Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) have been on market for quite some time, and there are literally hundreds of MES options to consider at any stage of your research. Since term "MES" tends to cover a very wide range of features, it is unlikely to find any two solutions that provide exact set of features. This is especially true in recent years given explosion of digital technologies associated with smart factory or Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) initiatives. Therefore, it is critical that you understand basics of MES so that you can use it for your organization's needs, and not other way around.
BEST APPROACHES FOR MES SYSTEM
It has been shown that best approach to MES is to first identify key business goals you want to achieve and then work backwards. This avoids endless scrolling of technical specifications describing various features and potentially confusing them until their exact context in project is clarified.
In fact, some MES features may not suit your immediate specific needs, which will help you avoid guesswork in selection process. Of course, these considerations will need to be taken care of in any possible future steps, but we'll come back to that later.
The goal of selecting MES software (and supporting hardware technologies) should be to develop a plan for a single platform that meets your long-term goals without possible replacement. For an MES system to function effectively, cost of an MES system should not be calculated as simple software and hardware costs, but should be invested in changes made to manufacturing operations managed by MES. Different MESs will dictate their own "best practices" and basis for these practices should be compared to your current and target operations. In most cases, costs of change and ownership can be more than capital purchase itself.
MES and ERP together
Once implemented in your enterprise, MES will work with other existing and future enterprise management systems. Most factories have an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that often overlaps with MES functionality. However, ERP is by no means equivalent to MES, as it is typically used for logical planning of plants rather than day-to-day physical operations of MES design. The ERP system itself does not have sufficient knowledge of individual manufacturing processes and capabilities, requiring an intermediate process to "transform" ERP data into something executable. Without MES, this often has to be done manually, which wastes precious time and resources.
With MES, you can collect requirements information from ERP and use it to create specific manufacturing operations that will then be managedbe MES platform. The MES will then provide highly accurate and detailed real-time transaction information to ERP, and this historical information can be queried and used to enhance your planning capabilities next time.
The close relationship between MES and ERP should be key, especially point of exchange between two systems. The easiest way to solve this problem is to define and weigh roles of both systems in terms of their strengths. In many factories, planning is carried out in a simple and logical way using ERP, while more complex physical tasks that must be performed in production are optimally managed by MES in a detailed real-time environment.
Getting Started - The Value of MES
When considering MES, starting point should be end of production, completion of a product ready for shipment. From customer's point of view, most important indicator is timely delivery. For manufacturer, this is cost of creating a product, as well as capabilities of an object. Here, definition and decision of power depends not only on range of equipment used, but also on how it is used and managed when moving from one product model to another at inevitable time. When producing large volumes of products, flexibility of manual and automated production operations will determine overall efficiency of equipment.
Determining overall ability to complete tasks at hand can be tricky if you are producing many different types of products at same time. This is first real potential value of MES. With access to a computer-aided digital plant model, process status and performance can be viewed at any time, opening up countless opportunities to improve shop floor flow and assign work orders. MES is based on real-time tracking of end products and nodes. Each production unit can be traced throughout plant with a unique ID, labeled or engraved with a barcode.
Benefits of Easy MES Operation
Each key station will read unique identifier of each production unit, which provides several values associated with key. MES first processes information about each event, which in this case shows exact location of each production unit. Then, using time of each reading, MES will display a visualization of production unit's flow with graphs that display "Key Performance Indicators" (KPIs) that help production management and engineers understand performance. For example, you will be able to identify "process bottleneck" of products that are queuing in front of a workstation. You will also find signs of "poor performance" or situations where operators are idle waitingthe arrival of next production unit. MES will show production units that have not passed testing or verification process that need to be redirected to a repair facility and any disruption this may have caused to main production stream. Detailed information about efficiency, productivity, overall equipment efficiency (OEE), etc. can be obtained by analyzing throughput of production units in each production process and travel time between them.
Tracking production units this way has additional benefits. MES can ensure that when each product ID is read, it is checked against work order, so that each production unit only performs each process in proper order, including any repair cycles. This ensures that you never miss a production run or, more importantly, a test or verification operation. Linking your MES system to engineering data preparation systems also ensures that operators receive proper working standards and setup documentation that exactly matches product being manufactured, including any material substitutions or version changes.
The ability to provide documentation electronically eliminates some of risks typically associated with paper-based workflows, especially in audit situations where compliance is key and version control is everything. Production process data (eg test results) can also be collected and assigned to each production unit, thus creating entire production history in form of production unit traceability. The complexity of this traceability depends on how much data can be obtained from factory machines and how much time can be manually entered by operators.
The most important factor in success of any new MES installation is quality of machine connection and user interface of system. Some of obvious hallmarks of capabilities of MES products are ability to extract and interpret data from various types of machines, as well as ability to collect data manually entered by operator in a consistent and controlled manner. The MES interface is operator dependent and does not need to be fixed in any working position. There are often product-specific physical processes, such as functional testing, so it is not necessary that they all be performed at same time.
The simple appearance of "top" of MES provides an overview of operations and valuable information about how it works, as well as highlighting areas for improvement. However, there are many potential factors to consider when determining how to respond to any change and corresponding impact that change may have. Production is also highly dependent on other aspectsof work of enterprise as a whole. These dependencies include quality management, materials preparation and logistics, preparation of engineering data, and management of key tools and resources, including people.
The scope of MES delves into field of enterprise management and includes support for these dependent processes so that you can fix root causes of any problems you see in your manufacturing process, as well as optimize and improve dependent processes themselves.
Deep understanding of MES system
MES has many different meanings in terms of scope, what is included, what is not included, etc. Most MES systems are designed to cover industries as much as possible, supporting different industry areas. In some cases, some features may not matter, and in other cases they may be critical. Others matter. There may never be a general standardization of MES defining what it should or should contain. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and other technological advances have continued to evolve, changing discussion of this issue. The current expectation from MES is to reduce amount of operator support required and reduce interruptions and delays in data acquisition and process control through bi-directional communication with automation equipment.
Factory dependencies
The manufacturing process is usually focused on completing main production schedule to deliver finished product to customer. The thought is that any disruption to production schedule will jeopardize on-time delivery, which should never happen. If such failures occur, they will lead to reduced productivity and possible delays in execution of work, which will require large stocks of finished goods, which will increase operating costs. Final production is entirely dependent on pre-preparation of all work, preferably on a Just-In-Time (JIT) basis, so that it is available when needed, not when it is needed. Key aspects of dependency to keep in mind include material preparation, engineering data, key tool and resource management, and people. MES tracks current and planned production as well as recent production progress. The sequence of materials supply and resource usage can then be predicted, allowing MES to manage these resources in accordance with final production requirements. MES can also fine-tune final production schedule if resource capacity is exceeded. Thus, MES basically operates in a "big data" environment, a real-time environment that operates in multiple domains simultaneously with many different types of data. The design and scope of software determine value and capabilities of MES.The base example calculates and determines required requirements, and then monitors progress. A more advanced MES system will manage important attributes of sub-domains, thereby increasing benefits associated with automation, control and traceability. This allows MES to manage these resources to meet requirements of final production. MES can also fine-tune final production schedule if resource capacity is exceeded. Thus, MES basically operates in a "big data" environment, a real-time environment that operates in multiple domains simultaneously with many different types of data. The design and scope of software determine value and capabilities of MES. The base example calculates and determines required requirements, and then monitors progress. A more advanced MES system will manage important attributes of sub-domains, thereby increasing benefits associated with automation, control and traceability. This allows MES to manage these resources to meet requirements of final production. MES can also fine-tune final production schedule if resource capacity is exceeded. Thus, MES basically operates in a "big data" environment, a real-time environment that operates in multiple domains simultaneously with many different types of data. The design and scope of software determine value and capabilities of MES. The base example calculates and determines required requirements, and then monitors progress. A more advanced MES system will manage important attributes of sub-domains, thereby increasing benefits associated with automation, control and traceability. MES can also fine-tune final production schedule if resource capacity is exceeded. Thus, MES basically operates in a "big data" environment, a real-time environment that operates in multiple domains simultaneously with many different types of data. The design and scope of software determine value and capabilities of MES. The base example calculates and determines required requirements, and then monitors progress. A more advanced MES system will manage important attributes of sub-domains, thereby increasing benefits associated with automation, control and traceability. MES can also fine-tune final production schedule if resource capacity is exceeded. Thus, MES basically operates in a "big data" environment, a real-time environment that operates in multiple domains simultaneously with many different types of data. The design and scope of software determine value and capabilities of MES. The base example calculates and determines required requirements, and then monitors progress. A more advanced MES system will manage important attributes of subordinate areas, thereby increasing benefitsva related to automation, control and traceability. The design and scope of software determine value and capabilities of MES. The base example calculates and determines required requirements, and then monitors progress. A more advanced MES system will manage important attributes of sub-domains, thereby increasing benefits associated with automation, control and traceability. The design and scope of software determine value and capabilities of MES. The base example calculates and determines required requirements, and then monitors progress. A more advanced MES system will manage important attributes of sub-domains, thereby increasing benefits associated with automation, control and traceability.
MES Internal Supply Chain Management
For a production to be successful, materials are critical. The absence of even trivial details, such as right cables or resistors, which by themselves cost least, can prevent production from finishing when it shouldn't even have started. Therefore, MES needs to consider each material as key. From raw material receipt to work order fulfillment, ERP simply tracks materials "in field" by part number and quantity, which basically multiplies product produced by BOM. . Many ERP systems support BOM by location, however this is unreliable as it requires a lot of manual material counting and data entry during peak hours. Almost always, ERP's opinion of material differs from reality due to damage and other unaccounted for losses. These inaccuracies and inability to find materials when needed lead to need for ERP adjustments, resulting in frequent, costly and disruptive inventory checks. Basic MES systems help provide information about movement of materials, although ERP systems will still often make erroneous planning decisions based on incorrect assumptions about available materials, which can create unattainable schedules. The advanced MES system will have complete control over material. First, it is necessary to uniquely identify materials, whether they are core components and sub-assemblies or bulk materials such as coils of SMT parts in electronics manufacturing, by media. MES will then create and manage logistics tasks for material operators by assigning storage locations and then distributing materials throughout plant, including warehouses, local storage facilities and delivery to consumption points. Mobile terminals that scan materials on and off site are a great way to take advantage of MES wherever you need it. Kanban and just-in-time delivery are Lean principles that are best suited to drive demand for material movement and are based on predicted demand.on materials at point of consumption. MES can fully understand current and upcoming planning progress and provide real-time feedback on progress of production process, knowing quantity of each material needed for production. A more advanced MES system will also collect damage and consumption data, which can then maintain near-perfect material inventory control and, when fed back to ERP, improve decisions made by ERP. Advanced aspects of materials such as storage requirements, baking cycles for moisture sensitive materials, staleness and shelf life,
MES technology eliminates "internal" material shortages, thereby ensuring that material shortages never cause production to stop. A 75% reduction in bloated inventory, a 30% reduction in material logistics, a 50% reduction in storage space, such as other savings related to production space and number of media required (such as feeders for SMT materials), and some other benefits. For many, purchasing an advanced MES system can justify savings in material costs alone.
Engineering Data Management
Displaying electronic documents during production is task of modern MES solutions. As more processes are automated, such documentation will move on to setting up process, with automation being performed according to a specific set of instructions. Software provided by hardware vendor usually formats and optimizes these instructions. However, product design and original specification provide technical data from which instructions are based. Depending on process capabilities and throughput rates, an MES engineering system separates transformation of design data and specification data, as well as distribution of work in finished product between a variety of automated and manual processes. Without such tools, engineers must read design data from several different formats, validate data consistency and adjust data for local specification changes, and then manually split data into individual product lines based on their experience and expertise. For complex production such as electronics, this process usually takes several days. Unfortunately, this process is essentially an engineering process that determines production configuration that each product can be prefabricated with very little flexibility. In today's dynamic environment with great diversity, this process is not sustainable. Digital product models created using advanced MES systems can collect data from designs and specifications in electronic format, which can be automatically converted and assigned work based on engineering preferences, which takesminutes, not days. The ability to efficiently generate on-demand process data based on actual production and current demand makes MES planning functional. It can determine which configuration is best for each product. More adaptive scheduling can greatly improve asset utilization and performance. The MES scheduling feature will consider lead times across entire product hierarchy, including all available configurations, changeover times, and product grouping strategies to optimize lead times. This approach to lean planning is done in hours or days, not weeks or months. This flexibility dramatically changes ability of a modern factory to respond to changes in customer demand, allowing seamless changes to multiple products while maintaining maximum utilization without overstocking finished products. This practice can increase yields by 20-50%. This solves traditional problem of productivity dropping as product mix increases, resulting in higher costs and investments that exist without MES or with only basic MES.
Reasons for using MES
In last section, we will take a closer look at MES functional levels that make end product work efficiently. We then explore different types of MES systems and look at important aspects of MES systems to consider when first implementing or upgrading an already existing basic MES to a system with latest IIoT digital technologies.
MES systems are primarily concerned with ability to track a production schedule and associated plan activities, and be able to adjust that plan to reflect changes in customer demand, available materials, and process capabilities. Depending on package, MES systems offer modules that help you perform these activities at different levels. Some of these features include advanced control and optimization, including all parts that support operations management. Now that we've explored material and engineering data management, we'll now take a look at how MES manages other resources and dependencies.
Resource Management
In any particular manufacturing process, various resources are needed to function properly. If any of these resources are missing, procedure cannot be performed. Basic examples include assembly tools such as a simple screwdriver or scissors. The processes may also require use of a range of specialized ancillary equipment, such as material feeders on surface mount machines. In this example, feeders must be prepared, built, and installed to support specific material they will be feeding. Any mistakes are fatal, as it is vitalimportant process. This is why it is very important for MES to include feeder preparation. Other use cases include properly setting up, calibrating and verifying test equipment or torque drives that need to be set to a specific value before use. In many cases, this is maintenance of subordinate equipment, and not just its availability and readiness. In most cases, maintenance is accounted for and managed, resulting in scheduled maintenance and therefore need to manage current state of dependent resources in addition to managing availability and settings. A more complex MES will perform all of these tasks.
People oriented
Workers are one of hardest resources to manage. Each of them has unique skills, abilities and experience, so they may or may not be involved in a particular production process. The ability to meet or successfully complete production targets, and in some cases not even start production at all, can be greatly affected by interruptions and situations such as sickness, vacation, etc. time to complete each production task. An improved MES system can provide more innovative benefits. The need for specialized operator skills can be reduced with MES system and enhanced operational knowledge and guidance contained in process automation software. Operators can quickly and securely transition from one role to another on a team with help of up-to-date electronic documentation, which greatly increases flexibility of production in this environment. In this situation, it would be useful to use a mobile terminal associated with an operator wherever resources are needed.
Proactive Quality Management
Any quality problem is always detrimental to production. Any defects that occur can lead to additional unnecessary cycles of inspection, repair, rework and retesting, resulting in delays and costs. Moreover, whenever a defect is found, it cannot be unique. Until certain countermeasures are identified and implemented, there is a high possibility of a defect reoccurring. In some cases, it is so serious that it is better to stop production, at least until cause of defect is known. In addition to managing routing exceptions, MES collects electronic repair orders through testing and validation processes to assist in defect analysis and repair procedures. MES systems record material and process events, supporting fastest defect analysis with a complete and specific production history of defective units, thereby minimizing production interruptions. StStatistical data can help identify unique set of circumstances that caused this defect to occur and identify any other production units made in same way. The MES system provides complete traceability information for each production unit to ensure compliance and, through dependency management, ensures that everything needed is correctly placed, configured and set up correctly. Thus, improved MES allows you to effectively manage quality of products both in factory and in market, helping to ensure minimum cost of poor quality products.
Service Management
Equipment failure is another critical issue for manufacturing. To avoid these unforeseen events, scheduled maintenance must be carried out on all critical equipment. However, knowing what maintenance work needs to be done and how often can be a challenge. Performing simple timed maintenance procedures can result in loss of production time. For example, if a machine or production line is not used for its intended purpose, many operations may be performed unnecessarily. By using information about aggregate work performed by each key manufacturing process, MES can have an invaluable impact in creating more complex maintenance strategies. A preventive maintenance program is designed to reduce maintenance to what is needed. In addition to normal maintenance tasks such as cleaning and lubrication, this method can also be used for major maintenance work such as replacing electric motors. MES manages maintenance resources and organizes timing of maintenance activities, such as when machine is not in use for other reasons, or when these tasks will be included in overall planning activities. The inherent mobility of MES maintenance terminal makes it an essential tool for maintenance engineers to interact with MES to indicate location and type of maintenance work, document adjustments and adjustments, and facilitate understanding of maintenance work procedures. For example, sometimes machine is not used for other reasons, or these tasks will be included in overall planning activities. The inherent mobility of MES maintenance terminal makes it an essential tool for maintenance engineers to interact with MES to indicate location and type of maintenance work, document adjustments and adjustments, and facilitate understanding of maintenance work procedures. For example, sometimes machine is not used for other reasons, or these tasks will be included in overall planning activities. Mobility inherent in terminalMES Maintenance makes it an essential tool for maintenance engineers to interact with MES to indicate location and type of maintenance work, document adjustments and adjustments, and facilitate understanding of maintenance work procedures.
Breadth of MES
The breadth and depth of MES systems available today vary somewhat. However, it is possible to group MES applications into high-level groups. One type is a simpler, more versatile MES designed to support many industries, with basic functionality and limited flexibility or customization. While these systems simply automate current manufacturing operations to extent that application supports it, they are useful. The other type of MES is complete opposite, often providing deep support for complex requirements in a particular market segment and often requiring extensive customization. This type of MES system can result in significant costs due to additional software configuration required as well as ongoing support costs. Between these two extremes is "golden mean" for MES solution. Using well-known digital technologies, including latest IoT standards and state-of-the-art MES systems, it is possible to collect data from all possible automation processes with lowest cost of ownership in terms of operator support. These modules follow standard digital process modeling and provide a relatively deep level of detail in key areas with little customization. These high quality MES systems are highly configurable and have advantage of providing a “best practice” approach that allows manufacturing and design and other processes to work together and function together. The result is a state-of-the-art and technologically advanced MES solution that is critical to achieving initial business goals in plan. important role,
Summary
There are a few starting points to keep in mind when considering implementing an MES system or upgrading an old system to one of newer, higher-level systems. A successful starting point is achieving business-related operational goals, but also realizing that a few MES modules are useful to get you started. Conversely, introducing too many modules can cause failures and increase initial costs. When evaluating an MES, other possible steps should be taken into account to ensure that once selected MES is installed, it can meet future needs without need for replacement. A return on investment (ROI) analysis must be performed at each stage for each module or group of modules to be considered. The potential impact of changes in income due to introduction of MES needs to be assessed.Depends on what is primarily focused on productivity, on-time delivery, quality or consistency requirements, etc. These estimates vary depending on manufacturing process. In addition, non-material factors must also be taken into account.
It is recommended to choose an MES system that provides standard connections to various automation tools in addition to digital product and standard process modeling. This eliminates unnecessary expense and costly setup. Another element that makes MES installation simple and cost effective is understanding hardware requirements of shop floor, especially for manual processes, as operators can constantly move from one role or position to another. Efficiency Technology MES can help businesses implement lean manufacturing, solve delivery problems, improve material management, increase material turnover rates, and improve quality control capabilities.