Industry 4.0

For Industry 4.0 to have its full impact, Advanced Production Planning and Scheduling (APS) must be a MES native capability. Meeting the demands of a high-mix, constantly changing automated and digitized Industry 4.0 environment, MES is the single application that can fully embody APS. With it, you gain speed, accuracy and the execution necessary to optimize plant performance.

ROI: Return on Investment. It’s a standard measurement criteria used for most complex or costly endeavors, where the factors of time, funds and people are involved: buying a new piece of capital equipment; investing in a new production line; or buying a software product which has vast organizational impact, such as an ERP or MES.
For IT projects, an ROI exercise is a given.

Industry 4.0, Smart Factory, Digital Factory, Connected Enterprise, Factory of the Future, Plant floor to ERP, Convergence of IT & OT, IIOT and Digitization are either connected terms or very close to each other with slight differences.

The term Autonomous Factory has gained popularity in the context of Industry 4.0. In this article, we will discuss what an autonomous factory means and how manufacturers with multiple plants across the globe can move towards this coveted autonomous manufacturing infrastructure in their value chains.

It is only after the top management realizes the need to implement an MES, or to update the existing legacy system, that the MES project starts to take shape. With it comes complexity and fear of failure; so, to alleviate those fears, today we will explore ways in which you can ensure that your MES project is a success.

Critical Manufacturing increased its sales representative base significantly in 2020 for the Electronics and SMT Industry in North America. We’ve added a category called Manufacturer’s Reps. What is the reasoning behind this?

Today we will discuss the future of manufacturing, examining the effects that new technologies and the pandemic are having in shaping its future. We will review the need for digital transformation and building resilience in global manufacturing supply chains.

Categorizing manufacturing operations based on process workflows and establishing a functionality/weight-based methodology for selecting the right MES is a logical first step. Understanding industry-specific use cases will enable and aid better decision making when it comes to deciding which MES works best for you.

As I started to explore in the first post of this series, many companies seem to be strategically lost among the various digitization initiatives and are experiencing severe difficulties in achieving results from the investments made.