6.1 MES Systems Make Production Management Possible

While workplaces in the office have been equipped with PCs for the last twenty years we are now experiencing the systematic continuation of this trend in the field of production. The production worker's office desk comes into existence at the information point in production.

In contrast to the way computers are used in management where the emphasis is on word processing, spreadsheets and ERP systems, the production worker uses programs tailored to production-related data handling.

The MES system is the information and data collection system for manufacturing and production. The very latest status information about orders, machines, tools, materials and personnel is brought together here and prepared appropriately for the relevant applications. MRP controllers, production schedulers, logisticians, production foremen and the workers themselves use the online information from the MES system and can make the right decisions for the particular situation when production processes do not run as planned. Optimum production management was not possible until the arrival of MES systems.

The ERP system looks at production through a telescope as it were. It plans and recalculates production sequences on the basis of production status messages from the MES system.

Process computers displaying visualizations are island solutions optimally tailored to the process in question. From the point of view of production management this is like looking through a microscope. The MES system is the connecting link between the ERP level and the production process. All of the data which allow production management to...