MES Comprehensive Guide - Part 1: Understanding your needs

This is the start of the MES-related article cycle, where we, as MDCplus experts, will navigate you through all the steps - from initial thought-wrapping to choosing and implementation processes - while offering you the best tips in every aspect of your way. Part 1 article will show you how to evaluate and align your vision before searching for a solution, as well as get the preliminary scope of your project.

The Ultimate Cure-All

Many of us want the solution for our problems, not paying much attention to how it works. When it comes to choosing the digital system for production, there is no room for wrong choice. The consequences can be either not using the system because it does not meet your needs or a complete shop-floor and economic disaster.

However, finding the right solution requires more than just a quick fix or the latest technology. It demands a deep understanding of your production goals, the specific challenges you face, and the unique needs of your shop floor. A digital system should align with your processes, enhance efficiency, and be adaptable to future changes. Rushing into a choice without these considerations could mean wasted resources and missed opportunities, making careful evaluation essential for long-term success.

Why You Might Not Need MES

Controversial, right? But hear me out on this.

Today, there are modern solutions with shorter implementation cycles that can address key issues like data collection, efficiency, and analytics. If you haven't yet established these foundational capabilities, moving on to an MES might be premature - you could end up facing significant difficulties and becoming overwhelmed by complex projects. 

Everything must be measured and compared to maintain growth. The key question here is: what, how, and why should we measure in production, and by what criteria should these metrics be selected? Next, management needs to be formalized as an information flow - data moving from the bottom up and directives from the top down—which forms the foundation of the management process. Creating a formalized and functional management system is a long and complex journey, requiring not only theoretical knowledge but also a realistic assessment of one’s capabilities, the skill to set the right tasks, and to define clear objectives. Together, this provides an understanding of what MES truly means in the context of information-driven management.

Production Maturity Alone Isn't Enough

Intuitively, the task may seem straightforward: select the right software product (an enterprise information management system), set a range of target metrics, and it should be possible to achieve a highly advanced level of operational development. However, in practice, this is unfortunately not the case. As discussed, data mastery is a maturity that builds gradually, and management tools must evolve in step with this growth.

To look ahead, we can define information maturity as the current indicator of a company's progress in implementing methodologies and informational-analytical tools for data collection, processing, and performance management. This indicator reflects the overall data-handling culture of the organization and can be examined in several dimensions:

• the trust the company places in its information assets and stored data,
• the ability to use accumulated data and turn it into valuable insights,
• the ability to make decisions based on objective metrics, relegating intuition to a secondary role,
• a culture of constant data analysis, corrective action, and evaluation of effectiveness,
• the capability to build an activity model based on management and decision-support systems.

This maturity level is not only evolutionary but also closely tied to the development of the company’s information management systems. Information culture, maturity, and the array of management systems are always balanced. Developing an information culture means cultivating a corresponding, suitable set of management systems.

Simply installing the “most advanced” management system isn’t feasible. While it may be possible to purchase and set up such a system, realizing a positive operational impact is another matter. The suite of production management systems must undergo a full evolutionary process, from inception to maturity, to justify investments and achieve positive gross benefits at each stage.

Aren’t such systems relics of the past?

MES has been around for half a century already, and its transformation is not finished. So yes, it is old and in some way can be a step back, and that completely relies on your approach. If you aim to make MES your primary management system, it’s essential to establish a stable data flow. Otherwise, the system will be an equivalent of paper control and guesswork for another hole in your budget. To have it settled and explain further how to not fall for it, let’s state the following:

MES without integrated data is a relic of the past

To explain it visually, let’s look at the graph below. It shows us the dependence between the dataflow and effectiveness of three different performers. There is a vertical divider, further referred to as the Data CP (Control Point). Falling below this level means that management decisions are nearly random. Beyond the CP point, management effectiveness increases as the volume of incoming information grows, eventually surpassing the performance of other models.

DSS stands for Decision Support System, which can be a good choice for those who do not have that much digital data to process and mostly rely on human thinking. Mastery of these systems, data collection processes, and the management system itself represent substantial cost items. Errors, inaccuracies, and data gaps can severely limit the potential of formalized management. Therefore, before setting the goal of creating a management model based on an MES system, it’s crucial to meticulously assess all risks, especially financial and organizational ones.

But how to gain enough dataflow?

First, let’s talk about data gathering. This is the cornerstone, which inevitably affects the quality of decisions and any further add-ups and their effectiveness. In 2024, implementing a Manufacturing Execution System without real-time data from equipment is like navigating with an outdated map: critical insights are missing. Such data is now the backbone of digital manufacturing, allowing companies to make informed decisions, optimize production, and address issues before they escalate. This data collection and intelligent analysis — spanning information from production equipment, ERP systems, MES, and other systems — is crucial for a responsive, efficient manufacturing environment. You can also check out our articles on how to choose monitoring systems and which factors you should consider to learn more.

Comprehensive data, timely updates, and robust initial processing are prerequisites for enhancing efficiency and supporting enterprise-wide digital transformation. The data accumulated from these systems aligns with Big Data properties, enabling businesses to tackle complex digital manufacturing tasks with intelligent tools that transform “raw” data into valuable insights. Real-time updates on equipment states allow for a multifactorial approach to equipment and process control, creating a dynamic view of production performance and reliability. The most vital options that your MES should support are:

• Real-time data collection and analysis capabilities
• Support for real-time monitoring and alerting
• Capacity to handle large volumes of data efficiently

A critical success factor in this process is recognizing that without an objectively measurable understanding of the current state, meaningful management is impossible—a principle upheld by the very fundamentals of control theory. Simplifying, all of your hard work won’t be future proof for a day, and that’s surely not what you are aiming for.

With all that being said, let’s step into a more relevant field of formalizing the criteria and understanding your needs.

Essential criteria for understanding MES needs 

Nothing helps more to understand your needs than asking yourself questions. Here is a refined MES choice criteria list from the MDCplus team for you to both understand the needs and further compare solutions on the market, along with our advice to support your decision-making.

The first question, which can be a bottleneck of your further steps, is:

Are your production discrete or continuous?

You can read more about it in our blog article at MDCplus, and from there, move on with other criteria. Otherwise, you may be stuck on the solutions not offering the functionality suiting your needs because you are looking in the wrong place. 

Software criteria:

This is the most questionable, yet the most vital part, the heart of your MES. Key criteria for evaluating MES solutions include scalability to accommodate growth, integration capability with ERP and other IT systems, and flexibility to adapt to various production environments. Critical functions include production scheduling, quality control, inventory management, and maintenance planning. The ideal MES solution should also have a user-friendly interface and provide real-time analytics for informed decision-making. Let’s divide it into smaller pieces in order to understand how to gather clarification information.

Solution has to be:

• relevant for your manufacturing type and present in your industry
• gathering and using real-time data
• equipped with on-board analytics and document flow
• compliant with ISA95 - read an article about it’s importance 
• compliant with your industry standards and regulations
• scalable for future growth of your company

Solution User Experience must be:

• intuitive and easy-to-use with out-of-the-box interface
• easy accessible from various devices, such as tablets, smartphones, and desktops
• customizable with option to add dashboards and change reports layout

Tip: those who implement are often not the ones who use it. Listen to your team, on-site workers and make the right choice.

Solution Integration Capabilities are made to:

• integrate with your ERP, CRM, and other enterprise systems currently in use
• support required industry-standard protocols for connecting your OPC, PLCs, and SCADA systems, and has the ability to integrate with hardware on the production floor

Tip: some homework to be done with the team. Strongly depends on industry type and must be aligned.

Financial criteria:

Those are not the ones to give go-to advice upon, but surely the ones to not miss out at the initial start of such a project. Make sure that:

• Cost and ROI are meeting your expectations
• Implementation time is aligned with your digitization roadmap

Tip: you know your production best, so leverage the budget accordingly. Your internal goal will be to estimate initial costs, ongoing operational costs, and maintenance fees, including return on investment analysis and breakeven point. Otherwise, your choice may lead to poor financial performance for more time than expected.

Safety and future-proof criteria:

Remember that the software is leveraging the data of your production, and protecting it from misbehaving and hacking should be one of the first IT department criteria to check upon.

Pay attention to:

• vendor reputation
• security measures offered by the vendor
• vendor update & upgrade policies

Those are to be discussed with the representative, and make notes to feel sure if that suits your vision of a long-term project. Talking about MES cybersecurity earlier in our blog, we provided the article, where you can learn the main issues and concerns to look for. 

Implementation criteria:

The system should solve more problems than it creates. If the system operates in isolation from related systems and processes and requires constant manual adjustments, “system fatigue” accumulates. Organizational or technical solutions should address these issues, gradually raising the customer’s business process organization level.

Thinking of it, figure out whereas the vendor:

• comply with your roadmap
• provide support during and post-implementation
• provide customer support
• provide online or on-site trainings

Tip: as was said before, ensure that you may have either training or comprehensive guides and support. It is crucial for all levels of users to properly learn how to use the system, and vendors can help with this.

From Theory to Practice

After the first week of researching, there will be a lot of discussion and calculations made. Either it will be a fully calculated touchdown or a belief in the vendor and your capabilities, it will take some time to see the results. Transitioning to information-based management is always accompanied by the intensive implementation of management systems, computers, and new technologies. This shift changes the communication model, transforming interactions from “person-to-person” or “person-to-technology” to “person-to-symbolic system.” As a result, the skills of specialists who excel in one communication model may not necessarily suit the demands of another. 

We are here to help you make a more informed choice. This is the first article from the batch related to the MES systems, covering the thoughts that can overwhelm you at your first steps. In one of the next articles, we will talk about how to make a choice, show MES examples on the market, and learn about the team for MES implementation and the mentality shifts required to leverage such a project successfully.