Agfa Gevaert.

The Situation

Agfa Gevaert’s MES (Manufacturing Execution System) team needed to build modern frontend applications but had no established frontend practice. There was no design system, no development standards, no UX process, and the team consisted primarily of junior developers with limited frontend experience. Existing applications relied on expensive, closed-source UI libraries that locked them into rigid design patterns and made customization painful.

What We Did

We defined and documented a complete frontend development strategy covering every aspect of the practice.

UX/UI design workflow. We introduced a structured process starting with user personas, user journey mapping, wireframing, and iterative validation. The goal was to stop building interfaces that mirror developer mental models and start building for actual users. This gave the team a repeatable framework for scoping any new application.

API-first architecture. We decoupled frontend and backend entirely, introducing OpenAPI specifications as the contract between the two. This allowed frontend and backend to develop in parallel, with auto-generated API clients and published documentation. The spec became the single source of truth.

Component library and design system. We replaced expensive third-party UI libraries with a custom-built component library owned by the team. Components were documented in Storybook and distributed as packages through automated CI/CD pipelines. The library was designed to grow naturally as new components emerged from project work.

Project templates and tooling. We created scaffolded project templates that gave developers a validated starting point for new applications, including authentication, state management, and the component library out of the box. This eliminated setup time and ensured consistency.

Developer mentorship. Every technical decision was also a teaching moment. The strategy was explicitly designed as an educational framework, giving junior developers a process to follow and the understanding to eventually replicate it themselves.

The Result

The team went from having no frontend practice to operating with a clear, documented strategy that covers UX research, architecture, code management, and component development. Junior developers grew into autonomous contributors who could scope, design, and build applications independently.