Citizen Development: The WingArc1st Case

This chapter explores citizen development as a mechanism through which digital transformation can emerge from operational practice rather than centralized IT initiatives. Using the case of WingArc1st, the chapter demonstrates how accessible data platforms enable engineers and frontline workers to build digital tools such as dashboards and applications that directly support operational learning. In manufacturing environments characterized by rapid feedback cycles and evolving problems, digital requirements often cannot be fully specified in advance. Citizen development reduces the translation gap between operational problem definition and digital implementation by allowing practitioners themselves to experiment with digital solutions. WingArc’s platform architecture provides a controlled environment where local experimentation can occur while maintaining enterprise data governance and integration with core systems. This layered architecture allows manufacturing firms to combine centralized system stability with decentralized innovation. The case illustrates how citizen development accelerates improvement cycles, embeds digital artifacts into daily work routines, and strengthens the co-evolution of analog operational knowledge and digital analytical capability within the ADX framework.