It only takes one single unit of bad product to ruin your brand reputation. Capturing the real-time state of every material and managing their life cycle in the plant is absolutely essential for shop-floor operations. For traceability purposes, the history of every material must be captured in the system.

Materials & Containers module tracks materials, sub-materials, and their containers throughout the manufacturing process. It provides the following capabilities:

• Lot, Batch and Device Unit Tracking
• Consumables Management
• Bill-of-Materials
• Process Time Constraints
• Paperless Manufacturing (eBR and eDHR)
• Traceability and Genealogy
• Audit Trail

Critical Manufacturing’s material model supports all types of batch, lot and unit configurations and enables virtually any material logical and physical operation of a discrete manufacturing process.

Key features include:

• Hierarchical Material model with different levels of Material tracking.
• Rich set of material transactions, including: Dispatch, Undispatch, Track-In, Track-Out, Abort, Rework, Temporary Off-Flow, Move-Next, Special Move-Next, Split, Merge, Store, Retrieve, Change Quantity, Change Product, Attach, Detach, Combine, Compose, Assemble, Disassemble, Hold, Release, Ship, and Receive.
• Support for primary and secondary units of measures as well as automatic unit of measure conversions.
• Complete traceability of individual materials.
• Genealogy of individual or lot materials in real time or through custom reporting.

Benefits for your operations:

• Increased operational efficiency.
• Complete real-time traceability and genealogy at the individual batch, lot or serialized unit.
• Increased visibility and monitoring capabilities.
• Paper reduction.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

The equipment health, performance and utilization are key factors in the operations efficiency and in the company profitability, being the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) a closely monitored indicator.

Resource Tracking module manages and tracks factory resources and sub-resources. It provides a hierarchical object model to model virtually any type of equipment and it provides all the functionality required for managing and tracking resources.

Key features include:

• Hierarchical Resource model with different levels of Material tracking.
• Rich set of transactions (Change Resource State, Change System State, Store Material, Retrieve Material, Dock Container, Undock Container, Perform Data Collection, Manage Durables, Manage Consumables, Manage Instruments).
• User defined state models with pre-configured SEMI-E10 state model.
• Capability to propagate state changes in a resource hierarchy.
• Dedicated Resource views.
• Capability to visualize the equipment in real-time in fabLive.
• Capability to define and enforce operator skills (certifications).
• Support of multiple maintenance plans per Resource.

Benefits for your operations:

• Improved Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).
• Reduction of downtime and unplanned breakdowns.
• Increased visibility and monitoring real-time capabilities.
• Increased process automation.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

Master Data Management module handles the creation and management of all the factory model as well as the management, versioning, and change control of critical master data objects.

Instead of linking the different objects in a hard-coded way, the system makes usage of a flexible context resolution mechanism for maximum re-usability and minimum maintenance effort. For example, a recipe may be defined for a specific product and also more generically to a product group. When resolving the recipe to be used, the system will look first for the specific product match and if one is not found, it will look for the more generic product group match.

Critical Manufacturing MES offers complete Bill-of-Materials (BOM) support, with lists of raw materials, subassemblies, intermediate assemblies, components, sub-components, parts and respective quantities that are required to manufacture one unit of a final product through assembly. These BOMs can be imported and integrated directly from ERP or PLM software, or created manually in the system by loading a product BOM file. The system also allows visualization of the imported BOM, as well as the complete Product tree.

Key features include:

• Change control with user defined approval workflows.
• Approval workflows with email notifications.
• Enforcement of approval workflows based on object and type.
• Approval of multiple changes together as part of one Change Set.

Benefits for your operations:

• Faster approval of master data changes.
• Increased visibility of master data changes.
• Increased process control.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

The manufacturing environment is very fluid and complex. A lot of issues may require attention and action. In order to keep track of all the open issues as well as to have clear visibility about the ownership and progress of the different actions, it’s necessary to have a mechanism to track and manage factory-wide tasks.

Tasks & Checklists module guides the user through the execution of complex operations and manages factory wide action items.

Critical Manufacturing MES provides fully integrated work instruction visualization through the use of electronic checklists that provide step-by-step guidance to the user throughout the execution of complex operations. With a variety of documents which are relevant for manufacturing, including technical sheets, drawings, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) or work instructions, it is essential to perform easy factory-wide information and document management through importing and versioning external files, CAD schematics and product specification documents that can be assigned to specific tasks in the production process.

Key features include:

• Dedicated task pane for every user about his/her open tasks.
• Support for sending notification emails (including reminders) to the task owner and task requester.
• Integration with the Material Tracking, Resource Tracking, Maintenance Management and Exception Management modules.
• Support for checklist item parameters and electronic signatures.

Benefits for your operations:

• Increased process control.
• Reduction in the opportunity for errors.
• Paper reduction.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

Manufacturing operations generate a lot of data. Being able to present the most important data in real time and in a visual way that is clear and easy to understand helps the different stakeholders to understand the current situation and quickly visualize any problem that requires attention. A Dashboard is a highly visual mechanism to display different types of data. Dashboards are created by combining and configuring different widgets such as reports, queries, resource lists, charts.

Dashboards module of Critical Manufacturing MES consists of visual interactive status and performance information widgets. The system comes off-the-shelf with the following set of widgets:

• Augmented Reality • Barcode Identification • BI Card • Browser • Button • Column View • Component Widget • Data Series • Data Value • Date and Time • EDC Chart • Entity  Attachments • Entity Details • Entity History • Entity Info • Entity KPI • Entity List View • Entity Tiles • FabLIVE • Filter • Flex • Form • Grid • Keypad • Live Data • Query • Shift • Sliding Grid • SPC Chart • Tabs Widget • Text • Tiles Matrix • Timeline Chart • Timer • Transfer Widget • Tree Map Chart • UI Page

Key features include:

• Responsive design with support for different layouts (e.g.: desktop, mobile phone).
• Easy creation and configuration by power users without coding, which enables the creation of optimized Dashboards and GUIs for some specific operational scenarios.
• Capability to define a Dashboard as the homepage for any user.

Benefits for your operations:

• Increased operational efficiency.
• Increased visibility and monitoring.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

Critical Manufacturing BI Cards enable manufacturing power users, such as shift leaders or line controllers to quickly and easily create cards and dashboards and share them with all applicable production users such as operators, process engineers, planners and managers. These dashboards can be used for operational monitoring and production control based on a single common view and they are updated based on real-time information.

Critical Manufacturing BI Cards module can leverage any information from the existing MES databases and it includes an extensibility mechanism so that customers can create their own indicators based on any database or application.

Key features include:

• Creating and defining KPIs with different dimensions (e.g.: current day, last seven days)
• Capability to collect data from different data sources and to apply business rules for complex data calculations
• Presentation of information using a set of visually rich widgets

Benefits include:

• Easy creation of attractive, visually rich KPIs with easy-to-use widgets.
• Easy of sharing Dashboards with multiple people with information updated in real-time.
• No need for IT skills – power users can create their own dashboards.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

Data Warehouse module gives access to multi-dimensional manufacturing data.

The Data Warehouse (DWH) provides a set of pre-aggregated and consolidated data to speed-up and facilitate different type of multi-dimensional analysis. The cubes provided by the Data Warehouse organize data (measures and indicators) across a set of predefined dimensions such as Facility, Area, Step, and Time.

Key features include:

• Provision of three cubes:
  – Resource
  – Data Collection
  – Production Order
• Capability to interactive slice and dice data.
• Provision of access to any data analysis client such as Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Power BI.

Benefits for your operations:

• Improved data analysis capabilities
• Faster data access

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

Having real-time visibility of the state of the factory is quite important to quickly react to problems. Visual dashboards can provide easy to understand information in an intuitive way.

fabLIVE module allows the customer to design the real physical layout of the plant (Digital Twin) and then to monitor the equipment with instantaneous updates delivered using a publish/subscribe mechanism.

Key features include:

• Graphical 3D designer with support for 3D shapes and textures.
• Support for a shape library with import of .obj threedimensional models.
• Interactive visualization with support for panning, zooming, and rotating in any of the three axes.

Benefits for your operations:

• Increased visibility, tracking and monitoring of equipment.
• Increased operational efficiency.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

In a manufacturing environment, there are many planned tasks and unplanned issues that require the user attention.

Alarm Management module provides a mechanism to send notifications about any event at any time to a user or to a group of users.

Key features include:

• Support for different severity levels with different presentation look and feel.
• Provision of a dedicated user notification pane in the GUI.
• Capability to send a notification by email to a distribution list.

Benefits for your operations:

• Improved visibility about problems.
• Faster response to tasks and issues.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

Augmented Reality module enables any task relevant information available inside MES to be viewed over a live camera shot of the real product, process, line or facility area. For example, a maintenance technician can check the list of pending and upcoming maintenance orders at an equipment; or a quality engineer can check the history of a certain lot simply by pointing their mobile device.

Key Features include:

• Association of objects to different tags and to print the tags.
• Visualization of information for multiple objects at the same time.
• Viewing and interacting with information at the same time (for example, by performing actions on a Resource).

Benefits for your operations:

• Faster speed of learning.
• Increased visibility, tracking and monitoring of experiments.
• Increased operational efficiency.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

In many cases it’s not practical to inspect or measure every single lot; and even in an inspection or metrology step, it’s not practical to inspect or measure every single unit of a lot.

Critical Manufacturing MES Sampling module provides the capability to implement sampling strategies by pre-defining 1) which materials must go through an inspection or metrology step based on time or counters; and 2) which sub-materials to be measured at an inspection or metrology step. Once the sampling strategy is defined, the system will execute and enforce it automatically.

Key features include:

• Support for static and dynamic inspection plans, including AQL.
• Support for lot-based sampling strategies based on flexible contexts that can be:
  – Counter based (e.g.: every 10th lot of a certain product)
  – Time based (e.g.: one lot from a certain equipment every 8 hours)
• Support for sub-material selection at a metrology step, for example to measure the top, middle and bottom wafers and in that particular sequence. The sub-materials to be measured can be defined manually or by a business rule (system or user-defined).

Benefits for your operations:

• Improved process control.
• Reduction of costs.
• Reduction in the opportunity for errors.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

Statistical Process Control (SPC) is a method of applying statistical methods and techniques in order to monitor and control a process. Using historical process data, it’s possible to check whether a certain process is under control and it’s possible to calculate the respective control limits, that is the Voice of the Process (VoP).

Statistical Process Control (SPC) is a pre-integrated module that is used to monitor the stability and quality of a certain process as well as to identify and flag problems as early as possible. When a problem is identified, it’s possible to trigger an action such as sending an email, putting the lot on hold, or putting the equipment down. It’s also possible to open an exception protocol workflow to correct the situation.

Key features include:

• Support for flexible Chart context definitions so that different Charts are created automatically by the system for every different context combination (e.g.: one Chart per Resource).
• Support for Variable Charts (Average and Range (X̅ R), Average and Standard Deviation (X̅ s), Median and Range (X ̃R), Individual and Moving Range (I-MR)) and Attribute Charts (Fraction Defective (p), Number Defective (np), Average number of Defects (u), Number of Defects (c)).
• Capability of setting the specification limits directly at the Chart level or to inherit them automatically from the Product definition which is subject to change control.

Benefits for your operations:

• Reduction of scrap, rework, and customer complaints.
• Improved equipment utilization.
• Reduction of costs.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

There are many documents which are relevant for manufacturing, including technical sheets, drawings, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) or work instructions. Documents need to be created, approved, published, and distributed, and most importantly, the right documents need to be presented to the user at the right time. When a new version is set effective, it’s important to ensure that the new version supersedes previous one. Also, for regulatory compliance, it may be necessary to ensure that the operators read and sign-off on new document versions.

The Document Management module Supports the creation, approval, and distribution of documents and provides visualization of the right documents at the right time and for the right context

Key features include:

• Support for document version management with access and change control.
• Provision of a document change history.
• Support for documents stored internally by the application or documents referenced in an external system (accessible via an URL).

Benefits for your operations:

• Reduction of paper and paperwork.
• Reduction of scrap and rework.
• Increased operational efficiency.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

The Experiment Management module is fully integrated with the MES to support both the design of the experiment (DoE) and the execution of the experiment. The execution of experiments is completely transparent to both the users and the  applications that support manufacturing operations. Experiment lots are tracked and processed in the same way as any other lot and the system automatically enforces the set variations.

Key features include:

• Centralized experiment definition system.
• Supports experiment version management with access and change control.
• Supports both full-material and sub-material level experiments. When using sub-material level experiments, define multiple variations for different lot sub-level groups at the same or different steps.

Benefits for your operations:

• Faster speed of learning.
• Increased visibility, tracking and monitoring of experiments.
• Increased operational efficiency.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

The work force is a critical aspect of any manufacturing operation. It’s necessary to organize employees into teams, manage their work calendar, track their skills, and ensure that only qualified personnel perform certain tasks.

The Labor Management module provides features to support for the management of employees, the tracking of certifications and qualifications, shift planning as well as it includes a shift logbook to pass information between shifts.

Key features include:

• Capability to define that Qualifications and Certifications expire after a certain time interval, so that the Qualification or Certification need to be renewed.
• Ability to define minimum Certification requirements and automatic assignment of Employees to that Certification when they meet those requirements.
• Capability to enforce Certifications when performing operations on a given Resource, Step or Product.

Benefits for your operations:

• Increased operational efficiency
• Reduction in the opportunity for errors
• Improved process control

During the manufacturing process it may be necessary to print labels (e.g.: Material Identification) and documents (e.g.: Certificate of Conformance) that must follow specific designs containing labels, pictures and barcodes, and must be printed in specific printers. The labels contain static and dynamic information, such as the lot number, quantity, and manufacturing date.

The Advanced Layout and Printing is an integrated module of Critical Manufacturing MES that provides the ability to design and print labels, lot travelers and other types of documents.

Key features include:

• Integrated visual drag-n-drop visual designer.
• Support for lot travelers that are generated dynamically by combining the sequence of lot travelers for the individual steps in a flow.
• Support for both static and dynamic elements (text, pictures, barcodes) that can be resolved during runtime (e.g.: lot  name or product description).

Benefits for your operations:

• Increased operational efficiency.
• Improved traceability and regulatory compliance.
• Reduction of errors.

Critical Manufacturing MES supports the business processes related with requesting materials, fulfilling those requests and moving material between locations.

The Material Logistics module specifies different material supply paths for different storage areas and production lines. The system supports three types of lifecycles: 1) starting with a Transfer Requirement, releasing it into a Pick List, and then transporting it with a Transfer Order; 2) create a Transfer Order for a Transfer Requirement; or 3) simply create a Transfer Order.

The Material Logistics module performs automatic replenishment based on user defined reorder points and target inventory levels and also provides the capability to take periodic inventories.

Key features include:

• Define Material supply paths between Storage Areas and Production Lines.
• Manage Transfer Requirements, Product and Quantity needs.
• Approve and release (completely or partially) Transfer Requirements and automatically create a Pick List based on pre-defined sorting rules, both for material selection and picking sequencing.

Benefits for your operations:

• Improved visibility and tracking of material requests.
• Reduction of material shortages.
• Reduction of raw materials inventory and raw materials scrap.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

There are many drivers for improving the degree of automation in manufacturing operations. Typically, there are three types of equipment in the shop floor that can be integrated: process equipment, metrology equipment and logistics equipment (automated material storage and retrieval equipment, transport equipment, such as Automatic Guide Vehicles (AGVs) and Autonomous Intelligent Vehicles (AIVs).

Connect IoT module provides MES equipment integration for different type of communication interfaces. It is a distributed equipment integration module that can be used to connect virtually any equipment or device that provides some type of connectivity.

Key features include:

• Centralized configuration and administration of all integrated equipment and devices.
• Version controlled Driver and Controller definitions.
• Off-the-shelf drivers for the following type of interfaces: Bluetooth Low Energy, CSV Files, Databases (currently only MicrosoftTM SQL Server), MQTT, IPC-CFX, Fuji Nexim, OIB, OPC-DA, OPC-UA, Raw Files, SECS/GEM, Serial Communication (RS-232), TCP/IP Socket, USB Keyboard Wedge.

Benefits for your operations:

• Improved operational equipment effectiveness.
• Better equipment utilization.
• Reduction of downtime.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

As manufacturing relies on increasingly more complex equipment, the management of the recipes that the equipment will use for a certain process becomes increasingly important. It’s a basic requirement to ensure that the right recipe with the right parameters is used for the right process. A centralized electronic recipe management system is required for process automation and in some cases, some parameters need to be resolved dynamically on-the-fly to implement feed-forward and feedback mechanisms. Information about use recipes is a traceability requirement and an enabler for  performance and efficiency improvement.

Recipe Management module provides capabilities to manage, download, upload, resolve and instantiate recipes. The Recipe object model is based on the SEMI E139 standard and the module is pre-integrated with Connect IoT for equipment automation.

Key features include:

• Provision of a centralized factory wide recipe catalog and recipe store.
• Provision of a mechanism to edit recipes that includes the recipe body, recipe parameters and sub-recipes.
• Support for recipe version management with access and change control.

Benefits for your operations:

• Reduction of scrap and rework.
• Improved learning speed.
• Improved equipment utilization.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.

In formulation industries, it is of critical importance that different raw materials are correctly and precisely weighed and placed into appropriate containers. This process is time consuming, sensitive and prone to errors, involving both manual material handling operations as well as interaction with an electronic scales. A system must ensure that operators have the necessary qualifications, use the necessary protection equipment; that only calibrated scales are used and that weighed quantities fall within predefined tolerances and labels are printed correctly. The same system must ensure full traceability and meet the defined regulatory compliance requirements.

The Weigh & Dispense module provides integrated support for the weigh & dispense process, combining material tracking, resource tracking and equipment integration.

Key features include:

• Definition of formulas with tolerances based in relative or absolute values, with individual notes for each raw material
• Support for single formulas with multiple weigh & dispense process steps
• Display of product safety information, including online visualization of Safety Data Sheets
• Guiding operators through the complete weigh & dispense process with visual aids.

Benefits for your operations:

• Increased operational efficiency
• Improved traceability and regulatory compliance
• Reduction of scrap, rework, and customer complaints

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet or visit the dedicated page.

For companies that want to deploy high automation, it’s necessary to have a system that both listens to factory events, and coordinates and orchestrates the different systems and applications to respond to that factory event. Factory Automation is a factory-level workflow engine to coordinate different systems and applications in order to achieve high-automation.

Factory Automation module supports the definition of workflows and links the events to workflows. It also supports hierarchical job structures as well as long running jobs which have their state and context persisted in the database. Factory Automation also has the capability to perform error handling to recover from a variety of possible problems.

Key features include:

• Graphical design of workflows.
• Library of re-usable workflows.
• Support for short and long-running jobs and job hierarchies.

Benefits for your operations:

• Faster speed of learning.
• Increased visibility, tracking and monitoring of experiments.
• Increased operational efficiency.

For more features and benefits, consult the Data Sheet.