Editor's Choice


What is MESA and why should you care?

September 2015 Editor's Choice News

MESA (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) International is a global community of manufacturers, producers, industry leaders, and solution providers who are focused on driving business results from manufacturing information.

Gerhard Greef
Gerhard Greef

One of the ways that MESA contributes to improving both business results and production operations is by creating guidebooks, white papers and other original research. Most of these materials focus on business strategies, best practice processes to achieve strategic objectives and the use of enterprise solutions to support processes and metrics in order to accelerate business success. MESA’s research differs in that it reaches from enterprise concepts down to the real-time production process. The research is done by consultants, software vendors, systems integrators and manufacturers/producers and reviewed and ratified by industry peers globally before publishing.

MESA has also developed a Global Education Program that teaches standards, concepts, models and best practices used throughout the full life-cycle of a manufacturing improvement initiative. Being certified as being competent in Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) is one of the pre-requisites of being classified as a MESA-Recognised Practitioner. MESA-Recognised Businesses need to have a number of Recognised Practitioners to be classified as such. The MESA recognition programme was established by MESA to ensure that educated buyers and sellers can recognise each other, define and deliver solutions faster and reduce risk, costs and time-to-value.

This year is the seventh year of the local MESA Southern Africa conference. Over the past seven years delegates were exposed to a number of MES/MOM case-studies, thought-leadership presentations, motivational talks and panel-discussions. There have also been a number of Special Interest Group events over the years in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and North-West Province.

MESA Southern Africa events are where manufacturers and producers are exposed to different technologies, implementation companies, solution providers and peers in a technology agnostic environment. The events showcase how companies approached their improvement initiatives, what results they achieved and how they would do it differently if they could start over.

To be an official MESA International member carries a cost, but the local MESA Southern Africa membership is free. To be added to the MESA Southern Africa membership list, please send a mail with your name and contact details to [email protected].

The conference theme for MESA Southern Africa this year is '50 Shades of MOM' This theme emphasises:

• The various ways in which Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) can be implemented.

• The various functions/components that form part of the MOM scope of supply (that change from industry to industry depending on legal, environmental, market, process, regulation, customer and business requirements).

• The various ways in which the concept of MOM is being interpreted and defined by users and vendors.

• The either beautiful or ugly results of a MOM implementation.

• The human acceptance or rejection of the MOM initiative.

It also opens the discussion regarding different or 'new' perspectives to information systems that include the use of 'Big Data', 'Machine to Machine communications', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Analytics', 'Predictive Analytics', 'Pattern Recognition', 'Model-based Monitoring and Simulation' and the 'Internet of Things'.

The 2015 Conference call for papers is currently open and as is custom with the annual MESA SA conference, all presentations will be rated by the delegates attending. This year, the presenter of the best technical presentation/case study will be given the option of either:

• Attending and/or presenting at the MESA America or MESA EMEA conference in USA or Europe (flights and accommodation provided by MESA SA), or

• Registration to a MESA Certificate of Competence course in South Africa (Attendance, flight and accommodation provided by MESA SA).

Response to the call for papers can be sent to [email protected].

For more information on MESA International, MESA Southern Africa, MESA Global Education Program, the 2015 MESA SA Conference or the MESA SA call for papers please send a mail to [email protected]



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