Custom ERP with Mendix: how CARU Containers replaced its legacy ERP
CARU Containers runs its worldwide business on a custom ERP with Mendix. It is called Nova, The Orange Force built it, and it went from first line of code to the go-live milestone in 10 months.
CARU sells and rents shipping containers in more than 70 countries and moves over 125,000 of them a year. Swapping out the system underneath a business that size is about as high-stakes as software gets. This one ran on weekly demos, hundreds of role-based views, and a data migration that carried across only what the business actually uses.
Building Nova: a custom ERP on Mendix
Nova is the central system for CARU’s worldwide business activity. Sales, rental and transport orders all run through it, often tied to each other inside the same transaction. So the fit with CARU’s own processes mattered more than any feature list, and that is where the build started.
“Many businesses still underestimate low code’s potential, often seeing it as more suitable for smaller tools or add-ons,” said Carlo Zaalberg, COO of CARU Containers. “However, our experience with Mendix has shown that it can be a solid foundation for major ERP changes that align with our unique processes.”
About CARU Containers
Established in 2000, CARU has grown into a top supplier of shipping containers for sale and rent, supporting logistics, construction and defence, operating in more than 70 countries. A container is a simple product with a busy life: sold, rented, shipped, maintained, moved again. Nova makes every step of that legible in one place.
Why CARU needed to replace its legacy ERP
CARU had bigger plans than its old system could carry. The company is growing internationally in a logistics sector that is digitising fast, so in 2022 it started evaluating low-code platforms to connect its legacy systems, CRM and external applications.
“We had big ambitions for things like portals, automatic field filling, and digital improvements that the old system couldn’t support,” said Wesley Van Nes, product owner at CARU.
I wanted to salvage what worked from the past three years and transition to a platform that suited us even better. That’s when we partnered with The Orange Force and Mendix.
Carlo Zaalberg, COO of CARU Containers
A 10-month build, without the usual handover delays
CARU reached its go-live milestone 10 months into development, which is quick for a system this central.
The Orange Force set the scope tightly, then held it there. The same core development team stayed on from the first week to the last, so knowledge never had to change hands. And the business saw working software every week in demos, which meant questions got answered while they were still cheap to answer.
Keeping historical data out of the way
You do not have to carry all of it across. So The Orange Force development team migrated the active, essential data into Nova and kept the rest reachable through Power BI. It is there when someone needs it and out of the way when they do not, which keeps the new system quick.
Getting global teams onto one system
By designing it with them. While Nova was being built, CARU gathered input from employees in the Netherlands, the United States, Canada and Brazil.
“Most teams are working in this system 95% of the time,” said Van Nes. Andrew Berlanga, Operations Project Manager at CARU, added: “We have hundreds of custom views tailored to different roles, from sales to maintenance, that mirror how the business operates day-to-day.”
Managing the people side of an ERP replacement
Building the software was the straightforward half. Adopting Mendix also gave CARU a chance to change how it ran the project itself, and the company took it.
Business and IT stayed in close contact the whole way through, through weekly demos and open feedback sessions, rather than meeting only at milestones. Business users were in the project from week one, shaping Nova while it took form. As a result, by go-live, the system already looked familiar to the people using it.
Berlanga put it plainly: “We’re bringing people along for the full transformation journey. It’s a company-wide project, not just an IT initiative.”
Results and what comes next
Nova is live. It runs CARU’s sales, rental and transport operations worldwide in one system, with hundreds of role-based views built around how each team actually works, from sales through to maintenance. CARU now also has a platform it can keep extending, which was the point of choosing Mendix in the first place.
70+
Countries served
125,000+
Containers distributed each year
10
Months to the go-live milestone
Hundreds
Role-based views in Nova
CARU Containers and Mendix in numbers
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Company founded | 2000 |
| Countries served | More than 70 |
| Containers distributed each year | Over 125,000 |
| Sectors served | Logistics, construction, defence |
| Low-code evaluation started | 2022 |
| Global offices that shaped the design | Netherlands, United States, Canada, Brazil |
| New ERP system | Nova, built on Mendix |
| Build time to go-live milestone | 10 months |
| Role-based views in Nova | Hundreds |
| Historical data | Kept accessible through Power BI |
Build Something Like This With Us
We built and migrated CARU Containers’ full custom ERP in 10 months. If your core system needs replacing too, we’ll tell you straight what it would take.