Manufacturing execution systems (MES) can help manufacturers and other industrial organisations reduce costs while improving operations, collaboration, asset management, workflow and safety.
Specific MES functionality can vary significantly, depending upon the supplier and industry focus. Many of the newer MES applications are integrated solutions that include quality management and traceability, regulatory compliance documentation, planning and scheduling, energy management, manufacturing intelligence and analytics, in addition to workflow enforcement and cloud capabilities.
ARC Advisory Group research indicates that MES technology usage continues to increase at a rate faster than automation in general. This is largely due to the technology’s ability to help optimise production for operational excellence. Manufacturers continue to focus on driving waste out of their operations by eliminating silos, simplifying and improving workflows, integrating advanced analytics, adding pervasive visualisation, and standardising on technologies and processes. Whether implemented ‘in the cloud’, or in a more traditional on-premise manner, MES continues to be a critical technology for achieving those objectives.
ARC MES survey
Early this year, ARC conducted a web survey to assess the current state of MES adoption. We received over 240 responses, from which we filtered out any from suppliers to help ensure objectivity. Most qualified respondents had more than ten years of MES experience. We further filtered out those without direct experience with the technology.
Top 10 applications
According to respondents, the ten most-used MES applications (in descending order) are:
• Reporting, including digital dashboards, KPIs and other reports.
• Production management.
• Quality system.
• Inventory management.
• Material management.
• Batch management.
• Scheduling and planning.
• Performance management and accounting.
• Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).
• Time and labour management.
Reporting, production management and quality system ranked highest as the most used applications/solutions. Reporting – whether as a digital dashboard, KPIs, or other management or compliance report – is the most important function for most companies. For those still operating in silos, getting the right information into the right hands can be time consuming and the MES solution can make immense improvements. Overall productivity, cycle times and yield improvements are achieved using MES. One respondent stated that MES is their ‘oxygen’.
Top five MES applications ranked by value
MES continues to grow because users continue to see value from their implementations. Some respondents mentioned that they see a lot of benefits from process quality and traceability.
According to the respondents, the top five applications for MES are:
• Production management.
• Quality management.
• Planning and scheduling.
• Batch management.
• Workflow management/electronic work instructions.
Next-gen MES applications
Next-gen MES applications involve IT/OT/ET convergence, predictive analytics, cloud, and IIoT deployments. About 42 percent of respondents have some cloud deployments. MES cloud deployment adoption varies by industry application and company as some industries see issues such as bandwidth, latency, IP, security as potential challenges. Once these issues are resolved, with newer technologies such as edge devices, ARC believes that cloud usage for MES will grow substantially.
ARC parsed the survey results into all cloud deployments vs. cloud deployment in oil and gas, petrochemical, and chemical industries. Not surprisingly, we found that most cloud deployments in the latter industries employ private and hybrid clouds, but not public cloud computing. In other industries, such as the food and auto industries and others in which it’s critical to collaborate with external partners, public cloud adoption is more prevalent.
End users have reduced costs just by using better visualisation tools that enable the workface to obtain and understand information better. According to survey respondents, predictive analytics are being integrated into some MES solutions with immense benefits. A few users are adding virtual reality capabilities to be able to simulate process behaviours for new processes or products and prevent potential bottlenecks. Other new capabilities will be integrated into MES applications or provided as part of an MES application solution.
ARC recommendations
MES is a valuable operations and production technology that will be integrated into companies’ digital transformation, and bring value to companies. ARC recommends the following actions for owner-operators and other technology users:
• Implement MES applications that provide the most value and ROI first and initially do so in smaller pilot projects.
• Assuming adequate benefits and ROI have been determined, extend the deployments as appropriate across the plant, sites, and enterprise.
• Use templates to roll out solutions across multiple plant sites and other operations across the enterprise to obtain the most value.
• Excellent reporting and visualisation capabilities are critical.
• Use advanced analytics to enable faster insights.
• Be sure that corporate management is aware of the benefits gained from using MES and support implementations.
ARC's latest market research on MES for the Process Industries (https://tinyurl.com/ycxn9t9t) explores these trends and drivers in more detail and includes information on the leading suppliers to this market.
For more information contact Paul Miller, ARC Advisory Group, +1 781 471 1141, pmiller@arcweb.com, www.arcweb
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