Manufacturing Execution System (MES)

Today’s complexity in industrial production planning requires support by IT. In particular, Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are widely used. In some production environments these systems have disadvantages which do not allow a quick response to altered input information. Often manual production planning and control is more flexible and effective but requires adequate tools and standards. One solution has been developed and implemented for the construction of railway shunting switches and is described in this article.

Structures with historical background in industrial enterprises are often affected by a high degree of non-transparency and complexity. Reasons for this can be seen in heterogeneous processes and IT-environment. The adjustment of a tact-oriented project management system shows a possibility to achieve competitive advantages in the long-term. Other improvement potentials concerning the production process can be claimed by the application of a process-comprehensive Manufacturing Execution System (MES). Therefore an optimized adjustment of production should occur in two steps. On the one hand there has to be a tact-oriented restructuring of the production on the process level. On the other hand a MES solution, implemented on the system level, can operate as a support tool for the production.