Third Time Lucky for MOM/ MES Architectures?

For the last 15 to 20 years companies have implemented MES (Manufacturing Execution System)  systems, and MOM (Manufacturing Operations Management) systems, remembering MOM is a super set of MES. These implementations executions have been both custom, and using off the shelf applications for MES, and success has varied, but even the successful ones are struggling to evolve to current agile requirements due to the method of implementation. One end user asked me on the flight “has MES been successful?”, I stepped back and thought about a couple customs who have implemented end to end MES. Based on one MES system so that manufacturing master data is managed by one system, with the customer stating their MES has been the most valuable software implementation on the plants, it just works and is the heart of their manufacturing. So the answer is yes, but the fact of the question allowed me to reflect on the normal bumpy roads MES implementations have had.

I was read Charlie Gifford’s latest book “The MES Chronicles” (ISA 95 best practices book 3.0), which has a set of articles around Gartners’ Manufacturing 2.0, explaining the concepts, and reality to the concepts. It is well worth the read if you are looking at the industrial/ manufacturing operations space.

 

 

In the introduction,  Charlie does an excellent job raising the challenges of MES, and the fact that we now with Manufacturing 2.0 going through actually the third architectural attempt at MES. How true his comments are when I reflect on my own career which had gone through all 3 since 1995 when we released InTrack (original MES Product).  A key consideration to this discussion is that MES is a concept of managing the executing the manufacturing, with the off the shelf solutions and customer systems built for a particular industry  with rules and practices for that industry. So looking at Invensys’s first generation MES system InTrack it was built for the semi conductor/ electronic industry, and the outstanding success stories I referred to were from that industry. Invensys’s second generation product built Wonderware MES for food and Beverage industry, and again has worked remarkably well in that industry and related industries. This does not mean they cannot be applied in other industries, but the “glove fits well”. That is why I do not like the generalization of MES, we should categorizing them by industry types, to help selection, and stop companies force fitting the wrong models into their practices.

Charlie in his book reflected on the three generations of MES/ MOM as:

“20% of advanced manufacturers discovered that the first two MOM attempts lead to:

• High cost MOM systems with extremely poor data integrity
• High cost change during new production introductions, production scaling time to market and continuous improvement.”

“ The first two MOM attempts occurred in the 1990s, and 2000s, actually were also found a primary hinderance to continuous improvement efforts because the MOM system owners were typically understaffed, under skilled, and un governed to support real innovation. “

His % might be low, but the point is that MES / MOM solutions have typically been architected in a “point to point” / application integration, with high levels of customization restricting evolution to the original developer. Many of the original InTrack MES implementations have maintained the database well, and the rules within it, but significant custom code has been developed for human interaction and data validation, and data validation on automated events acting on the system.  Like highly customized ERP implementations the ability to evolve , upgrade the systems become an anchor on manufacturing agility. Yet that is the reason why people put these systems to increase efficiency and consistency of production, but the issue is manufacturing practices, new product introduction is constantly changing and evolving, and the systems must be able to absorb this change naturally if the implementation are going to allow for the required agility needed today.

So the third attempt at MOM with the Manufacturing 2.0 concepts undoubtedly lead to:

·         An SOA (service orientated Architecture) that allows plug and play of the 15 to 20 Operational applications required to run a plant, allow the inter-operability to set up using messages through sustained services vs application integration.

·         This integration is a model based using tools such as workflow and sustainable environment.

·         Validation and data entry rules will be model driven, so that embedded best practices, that can evolve in a sustainable way as staff evolve in the organization.

·         Semantic information, and data management models based on proven models such as ISA 95 will enable existing and different models of the different operational applications to align.

The book outlines many of the concepts. MES are not a standalone product, it is  an architecture that merges level 2 events from automation, with validation of data, events in a structure asset/ operations model that can interact with the different operational applications through the life of a manufacturing operation. Key is the acceptance of  architecture which has model driven interoperability (so the model can evolve with governance) and the introduction of workflow to be a natural part of the operational system to capture the procedures as embedded operations that again have governance so can evolve as the practices of the plants change. Like successful ERP implementation, customization must be avoided, configuration within the tools provided make the system sustainable, but this will be a mind shift for people. Too often people talk about APIs, and taking coding tools to build a solution, this is fine for the short term, but will come back and bite when time for change and evolution. The project and program owners at the end users need to take a more holistic view and enforce an architectural cadence of configuration vs programing and making sure the “human to application”, and “application  to application” integration are model centric approach where configured services  using workflow configuration is key.