The Application Factory

Five Key Reasons to Implement the Application Factory

Organizations have struggled for decades with effective software development and delivery. Today, the challenges of unbridled application proliferation are exacerbated by the need to consolidate and streamline while continuing to develop new capabilities to meet ever-changing business demands. The average large organization reported 976 individual software applications in the 2022 Connectivity Benchmark Report published by MuleSoft Research.¹ A consistent and automated approach to application development is necessary to reduce cost and complexity, while increasing operational agility and application quality. Current disconnects among business needs, operational requirements, and technical constraints stem from a plethora of root causes related to underlying architecture that predates many of today’s technologies and requirements. The resulting challenges include issues with security, quality, reliability, usability, scalability, interoperability, maintainability, and portability. Additional contributors to these challenges include variations in software development processes, tools, and languages; the lack of a single source of truth for underlying data; the absence of automated integration between software applications; and the underlying complexity of software applications we all use every day.

The symptoms of these issues include:

• An inability to respond quickly to changing business demands
• A lack of visibility into numerous attack vectors that compromise security
• High costs just ‘keeping the lights on’ for operations and maintenance
• Inefficient user experiences overly dependent on swivel-chair manual processes
• Inconsistent data and duplicate databases, creating silos and blame

To meet these challenges, many enterprises are turning to the concept of an application factory. Application factories deliver significant benefits to large organizations in terms of agility, productivity, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Guidehouse’s innovative approach combines best-in-class modern low-code platforms and web services. This proven methodology has helped multiple federal agencies, deliver highly successful, award-winning programs that exceeded expectations throughout the software life cycle. 

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This article was co-authored by Jerry Eshbaugh, Rajeev Mohal, and Gabriel Wechter.

^1. “70% of Organizations Do Not Provide Completely Connected User Experiences, 2022 Connectivity Benchmark Report”, Mulesoft, 2022, mulesoft.com.