Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) Functions in the Food Industry

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What differentiates your company’s operation from those of the market leaders?  If your answer comes down to one of these, quantity, quality, or cost, I can suggest some very practical solutions that will help move your company out to the forefront.  One key approach I would strongly endorse is to utilize the many operational benefits of Manufacturing Execution Systems  (MES).

MES systems bridge the gap between business (ERP) and plant floor control systems.  With proper customized engineering and integration, they can furnish meaningful, real-time, useful information to management personnel and empower your plant operators. 

MES would permit more effective control of your operations through:

• Production Management – Coordinates all plant activities while monitoring all work in process (WIP).
• Scheduling – Queuing and optimizing production based on best-fit algorithms.
• Recipe Management – Incorporates formulations, set-up parameters, tolerances, labels, codes and prepositioning set points.
• Inventory Management – Tracks “receiving”, “work-in-process”, “packaging material”, and “finished goods”.
• Cost Tracking – Tied in with Production Management, adding overhead costs and manufacturing usage to deliver a true cost of goods sold.
• Total Quality Control – Tracks all material lots and manufacturing batches from receiving to for anin-line quality and lab analysis.
• Maintenance – Monitors equipment performance, tracks downtime, schedules preventive maintenance and manages replacement spare parts.

With a properly engineered MES system, you can begin with one or two of the more critical functions, and then add others as your operators gain experience and the system shows its value. For example - many manufacturers begin with Recipe Management, and follow later with Inventory Management and Scheduling.

You might be surprised at how fast and inexpensive it is for an implementation of MES functions to improve your company’s overall competitive position.  To discover how MES can work for you, examine the resources available at www.MESA.org, Avanceon.com, or feel free to contact me directly at mmichael@avanceon.com.

CSIA Certified Member     -     www.avanceon.com

Martin Michael
SMART Manufacturing Practices

About the Author

Martin is the Principal for Enterprise Manufacturing Software Solutions at Avanceon. Martin leads the company vision to provide innovative technology solutions to industrial and manufacturing companies, to improve their ability to respond in today’s rapidly changing market place. Martin is a long time business leader in the area of on-line production systems; cloud computing, manufacturing execution systems, and track and trace solutions. Martin works directly with clients to improve their productivity, speed to production, and manufacturing quality in response to direct client feedback.

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