I am John Meulemeester from www.mesa.org and I would like to add some feedback to Francisco’s comments, focused on some particular items.
Item #8: 62% have no MES/SCADA.
For me, SCADA and MES are not the same and should be separated. In my 30+ years visiting factories that produce everything you can imagine, I have personally witnessed that most manufacturers have some kind of HMI/SCADA. So my guess is the study, more or less, says that 60+% have no MES or a SCADA that includes MES functionality. But, for example, if they have an OEE package installed, I bet respondents reported that as MES. My personal, experienced based assessment, is that not even 10% of manufacturing companies have a full system that I would call “MES”.
Most manufacturers have implemented partial MES functionalities, grown over the years and independent of each other, using many technologies and interfaces.
#5 plus #6 are connected : ONLY 14% succeed?
- Why do they think they succeeded?
- What is their criteria for “success”?
For now, the most important take-away from Francisco is :
Without a well-defined strategy revolving around enterprise systems that can act as the core, properly defined and implemented, the likelihood of success is very slim… no matter how much money companies throw at the problem.
My conclusion on how to proceed with Smart manufacturing, IIOT, MES:
Make sure you have the following points very clearly defined (holistic & top management supported):
- Business vision (what you, as a manufacturer, want to deliver 5 years from now)
- Overall architecture/framework
- Manufacturing orchestrating system, aka “MES/MOM”.
- Standard data interfaces (lasting 10+ years)
- Defined standard communications protocols (lasting 10+ years, I would bet on OPC UA, MQTT)
- Trained people – educate, educate, educate !
- Extendable without breaking any of your installed base.
MESA’s role in this area?
MESA tries to give you a “light house guidance”.
As an international association, independent of technology, MESA can guide you towards a “what works and future robust” smart manufacturing endeavor. This guidance is delivered by solution providers and manufacturers that have gone through successful implementations, and are willing to share their ‘secrets’ with you.
There is an very interesting MESA Webinar on December 12th 2019, Smart Manufacturing Community ‘Family Feud’, not to be missed, which will give you an idea of what we are trying to accomplish.
Register here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7345187776348041485
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The New MES: Backbone of Industry 4.0. Moving from Concept to Implementation with Industry 4.0
