Manufacturing Execution Systems for Process Industries Selection

This guide will help you select the best Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for your business requirements.

Manufacturing Execution Systems Continues to Adapt for More Collaborative Autonomous Manufacturing with Newer Digital Transformation Features

Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) software is a key technology for digital transformation, smart manufacturing, IT/OT integration and enables companies to overcome production challenges such as frequent demand changes and reducing costs. Modern MES solutions can rapidly adapt to new innovative processes and business practices. AI and Operator advisors are also enabling workers with tools that can help optimize processes. Many applications and capabilities vary by industry, location and supplier. While modular, “MES-lite” solutions have gained traction, so too are larger Enterprise MES/MOM deployments. Most of the technologies have enhanced the user experience with more intuitive capabilities that enable distinct roles, responsibilities or personas. Today, this is particularly important, as manufacturers need to personalize digital dashboards to accommodate different skillsets. MES/MOM supports the ability to flexibly adapt to production changes that enable users to meet demand and remain competitive. Being able to collaborate across the enterprise and quickly access the right information at the right time can greatly improve efficiencies and reduce production costs; another reason is that MES and manufacturing will be more autonomous in the future.

Process complexity and digital transformation are making it necessary for MES to support end-to-end operations and manufacturing from raw materials to the warehouse. We live in a world where more and more devices and things are connected, and this requires interoperability, ease of use, and human-factored user experience. Digital transformation, Industry 4.0, and MES are all about manufacturing efficiency, how quickly one can make production changes, enforce standards, and how quickly one can understand the process and get the information to the right user at the right time, and how quickly and securely one can take actionable insights. Speed, performance, flexibility, optimization, cybersecurity, accessibility, and context are important because users need to react quickly. Autonomous data collection and other capabilities (auto-recognize, auto-maintenance, etc.) are helping to increase speed to deploy and maintain MES. Virtual reality and digital twins are being integrated for process innovation. Intuitive user experience is being designed into MES so that users can collaborate better across the enterprise.

Digital technologies, and in particular MES/MOM are transforming the way companies do business and are essential for increasing productivity and sustainability. Highly automated, connected, and autonomous factories that integrate AI will support the digital thread, intelligence, and collaboration throughout the global enterprise and supply chain for game-changing value. To compete in a data-driven industrial environment, manufacturers must look for solutions that automatically collect production data and provide tools and information that allow them to make actionable data-based decisions and ultimately improve efficiency, and drive innovation. New low-code/no-code platforms with containers and microservices and other automated features will support faster deployment and require less customization.

Manufacturing Execution Systems Selection Strategic Issues

Seek Modular Democratization/Composables

Composables are modular applications that are more interoperable than previous generation’s applications. Many manufacturing plants, particularly those that were acquired or experienced mergers, have multiple platforms and applications with siloed data for each type of system throughout the company that needs to be integrated or replaced. Rather than attempting to replace all systems at one time, it may make sense to integrate specific, app-like modular functionalities incrementally over time using a newer MES platform with containers and microservices and apps that are composable so that they are more interoperable. The ability to use composable apps can allow users to buy and use the specific functionality needed. On the other hand, there are some suppliers who continue to sell the MES software as one integrated MES software solution because it can be easier to synchronize operations and interoperate. ARC is seeing a modular “democratization” of apps sometimes referred to as composables.

Select Scalable Models and Templates That Align with Processes and Support Role-Based Usability

Most suppliers have application models or templates, and it is important that they align well with the process and provide context, so that users can easily deploy and use applications based on the situation. The models should be designed for specific industries and operations and scalable as needed. The model should support operations so that users and engineers can design, deploy, and implement applications and share results to collaborate with colleagues and partners as needed. Production data models should provide business, IT, and production views and align with process to be used by specific user-personas. Integration standards and pre-developed templates and modular solutions that enable enterprise-wide visibility and analysis are important for MES success.

Invest in Software with Built-In Data Management, Governance, Contextualization, and Other Data Quality Tools

Data management, data governance, data contextualization and data quality tools are more important than ever because users need access to different types of data easily from diverse systems and data sources for analysis and production optimization. Some of these capabilities are implemented in the deployment model or the data historian, but sometimes they are included with the MES platform. The software contextualization, aggregation, timestamping, data compression, alerts, specialty reports, visualization, and other special capabilities should be built into the MES software. These tools should enable the user to scale easily and improve flexibility across the industrial enterprise. Additionally, the ability to combine the various types of databases, data sources, and applications to interoperate and work seamlessly is a capability that is becoming more important for real-time production decisions today. More data tools are needed to contextualize data and reduce data wrangling for MES applications.