MES

This blog explores the progression of technology in manufacturing, the effect of poor knowledge transfer on the skills gap, and how the right systems and technology can enable the connected worker—driving tangible progress in narrowing the gap for the entire industry.

This blog discusses how manufacturing execution system benefits extend well beyond the realm of improved productivity and reduced waste, offering you a robust means to ensure traceability and, subsequently, compliance.

This blog post addresses common misconceptions about digital transformation, the challenges manufacturers may face, and a structured implementation framework to drive successful results and shorten the time to achieve a positive ROI.

This blog post will discuss important considerations for an effective data strategy, reveal why contextualization is critical, and showcase what anintelligent, agile, data-driven, and on-demand enterprise looks like.

This blog post will review adaptive manufacturing, discuss the challenges manufacturers face in handling modern-day production, and present solutions for forward-thinking manufacturers that enable real-time factory awareness to drive efficiency throughout the supply chain framework.

The eSmartFactory Conference in Europe provides innovative, practical, and adoptable technologies for successful Smart manufacturing. Several presentations including one from Michael Ford will address such things as whether and how AI will change our manufacturing lives.

Manufacturers are continually facing challenges and changes as they embrace Industry 4.0 practices to stay competitive in today’s environment. In this blog post, we discuss the pressures on today’s manufacturers and how key digitalization drivers are shaping digital transformation.

This blog discusses why data is a crucial driver of quality, how to achieve holistic quality management, and why a holistic MES and QMS platform is the key to achieving a more efficient supply chain.

In this blog post, we review the state of quality in manufacturing, discuss how digital technology is transforming quality management, and surface what best-in-class companies are doing to ensure quality in a tangible way.

Building your tree of knowledge, your Digital Thread, contextualized based on clear design information with IPC-2581 DPMX, should be one of the most important steps that you can take to ensure success in your Digital Transformation of manufacturing practices. This blog post discusses why design data, in the form of IPC-2581 DPMX is an essential ingredient to your Digital Thread in manufacturing.

This blog post discusses the tangible benefits an MES can bring to manufacturing companies when complemented with a robust QMS and why implementing the right system is so important.

While it is true that there are a multitude of unprecedented problems facing manufacturers, there are also many exciting opportunities for growth and innovation. The most forward-thinking manufacturers are laser-focused on transforming their operations through digital technology. In this blog post, we'll look closely at top challenges for today's manufacturers, key ways to mitigate issues, and how the right MES can help you attain digital dominance.

A truly efficient manufacturing process requires raw materials to arrive at the right location at the right time, enabling manufacturers to minimize the amount of inventory on hand, saving time and money. But without the proper MES in place, this kind of lean materials management may remain an elusive goal.

A combination puzzle like the Rubik's Cube is a strong analogy for manufacturing today. With so many moving pieces in play, trying to align processes, systems, data, workflows, and more can feel challenging, if not nearly impossible. Let's expand upon this analogy a little more.

During times of economic volatility, digital transformation is the key to the survival of manufacturing organizations, and enhancing process optimization is critical for thriving through times of change. In this blog post, we explore what Best-in-Class manufacturers are doing to navigate today’s complex manufacturing landscape.

This blog post covers the impact of COVID-19 on digital strategies, today’s top business initiatives, how organizations are responding to disruptions, and how the right manufacturing operations platform will enable data-driven decision making, digitization, innovation, and re-imagining.

This blog delves into the workforce shortages and post-COVID world challenges and explores how system consolidation, data contextualization, and artificial intelligence (AI) can help transform factories into Industry 4.0-enabled powerhouses.

In this blog post, we focus on three ways that Best-in-Class manufacturers have become more resilient in their operations—and three critical steps your organization can take to become more resilient too.

As pressures on today's manufacturers continue to intensify, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions alone are not robust enough to manage all of the modern-day manufacturer's daily tasks and strategic demands. In this blog, we take a closer look at the role of the ERP and MES, quantify some of the benefits of the two systems working together, then examine six specific areas that can amplify value for today's manufacturers.

To overcome the vast challenges and meet ambitious goals for the future, manufacturers must be operating at the highest level of performance. Unfortunately, however, not every company is configured to achieve its full performance potential. Is yours?

As automotive today gives way to e-Mobility, revolutionary changes are happening, that bring a whole new generation of opportunity at every level of the manufacturing process.

Using paperless work instructions, no matter how clear they may be, will always benefit from having the opportunity to interact in three dimensions with the assembly that you are making.

In this recent Automation.com interview article, Jason Spera, shares his vantage of the changes for factory floor automation in 2021.

The multitude of challenges that manufacturers face today is accelerating the need to adapt process innovation, embrace technology, and digitalize operations. Transformation is essential for manufacturers to become more resilient, agile, productive, and profitable throughout Industry 4.0.

Industry 4.0 is revolutionizing manufacturing processes today by bridging the gap between high-level Information Technology and floor-level Operational Technology—all while leveraging intelligent data insights to power factory-wide analytics.

Paper-based processes can no longer keep up with real-time demands or scale with changing business requirements. When manufacturers use manual, paper-based systems, human error, and poor data integrity permeate all business areas. For this reason, and many others, Best-In-Class manufacturers, are increasingly turning to digital solutions.

Today’s fast-paced manufacturers are under tremendous pressure to increase throughput, reduce costs, ensure quality, and enable product personalization. It, therefore, makes sense that manufacturing organizations across sectors are increasingly adopting the MES (Manufacturing Execution System) as a powerful solution that provides real-time visibility and control over operations in support of greater agility and optimization.

One down-side of being human is the realization that not everyone can be considered a “team player”, even at a time of crisis when our entire species is being challenged. Whether creating and delivering key medical devices, critical industry products, or even a piece of software, we all need to focus equally on the potential influence of “bad actors”, as well as the efficiency of doing it right first time.

As momentum around the Connected Factory continues to build, manufacturers are focused on reaching Industry 4.0 in their own factory environments. But to reach Industry 4.0 implies that it is a destination—and that, once reached, one’s quest for Industry 4.0 is complete. However, to reap the full benefits of the Connected Factory, it is critical that manufacturers approach Industry 4.0 as a journey.

The rapid advancements and utilization of new technologies is simplifying everyone’s life, enabling us to do things quicker, more intelligently, and more efficiently. However, some people see this as being a way to exploit others.

It’s no secret that technology is a heavy focus for today’s manufacturers. Unfortunately, many manufacturers often focus on technology as an end, when in reality, technology is a means to achieving better business outcomes.

People have begun describing their cloud systems as "the fog." I get the feeling the joke is based on actual events. Are we" venting" gases into the atmosphere with our data during this digital era just like we did during the industrial age?

Eliminating paper in manufacturing, also known as the Smart Factory or Industry 4.0, is just the first step of the digital revolution.

For manufacturers, productivity is paramount. The rate of global manufacturing growth has slowed, according to the International Yearbook of Industrial Statistics 2019 published by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

More advanced technology equals higher workforce productivity—this is the simple equation that drives enterprise strategy for many manufacturing leaders.

In this last segment of the series, we finish by looking further into the levels of MES functionality that enables final production to work effectively.

Could anyone have imagined the degree to which our world has become automated? From smartphones to fully automated data centers, we’ve experienced a technological revolution that has digitized everything.

In this segment of the 3-part series, we will take a more detailed look into the deeper levels of MES, discussing other areas within the factory that MES manages, that enable the final production flow to work smoothly and effectively.

Today’s discrete manufacturers are under pressure to meet two often-opposing objectives: delight customers with high-quality products, and continually reduce operational costs while doing it.

Eliminating paper in manufacturing, also known as the Smart Factory or Industry 4.0, is just the first step of the digital revolution.

In this blog post, we cover highlights from a recent webinar with Aegis Software and Vecna Robotics: Breaking Down Islands for Lean Manufacturing. Read on to find out how leading manufacturers are creating a truly adaptive and totally visible factory with AGV, MES and WMS together with lean manufacturing concepts.

Many software systems in use in manufacturing today are holding the business to ransom. Well-meaning, mainly internally developed software utilities, have established a critical dependency on themselves.

SMT Hybrid Packaging show, taking place in Nuremberg from the 5th to the 7th of June, takes the strain as the focus of attention for technology and innovation in the electronics assembly manufacturing market.

Today’s shop floor is a highly-complex, continually-shifting environment. A recent study by Aberdeen Group polled today’s best-in-class manufacturers and found the top reported pressures of modern manufacturing.

Aerospace manufacturers need a quality system. The difference is how readily one reacts to a non-conformance and how frequently they report quality metrics. Without MES, reporting is historical and is often too late to act on its findings.

Atrenne Integrated Solutions, customers include Aerospace and Defense companies, requiring the utmost quality control and production efficiency. Aegis’ FactoryLogix MES offers real-time visibility, streamlined processes and ensures quality.

Challenges like Industry 4.0 are turning the manufacturing world upside down, in a good way, we see solutions being quite brutally put together, through acquisition or partnership, which are expected to be seen as the solutions of tomorrow.

Software user-interface is not just about making a pretty picture, but more the user experience and the value received. Depending on the software design, the value from different solutions with similar specifications can differ greatly.

What we think we know is a less dynamic concept than actual reality. Many things progress so quickly, that we simply cannot keep up any longer. How do we know whether the grass is really greener on the other side?

Before you invest in a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for your facility, you need to consider how easily and efficiently it will be deployed throughout your operation, and what the long-term relationship with your vendor will be like.

The #MondayMusings blog series provides executive level insights and analysis for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Digital Transformation from the previous week’s briefings, events, and publications @LNSResearch.

It’s an odd premise but more than one person at APEX in Las Vegas told me that robots could be part of the drive to save manufacturing jobs in places like the USA where labor rates are higher.

Alibaba and DigiKey is not a supply chain strategy! So what are the ten most important things to consider when developing an outsourced manufacturing solution and the supply chain that surrounds it?

As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, 2015 closed on the heels of a very successful presence at Productronica in Munich, Germany.

Most recently viewing methods have become a critical factor when data is being utilized by an organization. Mobility is the norm in modern business and the team’s ability to stay connected to the data via mobile analytics has become key.

We all know that for any change to be successful everyone must benefit. Nowhere is this truer than in the change to a paperless factory floor environment.

When a manufacturing enterprise adopts a Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) system capable of managing the entire scope of operations, traceability is no longer something an enterprise strives to achieve, it is a byproduct…

There was a time, not so long ago, where we knew what each industry did. The automotive industry made cars, the apparel industry made clothes and the electronics industry made electronics. Now everything is a little less clear.

Progress toward Operational Excellence requires the strategic alignment and then optimization of key resources: people, processes, and technology. Each of these three resource categories contributes its own individual, unique value.

The business world in general has become increasingly global and distributed, which has both benefitted and challenged manufacturers in multiple ways.

Experienced professionals know that buy-in from senior leadership is often the greatest success factor for an initiative.

Most companies—especially large ones—seem to have some form of continuous improvement program. With today’s dynamic and turbulent global economy, programs like ISO 9001 or Lean Manufacturing are critical for sustaining competitiveness.

For 17 years, Aegis’ mission has been to reshape the very concept of MES toward a more comprehensive and yet cost-effective solution for manufacturers.