MES – Manufacturing Execution System
Manufacturing Execution System MES
A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is the software layer that automatically captures and monitors production data end to end. From the moment an order is released right through to finished goods entering the warehouse and being scheduled for dispatch. sedApta Suite's MES gives you that single operating view, so the decisions made upstream in planning actually land on the line.
Where MES sits in your solution stack
There are several manufacturing execution systems solutions that differ precisely in their ability to integrate with other systems and to be customized to specific production needs. These features are embodied in the Shop Floor Monitor module of the sedApta suite.
An MES system helps achieve the business objectives that have been defined by strategic planning: based on the type of production system, it identifies and allows for reducing possible bottlenecks, controlling critical processing, and setting and governing constraints in the machine-operator relationship. It optimizes the size of volumes required and produced, thus stabilizes the production mix and enables optimization and reduction of lead time.
The goal is to align enterprise planning and management, reducing waste and increasing product and process quality.
Basically, an MES manufacturing execution system makes it possible to capture all information related to the production cycle and monitor the production itself in real time. An efficient production control involves accurate cost measurement, with workload controls and simple indicators of production department efficiency and progress monitoring: these are the KPIs – Key Performance Indicators that the MES solution integrates internally.
Data provided by operators are cross-referenced to automatic readings from machines in synoptic and real-time panels for a complete view of processes and their optimization.
MES applications have dashboards that let you know immediately the status of a job order, its work orders, the resources needed to complete it, and the estimated time to deliver it.
An MES project is much more than a software manufacturing execution system implementation in a company: it is an opportunity to review production processes and beyond, highlighting areas for improvement to achieve, as a final result, an overall improvement in operational efficiency.
What is manufacturing execution system?
Manufacturing Execution Systems represent, today, the indispensable meeting point between many sources of information, which often arrive with a high frequency and from different systems. The objective of this “centralizer” is to make this data correlated with the context and the rest of the production processes already existing in the company, either automatically, by means of intelligent algorithms, or with the Production Process Intelligence addressed.
Eight things a modern MES has to do
A modern MES has to do eight jobs well. First, it has to help develop new products by turning bill of materials, processing cycles and resource use into an actual costed simulation, so you know what a new product will cost to make before you commit. Second, it has to handle both long-range planning and short-range scheduling in a single rhythm. Third, it has to manage internal and external work orders without dropping either. Fourth, it has to collect data directly from the machines via SCADA and PLC, advancing each production stage automatically. Fifth, it has to keep production machines under preventive and extraordinary maintenance watch, reading machine states, times, parts and temperatures. Sixth, it has to track the KPIs that tell you whether efficiency, profitability and disruption trends are going the right way. Seventh, it has to give real-time, event-level control of every execution phase of the production process. And eighth, it has to plan and execute quality controls in a way that goes beyond traceability. Managing material movements from raw material issue through to finished and semi-finished goods stocking.
What adopting a proper MES actually changes
The gains from a proper MES cluster in three places. On the planning side, production planning and scheduling become possible at a useful level of detail. Often with dedicated modules plugging directly into the MES, and every production stage advances automatically, which lifts process efficiency without adding overhead. On the resource side, human and machine availability can be assessed in advance rather than hoped for, maintenance moves from reactive to scheduled, and budgeted versus actual production costing makes it possible to intervene at the exact moment a critical step goes wrong. And on the continuous improvement side, full data storage makes operations transparent and easier to fix, real-time raw-material tracking cuts waste and unused stock, and constant quality monitoring reduces manufacturing errors and rework cost. The effect is cumulative. Each improvement clears the way for the next. It also allows the unexpected to be handled in real time, while production is in progress, saving downtime and suggesting alternative solutions.
Works with the rest of sedApta Suite MOM
About Manufacturing Operations Management
Optimize day-by-day scheduling and manufacturing operations
sedApta Suite for MOM allows real-time orchestration of machines, software and people in order to reach new process methodologies based on sharing knowledge and on the possibility to track results and bottlenecks in real-time, with all the relevant associated KPI’s.