There is an old MES saying, “MES is not a project event; it
is a process. It is 80% cultural and 20% technical.” Many manufacturers’ corporate IT departments
are incorrectly viewing MES as another extension of ERP and thereby incorrectly
believing that each plant, each line and each work cell operate under a common
set of business and operations models. Individual plants often reject MES
implementations because the global application does not have functionality to
address their specific set of operations’ pains and needs. Instead, individual
plants end up developing their “shadow” IT in custom Excel applications, paper
forms, or database applications to help the plant characterize and fix the
current problem set.
Two barriers that many manufacturers face when considering
an update to their system architecture are:
• The lack of
vertical industry instance or templates of standards
• The cost of
replacing established legacy systems using disparate data models and metrics
supported by point-to-point interfaces
To overcome these issues, automate processes and optimize
operations, Global MES Implementation teams must understand that each plant has
its own manufacturing form of work processes and personnel culture based on
“What it Makes, How it Makes it, Where it Makes it, and Who it is Made for.” Operations
process and data standards must be engineered to enable effective communication
between systems in plants and their supply network.
Like most technology evolutions, this change in IT
architecture usually requires a substantial investment of time and dollars. However,
implementing the use of best practices from The Open Group Architecture
Framework (TOGAF), Software Engineering Institute’s model, Zackman’s Framework,
ISA-88/95 or other similar models can help manufacturers cut down on those
costs. If properly implemented, a return on investment can be realized quickly
through increased efficiencies and decreased waste, the result of better
analysis of a more complete data set.
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