A MES (Manufacturing Execution System) is a system controlling the manufacturing process, from the transformation of raw materials to final product elaboration.
Despite being a tool heavily used by manufacturers from various sectors, many of them are now finding
significant inconveniences with this technology.
While it is true that traditional MES perform a great job supervising plant processes to improve daily plant management, many companies are starting to demand increasingly flexible solutions that offer a greater information flow.
MES systems can give you information related to production, for instance, calculated OEE from data on machine running / stopped, part production rate and number of good parts. Nevertheless, they cannot correlate production data with process parameters, and thus, they can only show what is going on in the plant at a high level, without drilling down to the problem.
For information offered by a MES to be really useful, it is often necessary to augment it with a key resource in every factory: real machine data.
How machine data adds value to your MES
By unifying your machine data with the MES, you can obtain precise information on everything that transpires on your plant. It's not about replacing your MES system, but about maximizing its value.
As displayed on this figure, in an enterprise context ERP is used for operations, and Business Intelligence (BI) for analytics. The same happens in your manufacturing plant, where the MES is used for operations control, but requires an analytics layer, which at Savvy we call
Manufacturing Intelligence (MI).
Thanks to the union of these two technologies, you will be able to get to the root of production problems, being able to answer in detailed fashion many of the questions that emerge in production plants, such as:
-
Why is my OEE down?
-
Why am I having lower than usual availability?
-
Why is machine / line working slower than expected?
-
How can I make my machine / line work faster?
-
Why do I have more defective parts than normal?
Following, a breakdown of how machine data adds value to the main functions of a MES system.
By joining machine data with external data (shifts, work orders, etc.), it becomes possible to know the progress of performance in detail and in real time.
The interesting bit comes at the time of comparing performance per shift, per work order, per date, etc. Thanks to this analysis you can identify the reasons why you might have higher or lower performance at certain times, and be able to make informed decisions instantly.
In this fashion, you can optimize production rates and prevent standstills / interruptions.
-
Maintenance (Availability)
Through machine data, you can know their exact status and percentage of time dedicated to work. You can also analyze and compare availabilty per shift, work order, machine program, etc.
Besides, with RAM analysis, you will learn what is the main reason for production stops, the times between failures, and compare distinct periods, all of which you can employ to improve machine availability.
Focusing on this last point, new variables and process parameters are included in the equation, resulting in the ability to correlate standstills with alarms, or analyzing the mean time that the machine works between stops (Pareto analysis).
With all of this, you will end up with reduced idle times and unplanned stops, as well as an optimal maintenance schedule that extends the useful life of machines.
It is also possible to know the hustory of quality, complete with a daily breakdown of rejections per type, in addition to comparisons of quality progress between past periods, per shift, per work order, etc.
For instance, in one of our success cases, one of our customers reported to us that, by means of the Manufacturing Intelligence solution, a reduction in quality on an specific shift was found. Thanks to our solution, they were able to detect that quality was persistently below the standards of the manufacturing recipe. Thus, they decided to focus analyses on said shift and observed that the problem originated in a wrong configuration on machine temperature, which was causing the cooling system to not perform its function properly.
With our tool, you will be able to detect the reasons for rejection and drive down the number of defective parts, and reduce waste of raw materials, semi-finished and finished products.
While it is true that one of the functions of a MES is to implement production plans and schedules, without precise process and machine data obtained in real time, it is difficult to define exhaustive and flexible plans for optimal production.
An ideal planning may be regarded, factoring in process and machine parameters, as such:
- Both theoretical and real machine information is used for observing deviations from planning.
- Rescheduling is simple since the system communicates any production changes to operators in real time.
- Work orders are optimally assigned to shifts, machines and operators automatically.
With Savvy Production Planner, you will be able to merge information about planning execution in your plant with machine information, so that you gain a deep understanding of the evolution of planning alognside machine process variables.
How can your plant begin to use machine data?
Savvy's
Manufacturing Intelligence lets you know the reasons for inefficiencies in your factory in a simple fashion, using internal machine and process information.
Integration with the MES is done easily and securely, thanks to the multilevel data API. Like this, you will gain aggregated information about your production in real time, for an agile and data-driven decision making.
Other benefits provided by the union of these technologies
MES software is typically rigid, as they tend to have an integrated logic with predefined modules, meaning that certain actions are predetermined by the system.
Conversely, the flexibility gained by the Manufacturing Intelligence solution makes it possible to evolve in a simpler and less costly way.
-
Greater integration capabilities
MES are often complex systems encompassing many industrues, which increases the odds of incompatibility with other external systems. These incompatibilities often translate to having to contract specialists for customizations, resulting in higher costs and implementation times.
On the other hand, integration with Manufacturing Intelligence allows you to connect to multiple systems and data sources (PLC, sensors, ERP, MES, etc.) easily, thus obtaining greater volumes of data with which to drill down into details.
In general, a MES is a solid, rigid system that takes time to customize. The mean time for implementing a MES ranges from 15 to 16 months (Forbes 2022) and, more often than not, the total property cost for a fully customized or turnkey MES is rather high.
Alternatively, the SaaS (Software as a Service) payment model offered by the Manufacturing Intelligence solution allows quick deployment and scaling, with competitive pricing, thus achieving a rapid creation of value and continuous innovation.
Conclusion
MES are still necessary for the digital transformation of industrial companies, but we have observed that their capabilities are limited. Integrating your MES with Manufacturing Intelligence will exponentially increase your knowledge and understanding of your plant.
Your MES grants you the ability to standardise processes in horizontal fashion, and to provide context to your manufacturing data. However, with Manufacturing Intelligence, you will be able to find every inefficiency in your plant, thanks to the precise data collected directly from your machinery.