Logica

Trends and observations

With well over a decade of research behind us, it is a good time to take a look at the general shifts and developments in the MES market. In the last twelve years, we have seen manufacturing companies show an increasing interest in MES. Here are the reasons why:

• In some ways, the manufacturing industry has come full circle. After a period of growth and much focus on e-business, customer relationship management (CRM) and other supporting processes, it’s going back to basics: manufacturing. It’s become especially important today to play the game well within the chain. That’s how successful companies meet the challenges of the volatile economic situation, get competitive advantage, and retain the lead. MES plays an important role in the more direct management of the primary process.
• The complexity of production processes is increasing with globalisation, outsourcing, shorter product lifecycles and faster business changes. In addition, there is more pressure on efficiency and quality. MES help to manage this complexity.
• Legislation has become more extensive, and sustainability is an important part of it. MES demonstrates that manufacturing complies with legislation and supports 'green' initiatives.
• The performance of manufacturing and supply chain is of strategic importance in ensuring the delivery of the: right product, right quality, right place, right time, and right profit margin.

Towards a higher level
Twelve years ago, MES were still the domain of technical automation. Subsequently IT managers used them as ‘tools’ to improve business processes. In recent years, managers are seeing that MES also contributes to their strategic aims. It helps them achieve operational excellence and improve their competitive position at the same time. So far however, too often only the plant manager is held responsible for the primary process.

Standardisation
Organisations in the sector are standardising their processes and systems. Doing this organises the distributed supply chain and manufacturing more (cost) efficiently, reduces the distribution costs, reduces maintenance costs and uses best practices. The ISA-95 system has emerged as a pragmatic standard that manufacturing companies and MES suppliers can use for IT to communicate with processes. At the same time, the scope of MES products has evolved: in the past they only supported production activities, today a majority of them also offer help for quality, maintenance and inventory operations.
There is an increased application of standards for quality assurance (QA) in developing MES software over the last twelve years. However, not even half (42%) of the suppliers surveyed have a valid QA certificate.

Focus
MES suppliers are focusing more on specific sectors. This increases their ability to offer more customised functionality. Their focus is being rewarded. Because systems are more open and software is supplied in components, buyers have more choice and are less obliged to be tied to suppliers. For example, in the last five years, the application of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has increased dramatically from 46% in 2007 to 90% at present. Even so, most systems fail to ‘talk’ to each other.