Visualize clearly

"Critical Manufacturing MES helps us to improve visibility and integration with ERP and to increase the flexibility of our operations. Doing so reduces cost and gives us a competitive advantage.” -- MES Manager, Semiconductor manufacturer, Taiwan

Product - MES

Manufacturing Execution Systems

empowering operations

Manufacturing Execution System, or MES, is an information system that drives the execution of manufacturing operations. The main goal of such systems is to achieve and to maintain high performance in a highly competitive and rapidly changing manufacturing environment.

To meet this goal MES performs a set of tasks in the shop floor that are integrated with other systems across the organization and supply chain:

	Monitoring and enforcing the correct execution of the production process
	Monitoring and controlling the material used in the production process
	Gathering information about the production process
	Providing the tools for the analysis of the data to optimize efficiency
	Delivering and managing work-instructions
	Providing the tools to solve problems and optimize procedures

MES plays a critical role in Industry 4.0, as it accommodates the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)-enabled production marketplace. However, not all MES are currently designed to accommodate the integration, decentralization, and new technologies of Industry 4.0. »» Read more in this white paper

Key benefits of MES

Achievable in short time: increased efficiency and reduced costs

Reduction of manufacturing cycle time
Reduction of order lead time
Reduction of direct labor costs
Reduction of data entry time

Reduction or elimination of paperwork
Reduction of work in process (WIP) inventory
Increase in machine utilization

Achievable in long time: overall improvement in processes

Increased customer satisfaction
Improvement of regulatory compliance

Increased agility and time to market
Improvement of supply chain visibility

MES vs ERP: where to draw a line?

Both of these systems are critical to manufacturing processes. In the past years the link between an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) has been well established and integration of these two became easier and more valuable than ever. The confusion still lies in deciding which processes should be supervised by MES vs ERP.

An MES becomes the ideal choice for a complex production process with multiple variations and massive number of transactions. An ERP is generally designed to support a homogeneous process with business operating information.

Under the definition applied by the leading standard ANSI/ISA-95, MES can be seen as the translation layer between business planning & logistics and operation & process control.

Functional hierarchy of manufacturing systems (ANSI/ISA 95 standard):

2020 Gartner Critical Capabilities for MES Report

Critical Manufacturing Scored Highest in 3 out of 7 use cases in the 2020 Gartner Critical Capabilities for MES Report

Critical Manufacturing is proud to be recognized in the Gartner Critical Capabilities Report for Manufacturing Execution Systems, 2020, with the highest product scores out of 20 vendors for 3 out of 7 Use Cases for batch /repetitive flow and complex discrete manufacturing.

Get the report

Learn more about MES

Ask one of our representatives for more information about MES software.