NXP Semiconductors streamlines mission critical business processes with Microsoft Power Platform

NXP Semiconductors is a Dutch semiconductor manufacturing company that develops innovative solutions across multiple markets, including automotive, industrial, IoT, and communications. Products include imaging radar processors for autonomous driving, wireless battery management solutions for electric vehicles, and microcontrollers for smart homes and factories. NXP employs approximately 33,000 people in more than 30 countries.

To help drive innovation and greater efficiency, NXP has long been an active user of Power Platform. The company’s Power Platform community has grown from a few hundred employees to more than 3,000 makers in just three years. “What’s really exciting is that the percentage of employees developing solutions on Power Platform keeps growing, year after year,” says Andrei Negrut, Product Manager for Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Solutions at NXP.

Together, makers at NXP have created over 3,500 applications using Power Apps and more than 17,000 flows in Power Automate. The business benefits of all this activity have been significant. Based on a sample survey of just six applications, NXP has reduced processing time by 75% through automation, saving over 400 hours per month while also reducing operational costs.

Solutions range from simple personal productivity tools to robust business applications supporting larger teams. These include automated workflows for tasks such as account provisioning, exception handling, and site connectivity management. Many of these solutions are integrated with backend systems and support critical operational and manufacturing processes.

Semiconductor production planning 

One example of a powerful, enterprise-grade solution at NXP is a planning application used in semiconductor production. Forecasting and production alignment are essential due to long manufacturing lead times. Previously managed through spreadsheets, the planning process was prone to manual errors and lacked centralized visibility across facilities.

The new solution, built using Power Apps and Power BI, consolidates production data into a single interface. It enables planners to update data and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) in real time, such as demand coverage and capacity utilization. The use of low-code tools allowed for rapid development and close alignment with user needs.

Production data is loaded from enterprise systems into Dataverse using dataflows in Power Apps. With DirectQuery integration into Power BI, users get a live view of how changes affect KPIs and can collaborate more effectively. Dataverse also simplifies permission management and improves performance compared to previous systems.

“Instead of adopting a commercial planning product, we developed a tailored solution using Power Platform which significantly reduced costs and enabled deeper customization,” says Negrut. The result was strong adoption, elimination of manual errors, and improved planning agility. KPI alignment helped reduce major production adjustments, leading to more efficient operations overall.

Employee search and data management

Power Platform has also been used at NXP to improve other mission-critical processes such as employee search. “Our new NXP Directory solution marks a significant leap forward for us in employee search and data management,” says Negrut. Designed to address replacing a legacy app which lacked mobile compatibility, the new solution includes a modern, Power Apps interface, and several Power Automate flows that streamline data exports and reporting. Users can now easily access detailed organizational information and navigate the reporting hierarchy with just a few clicks.

Automated flows leverage secure connectors to interact with Microsoft Graph API, enabling efficient access to organizational information.

With the implementation of location-based searches and exports, the directory now delivers secure, scalable, and effortless access to employee details. “With Power Platform, we have created a transformative solution that enables users to find colleagues and organizational information faster and more intuitively than ever before,” explains Negrut. 

A flexible governance structure 

One of the keys to success of enterprise application development at NXP is a strong governance strategy. Catering to both citizen developers and advanced makers, the strategy was designed using the Microsoft Power Platform Center of Excellence Starter Kit and includes DLP policies and a tiered environment structure.

As soon as new makers start developing with Power Apps, they get an email that welcomes them to the company’s Power Platform community and points them to support resources, including best practices. All makers begin in a default environment where they can experiment with the platform and build personal productivity apps for small groups.

For apps that are intended for wider use, makers can request an environment with more tools, including approved connectors. This option also offers support from a central team of experts who put each app through a rigorous dev-test-prod process before going live. Expert makers are granted access to their own environments with even more development options.

“With a tiered environment structure, we are able to offer our makers the freedom and tools to do some really innovative work while also protecting our data and maintaining quality,” says Negrut. 

A bright, AI-driven future 

Along with Power Apps and Power Automate, NXP is also working with other tools such as Microsoft Copilot Studio to add AI capabilities to their Power Platform solutions. “Microsoft Copilot Studio is enabling us to take our pro-code solutions to a whole new level,” says Sundeep Jain, NXP Digital Infrastructure and AI Operations Leader.

For example, plans are underway to embed an AI-driven agent into an app designed to better manage product lifecycle management change requests. The app has already made big improvements to the process, with dynamic fields and conditional rules tailored to different change scenarios. With the AI-driven agent, users will be able to submit their requests even faster and easier using natural language.

With innovation like this, the efficiencies gained through Power Platform are set to enhance the user experience and accelerate across NXP. As Varinder Singh, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at NXP says, “With Power Platform, we’re empowering our employees to automate both simple and complex business processes—and deliver significant business benefits that are having a real impact across the company.”

Learn more about NXP on LinkedIn and YouTube.