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The MES Evolution

The MES Evolution
As the manufacturing industry adapts to technological and economic change, the role of manufacturing execution systems must change with it. On the Automation World blog, Arianna Conte’s view.
Standard MES (manufacturing execution system) functionality involves taking data from production devices, centralizing the data, processing it, and then producing information in real-time for visualization and review by operators and management. Beyond replacing the spreadsheets and paper notes that have long been used in manufacturing to track production, MES has also become a connecting element between the shop floor and ERP systems.
But this description of MES is a historical view of the technology. With the manufacturing industry changing rapidly due to economic reasons and technological advances, the question now is: Where is MES heading?
Recently, I learned some interesting new ideas during the “Manufacturing Excellence: The MES evolution” event held at the Autoware office in Milan. The event was designed to bring together diverse perspectives on MES to help better understand where MES technology is headed.
Two presentations in particular stood out for me: CosterTecnologie Speciali’s presentation about applying mobile technology to MES in a pharmaceutical and cosmetic packaging operation, and A-27’s (Emmi Group) presentation about using MES to design a complete operations change at two food production plants.
Speaking about mobile technology use with MES, Eva Pagani, plant manager of Coster Tecnologie Speciali, said, “For about a year and a half we have been using mobile technology in our MES. We are satisfied with the solution, because it makes the system more flexible. We have several production machines operated by a few people and the use of tablets to replace traditional kiosks in the facility makes the work for these operators more ergonomic and reduces our licensing costs.”
Find the full article on Automation World
