The much anticipated MESA SA conference with the theme ‘MES and sustainability’ was opened on 21 October by Gerhard Greef who gave a foreword on MESA’s goals to promote manufacturing enterprise systems insight through education, collaboration and an active user community.
Thereafter, Claire Janisch delivered an inspiring talk on Biomimicry (Bio being life, mimicry being imitation). She explained how nature’s advanced designs are making unprecedented inroads in practical applications to enable sustainable eco-manufacturing.
Jan Snoeij (MESA International) spoke on eco-efficiency in the context of ‘Metrics that matter’ and highlighted one of the biggest challenges in manufacturing – reducing costs while increasing sales and simultaneously promoting a greener footprint. This requires very clear objectives, adequate measurements and getting the right information to the right person at the right time.
John Coetzee entertained the audience with the ‘SAB Miller Way’ – searching for MES’s ‘Holy Grail’ by eating the elephant in small pieces. He emphasised the importance of sustainability measurement, contextual reporting and operational decision support systems with all decisions being motivated by a direct and clear business case.
Raven Mahabeer took the audience through Aberdare Cables ‘Discovery’ MES project. Lessons learnt included ensuring that users clearly understand their requirements, choosing a system integration partner sensitive to evolving project requirements, support from top management and allowing enough time to ensure user adoption and the measuring of KPI’s as early as possible.
Chris Mollison (Scheduling Solutions) explained the pros and cons of positioning the detailed scheduling function that is typically used in advanced MES. He explained the plethora of confusing choices, the decision factors and the final positioning in a clear and understandable manner.
Mac Barnard from Cape Gates illustrated how they addressed their electric arc furnace challenges in the areas of raw materials receiving, ladle/cast tracking, OEE measurement and refractory management by means of an effective animated pictorial presentation. He showed that there is still room for innovation in the IT department to deliver customised solutions to meet unique business requirements.
Shaun Tosen reflected on Sappi’s challenging journey, a rather ‘sticky business’ involving a project to standardise product labels across several mills. It catered for a variety of complex and even conflicting requirements. Ultimately it realised a significant savings in direct costs as well as sustainable improvements going forward.
The event closed with a relaxed networking session where many philosophies and solutions to the worlds MES problems, including NASA’s, were actively exchanged.
Thanks to the loyal community of MES end users, vendors, and sponsors (Gijima, Wonderware Southern Africa, GE Intelligent Platforms, Bytes PMC, EOH Mining and Manufacturing, Siemens, Rockwell Automation, SAIMC, Scheduling Solutions, Rifle-Shot Performance Holdings, and BlueESP) for your valuable contribution to making the event a success.
For more information contact Gerhard Greef, Bytes Systems Integration, +27 (0)11 205 7000, gerhard.greef@bytes.co.za, www.bytes.co.za
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