ThingWorx is a rapid, model-based application development platform. By employing modeling instead of coding, the content developer is able to focus on agility and application composition rather than debugging, maintaining, and updating code. The model artifacts become a set of reusable building blocks to assemble new applications.

After you have your model in place, you can assemble the data, services, and capabilities of the model into a Web application via the drag-and-drop Mashup Builder.

Imagine a set of machines in a production line. An individual machine is a Thing. The production line may also be a Thing that consists of individual machines. Although it is not a requirement to include the production line as a Thing in your model, it may be useful if there is important production line level data within your application requirements. In this scenario, you would model production line data as properties within the production line Thing, allowing you to effortlessly include those objects in dashboards and mashups. Additionally, you could represent a plant as a Thing to use as a roll up for production data across an entire plant.

Another use case might involve assets (leased machines, equipment capable of providing remote service and diagnostics or even distributed equipment like the power distribution equipment for an electrical utility) deployed at different locations. You could model each entity as a Thing along with its location and track a number of data attributes. Then, plot them on a map and track status, location, and movement.

The options are numerous. Things can represent instrumentation where you collect data. People and applications can also be modeled as Things. ThingWorx treats assets, people, and systems as equal collaborators in a business process and in the applications to support them.