It’s clear that if there was a way to increase productivity and data reliability without performing costly equipment upgrades or bringing on additional employees, any manufacturer would jump at this opportunity. What’s not clear to most manufacturers is that this isn’t an unrealistic thought. A cost-effective way to do this already exists today – implementing a manufacturing execution system (MES).
While MES has been around for decades, early MES solutions earned a reputation as an expensive and risky investment, which created a huge barrier to entry for many manufacturers. However, as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and cloud-based technologies evolve today, the capabilities of MES are rapidly expanding yet implementation costs are continuing to decline.
A manufacturer is wirelessly tracking real-time production data on the plant floor using their MES.
A Modern MES Provides More Accurate and Reliable Data
With a well-thought-out MES, manufacturers can foster productivity gains by automatically gathering data from the plant floor, contextualizing it, and then making it available to key decision makers in the way they need to see it. Additionally, the data collected by MES provides one cohesive, transparent, and undisputable version of the truth about what is happening across the plant. With this reliable visibility into the plant floor, manufacturers can improve productivity, enhance quality, and reduce costs.
While automated data collection and storage with MES has numerous benefits, it does lead to additional challenges manufacturers must overcome, especially regarding data contextualization as data storage is centralized and moved to the cloud. Therefore, forming a partnership with an MES integrator like Applied Control Engineering (ACE), who truly understands how to contextualize and deliver data to key stakeholders, can help manufacturers overcome these issues.
As the plant floor becomes more connected, and IIoT technology continues to advance, using the cloud for all facets of MES data delivery, storage, and analytics will soon not be any different than using a data center, local or remote. While the industry is not fully there yet, this future version of MES is coming fast, and ACE is here to assist in helping manufactures optimize production by making this transition smooth and efficient for all.
Learn more about maximizing productivity with a modern MES by downloading the full white paper, The Evolution of MES. This paper examines where MES began, where the technology is going, and how to get the most out of MES systems today.