How to Ensure the Optimal Choice of MES

Deciding to invest in a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) means you have taken the first step toward optimizing your production operations. This journey will drive efficiency, enhance quality, and boost profitability as part of a more competitive future. But what process should you employ to ensure the choice of an MES solution that adds value and delivers genuine competitive gain?

Before commencing the selection process, it’s advisable to gain familiarity with the extensive capabilities of MES. An MES solution monitors and controls end-to-end production processes, tracking the transformation of raw materials into finished goods in real-time. It facilitates automation and data-driven decision-making to boost shop-floor efficiency and productivity while enhancing quality assurance, compliance, and inventory management.

Key advantages in support of fast Return On Investment (ROI) include improved visibility across sites, where data transparency and analysis lead to better and faster decisions, either through humans or by contributing to the improvement of automation. Further benefits include faster throughput times thanks to fewer human errors, better asset/equipment utilization and performance, full integration of reporting, and out-of-box Bill of Materials (BOM) checks.

Building Bridges

MES fundamentally and inherently improves the two KPIs that world-class manufacturing facilities revere most: product quality and asset efficiency.

To ensure your facility also enhances these key metrics, the first step in your MES purchasing journey is to assemble a multidisciplinary team of relevant personnel. Choosing an MES is the start of a strategic, long-term partnership, so it is essential to treat it with care and long-term vision. A team-based approach will help facilitate this ambition.

It is crucial to focus not only on existing processes but also on the areas and requirements that can improve your current operations and make them smarter. A useful tool to capture those requirements and compare responses from different vendors is the so-called Request For Information (RFI). Notably, the RFI can inspire and help you avoid the known phenomenon of ‘bounded awareness’, where cognitive blinders prevent a person from seeing relevant information during the decision-making process.

RFIs should focus on four principal MES factors: functional requirements, architectural requirements, supplier requirements, and price.

Functional Requirements

Regardless of whether your industry is electronics, semiconductors, industrial equipment, or medical devices, for example, check if the MES solution offers out-of-the-box features designed to benefit your sector-specific processes.

Take electronics, for example. Desirable MES attributes here include: MSD and floor-life control for handling sensitive components; material serialization and tracking for complete traceability; material availability checks for upcoming orders; set-up preparation ensuring the right recipes, consumables, and durables for key processes; X-outs and virtual ink spot handling to minimize costs and waste; and advanced analytics to provide insights for process optimization and better decision-making. Connectivity and integration capabilities are also critical to the seamless linking of equipment, processes, and enterprise systems, enabling real-time data flow and optimized production performance.

With the IoT penetrating deeper into the industrial world, certain MES solutions provide further differentiation via features like a fully integrated IoT data platform. Such a platform has the capability to manage far more data traffic than conventional stand-alone databases with their tabular data storage formats. For some industries, like electronics, this is currently about obtaining a key requirement, as the requirements in terms of cycle time and the information that needs capturing at the board level are growing and becoming increasingly mandatory.

Further MES demarcation factors worthy of consideration include a dedicated module for factory automation that will allow you to create and merge workflows in your journey toward complete factory automation.

Your functionality requirements for today and tomorrow should ideally – as much as possible – be available out of the box. What makes the MES solution smooth, consistent, and fast in terms of both operations and maintenance, is having all constituent modules available within a single solution. This ‘building kit’ of modules should cover as many of your processes as possible out of the box, with the flexibility to facilitate future system extensions moving forward according to your needs.

Architectural Requirements

System architecture impacts the ease with which you can deploy, upgrade, customize, configure, and maintain the MES solution – whether at a single site or across multiple locations. You should seek out an MES based on the latest production-ready architecture, one that delivers a comprehensive framework to facilitate a more holistic approach to the complexities of production and its constant evolution.

Key architectural factors for you to consider include MES scalability, modularity, autonomy, and the capability to leverage advancements like machine learning, containers, and smart manufacturing solutions. A future-proof MES should provide flexibility, supporting deployment on-premises, in the cloud, or as part of a hybrid structure.

The MES will also serve as a central element of the digital thread that runs through your product lifecycle and flow of materials. It must therefore demonstrate proven integration capabilities, facilitating data capture and sharing between systems that include ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), as well as proven IoT and asset integration.

Supplier Requirements

Identify respected MES vendors with the same ideas and visions for the future as yours. Your shortlisted suppliers should know the specific manufacturing processes of your industry from start to finish, ensuring a partnership-based approach to continuous innovation. MES is not a generic application.

Customer feedback and demonstrable results are also worthy of scrutiny. As the purchase decision-making process progresses, you should ask to speak with end users or even see installations.

MES is not typically something that many companies replace mid-term, so making the right choice is critical. Your chosen MES vendor must be responsive to your needs now and in the future. This means finding a partner ready to evolve their software as technologies mature and new needs arise.

Price

While price is always an important factor, choosing an MES based solely on the initial price can carry risks by falling short of critical architectural and functional requirements. MES that is not easy to use, customize, or upgrade will not facilitate high productivity, while functionality that lacks sector-specific process benefits can lead to missed opportunities for pertinent gains. Aside from the purchase price, you should also evaluate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the MES software, including licensing, implementation, training, and ongoing maintenance management.

As part of your business case, show ROI by listing all the benefits and costs in at least approximate numbers. It could pay dividends to set out what you anticipate the MES to address in 3-12 months, 12-36 months, and 3+ years, for example.

Subsequent Steps

Regarding requirements collection and potential vendor checks, demonstrations will prove that the supplier has the necessary capabilities to support your plant’s processes. You can also request detailed documentation on specific modules, helping you gain further confidence in how the MES solution will function in practice. Next, call for proposals defining the project scope, including potential pricing.

Deeper technical discussions and demonstrations can follow regarding specific areas, such as quality and maintenance. This phase of the process will help the scope become even clearer, supporting the introduction of more details into the proposal.

The ultimate ambition is to make your decision based on the analysis of comprehensive, relevant, and pertinent information. However, if the information shared thus far is still not sufficient to reach a final decision, asking potential vendors to create a proof of concept is a good option that will provide you with a further understanding of the solution’s capabilities and features. It will also present you with an opportunity to assess the working mode of the MES supplier. As a further step, a reference visit/call will help you gain real insight into the MES implementation experience of existing customers.

Conclusion

Mordor Intelligence valued the global market for MES solutions at $14.87 billion in 2023 and predicts it to reach $24.06 billion by 2028, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.1%. While this impressive growth rate is due to the added value of MES and its potential to deliver competitive gain, everything hinges on choosing the optimal solution. Not all MES solutions are made equal.

Begin by creating a collaborative team to explore your MES options. Make sure you and your team thoroughly understand MES and define how you expect it to meet your needs. Tap into the know-how of vendors on your RFI shortlist to discover more about MES functionality and architecture. Purchasing an MES solution is a learning experience that is both enriching and transformative. Use it to your advantage.