team brings more than 15 years of industry experience. Before building their own product, the team's specialists implemented and rolled out MES solutions on other technology stacks — either heavyweight enterprise systems or custom-built software tailored to one type of production or industry.
That experience helped the team pinpoint the core problem with traditional development: the project-based approach. In that model, every rollout becomes its own unique project — developers adapt the system to a specific customer's requirements, build custom functionality, and configure it around existing processes. Over time, technical debt piles up: multiple code versions across different clients, difficult upgrades, and every customer depending on the development team for any change. Scaling that kind of solution to new production sites gets harder and harder — every rollout demands serious rework, timelines stretch, and costs climb.
"We realized this was exactly the right point, in terms of both timing and opportunity, to build an MES solution systematically, from the ground up — not by extending one narrow feature, and not by building an MES for a single customer, but by sitting down, thinking it through, synthesizing everything we'd learned, and starting to build."
The team chose the SimpleOne platform — a low-code business process automation platform — to build the solution, and ran a thorough platform assessment before development began.
Key factors behind the decision:
- Web architecture and low-code tools are the future. SimpleOne made it possible to build MES from the start as a platform-based, adaptable solution.
- Built-in low-code and no-code tools. Integrators and customers can configure the system to their own needs instead of waiting for the vendor to build out industry-specific functionality.
- Pro-code support. The platform doesn't limit deep custom development in JavaScript when it's needed.
- A lower barrier to entry for developers. The platform let the SimpleMES team train specialists and build expertise in-house, allowing the company to put together a team without relying on highly specialized — and hard-to-find — MES developers.
Development Stages
Building SimpleMES took about a year and a half, across two main stages.
Stage 1: Architecture Design (6 months)
The team pooled its industry experience and designed the system architecture. From the outset, the system was designed to be universal — not built for one customer or one industry. Careful preparation and platform analysis upfront helped the team avoid major surprises later on.
Stage 2: MVP Development (1 year)
Building the MVP took about a year. Because the architecture had been carefully planned in advance, the team was able to stay on schedule.
Platform Tools and Capabilities
SimpleMES draws on the full SimpleOne toolset: the workflow editor, low-code tools, custom scripts, a REST API, message queues, inheritance mechanisms, and custom widget development. The workflow editor became one of the team's key tools, letting them work with any table in the system and configure processes flexibly.
A defining feature of the build was the balance between low-code and pro-code. Most of the system's functionality was built using low-code tools, which kept development flexible and fast.
SimpleOne provided the tools needed to build MES interfaces suited to shop-floor use, where conditions differ from an office environment — interfaces need to be simple, fast, built with large, high-contrast elements, optimized for touchscreens, and easy to use on the production floor.
The platform makes it possible to build web interfaces that run on any device — desktops, tablets, industrial panels — without installing client software. The SimpleMES team built operator interfaces that work regardless of OS or device type and are tailored to real production-floor conditions.
"SimpleMES's story stands out to us: it shows just how versatile the platform really is. The team built an industrial-grade MES system without relying on a narrow, specialized tech stack — using nothing but SimpleOne's low-code tools and architecture. That kind of capability helps businesses launch complex products quickly, systematically, and without excessive cost — on a single platform that was designed not just for service processes, but for any business process or enterprise application."
To make production tasks easier to manage, the team built its own custom widgets: templates for production orders, the ability to split production orders into smaller units, a compatibility matrix for mapping different entities against each other, and a tool for working with every type of graphic labeling.
Results and Development Plans
The product is currently in an active go-to-market phase. The MVP is complete, and the development team is now working with a number of manufacturing companies.
The MVP delivers core MES functionality: production order management, production and machine data collection, integration with ERP and other systems, operator interfaces for shop-floor use, and basic reporting and analytics. The system has been tested and is ready for industrial deployment.
"We're seeing particularly strong interest from automotive manufacturers. Several projects are currently in active development — we're conducting process assessments, refining integration architecture, and shaping pilot rollouts."
Interest from the automotive sector isn't a coincidence — it's a complex, discrete manufacturing environment with high traceability requirements, a need to integrate many systems, demand for flexibility, and a strong focus on building resilient, self-sufficient supply chains.
Development Roadmap
The team's near-term plans include a planning and dispatching module, integration with process-control systems via OPC UA, expanded traceability capabilities, and stronger quality-control functionality.
These developments will help optimize production processes through advanced planning, collect data directly from equipment through the industrial OPC UA protocol, provide more granular oversight of production at every stage, and improve product quality through more advanced control tools.
Takeaways
Building SimpleMES on the SimpleOne platform confirms just how effective a low-code approach can be for developing complex industrial systems.
"With traditional development, you often end up having to rewrite the system from scratch after five to ten years. On a platform, that process is simpler and faster. Being able to quickly adapt the system to real business needs matters more than deep custom development from the ground up."
A low-code platform speeds up time to market, lowers development costs, increases flexibility for adapting to specific production needs, makes scaling simpler, gives access to a wider talent pool, and simplifies the product's ongoing evolution.