If someone were to ask you ‘What do you understand by manufacturing execution systems (MES)?’ what would be your reply? Would your definition be accurate enough not to confuse people involved with other initiatives in your organisation and would it also have the conciseness and focus to be unambiguous?
Since Futuristix is today a vendor of MES solutions, it was important for the company to have a clear definition of the term because it affects not only its market focus but also its search for, and selection of, synergistic solutions.
Looking at the basic structure for a company (manufacturing or otherwise), there are the four functional blocks shown in Figure 1. The two most important function blocks are those of business generation and wealth creation. But these can rarely exist in isolation of the supportive business and information processes.
Futuristix believes that it has found a good definition of MES: 'MES is any solution that facilitates and improves a production company's wealth-creation processes'. At first, this may seem too general but on further inspection, it is found that such a definition is, in fact, quite focused:
* First of all, a manufacturing company's wealth-creation processes are directly involved with production. This excludes most ERP solutions except those involved with production planning, batch management, etc. This also excludes customer relationship management (CRM), which is the responsibility of the business generation process but includes supplier management since they are responsible for the raw materials used.
* The above definition also allows us to evaluate whether a solution is likely to have a direct and beneficiary impact on the company's bottom line or whether it will simply play a supportive role. This, in turn, leads to easier purchase justifications for those solutions that will favourably impact profitability.
In other words, if one were to view the wealth-creating function as a process that transforms inputs into outputs, it is relatively easy to see which initiatives and solutions form part of the MES world and why they would be beneficial to the company.
This may be checked against real-life requirements. For example, raw materials need quality assurance checking to ensure that they are within specification (QI analysis). Profitability is dependent on efficiency, which means optimised equipment effectiveness (downtime analysis with OEE - overall equipment effectiveness). Equipment availability is also dependent on effective preventative maintenance procedures (Avantis). Efficient manufacturing processes need effective control such as that provided by InTouch (HMI), InBatch and InControl (soft PLC). In the interest of profitability, HMI and PLC software development needs to be considerably shorter than with conventional approaches, device independent and bug-free from the start (ProDef). HMI and PLC software revision control and disaster recovery procedures are paramount for minimised production stoppages (MASS AutoSave). Since all processes rely on information for control, information processes need to be based in realtime (InSQL) and information accessibility is key for effective decision support (SuiteVoyager web portal).
This definition of MES has helped Futuristix focus on complementary solutions that have a direct and favourable impact on the profitability of its end-users.
For more information contact Mike le Plastrier, Futuristix Advanced Control Systems 011 723 9900, [email protected], www.futuristix.co.za
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