PLM+MES+ERP 4.0 Working Together

There's been a lot going on with Smart Manufacturing Technologies over recent years and especially now as we come through COVID-19.

COVID-19 has seen factory floors shut-down, with little or no manpower available to keep thing running and therefore demanding a new era of simulation and automation.

This being said, let's get our platforms, our application layers in place to manage what could be a whole new accelerating world of technology on the Shop Floor. Let's ensure we've applied the right MOM/MES layers through to the PLM Platform and up into Enterprise Management/ERP……

For most manufacturing organizations, operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) co-exist but often in isolation. The differences between them create information inequalities and make data applications inefficient. The overall manufacturing (in)efficiencies depend on one-dimensional production line data.

To break-through these differences, we need to collect in the data platforms, both vertical and horizontal data information and demonstrate their synergies across IT/OT care of algorithms and application tools.

The future is iterative autonomic cognition, independent decision-making and autonomous feedback. Any resulting decisions from this are more adaptive, more flexible and to the advantage of both.

The 4IR and Manufacturing Industry 4.0 Technologies are not just projects within a factory, but the re-structuring of an industrial chain, throughout the integrated ecosystem. From the digital thread across the companies, their people, products, and processes, a new self-awareness, self-determination, and self-improvement can be created.

In the 4IR, the macro driver remains the consumer's demand for more personalized and smarter products and not only does this mean the re-prioritizing of product innovation and design but the intricacies and productivity of onshore, nearshore and to a lesser degree offshore manufacturing. The goal is to demonstrate value through automatically adjusting the lines care of self-generating insights based on real-time changes in the state of the production processes.

Industry 4.0 cares about the application of big data combined with artificial intelligence to find "gold" from the data. As a result, the company's existing operating process systems, including ERP, PLM, etc., have become an important integration focus.

Let's look at the key applications affected

ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning

It's there to integrate the workflows of each internal department within the enterprise, unifying internal data processing programs to instantly reflect the internal resource utilization and provide information for decision making.

The main systems include financial, human, production process and supply chain management.

The ultimate goal of the ERP system is to integrate the work processes and information of production, sales & distribution, human resource, development, and financial accounting of the enterprise, which can be effectively implemented through the ERP system. It assists enterprises to establish processes, systems, standards, reduce manual work repetitiveness, ensure the company's TQC (delivery, quality and cost) control, optimize operational management mechanisms, and thus enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises.

Before ERP, the manufacturing industry began to plan how to manage production and procurement better, starting with “Materials Requirements Planning” that included material demand planning.

The idea was that the MRP demand planned the procurement and production via the Bill of Material (BOM) through to the lead time of production and procurement of raw materials When is the production? How much is the quantity purchased? How much is produced?

However, the flexibility of the production process, frequent design changes and drawing insertions, made the management overly complicated and cumbersome (for example, the data input was not timely, or the inventory inaccurate). 

Then came a further advancement based on the assumption that the enterprise produced according to the order. Therefore, when the order was changed, the purchase order and the work order production plan were to be linked.

However, this new requirements planning solution in isolation, care of the calculation of materials was never enough, as the manufacturing process was insufficiently considered. As a result, MRP incorporated the equipment and labor capacity resources into the overall effective planning and control. However, in the event of limited resources, it was the the job of the CRP tools (Capacity Requirement Planning).

In the early 1990s, came Gartner Group thinking, who then first proposed ERP, extending the concept of manufacturing resources to the overall resource management of the enterprise, including finance, marketing, personnel, human resources integration and research and development.

MES - Manufacturing Execution Systems

MES is a collection of production information across the entire production line manufacturing processes and provides timely production information, to avoid single-instance production bottleneck.

The MES approach is from a user perspective and to provide real-time information for use on the production lines:

• What information system does the operator need during the production process?
• What information system does the equipment maintenance engineer need during the production process?
• What kind of information system does the process engineer / head of manufacturing / factory manager need during the production process?
• The purpose, category, and role of the information system of the automated process?

The MES is required to provide the users on the production lines detailed analysis and processing data and moreover, the scheduling and overall management information. This then provides production management sufficient data for interration, thereby providing continuous production management information for the entire plant.

As a result, the complete MES system needs to include all the key functions performed on the production line, such as:

• production line actual production process,
• BOM, MRP, MPS,
• standard working hours and detailed production scheduling,
• document control,
• production data collection,
• personnel management,
• quality management,
• production process management,
• production abnormal management,
• equipment maintenance and repair,
• products tracking and resume, production performance analysis

The introduction of the MES system helps to improve or solve the following problems:

• Inefficient use of data
• There are too many files on site
• The site has an excessive stock of work in progress
• Unreasonable operating procedure
• Unintegrated application system
• Production problems cannot be immediately reacted to relevant personnel
• Not enough information for decision making
• Excessive quality cost
• Insufficient tracking ability
• The bill of the site does not match

In summary, the benefits of using MES include expected basic profitability, improved immediate delivery and product quality, reduced manufacturing cycle time, elimination of duplicate data entry, reduced paperwork between production line shifts, reduced production line planning, and improved customer service, reduced setup costs, and a more reliable and accurate production scheduling program.

PLM - Product Lifecycle Management

And, in we go to the PLM layer; the upstream and downstream of the product, managing each stage of demand, ideation, specification, R&D, design, engineering, manufacturing, sales, service and maintenance all from a product perspective. Drawing on relevant information, from the technical point of view, all the product-related materials in the enterprise, as well as the operations related to these product materials, effectively integrated and controlled and operated through the information system.

Product innovation, research and development is the lifeblood of the enterprise competitiveness, but can often fall on deaf ears in management.

However, if you can grasp the information related to product development at any time, such as the progress statistics of each research and development project, the completion rate of each dispatch and output, the delay rate, the language is one best heard by senior management. Furthermore, it can provide details related to implementation or lack of, shorten the time to market, reduce the cost of engineering changes, properly manage the research and development results, and greatly improve the efficiency and quality of product development. 

Defining PLM

Broadly speaking, from the perspective of the whole enterprise, the management of product data and the management of its process, that is, PLM is a method to assist enterprises in managing Data and its Process. In a narrow sense, it refers to the application of R&D to engineering planning, emphasizing how to effectively integrate product data (blueprints/documents) and workflows (engineering process execution) during R&D and engineering operations, and explore how to integrate the backends ERP, MRP, MRPII systems and SCM, CRM systems.

The Range of PLM

The scope of PLM is extended by traditional Product Data Management, paying attention to the product life cycle, increasing the overall project management, integrating relevant information in the enterprise, and providing or integrating integrated information to customers. Lastly it provides a collaborative platform for design, asset management, maintenance or data exchange to expand the coverage and application of PLM.

With PLM, the transparency of management of R&D projects can be greatly improved, along with the efficiency of R&D departments. The R&D process can guarantee the quality of R&D through process management. Through the system number management, the product name specifications are no longer repeated and convenient for R&D queries, together with all material requirements. The documents stored such as the BOM can be centrally controlled and provided for inspection at any time. The ERP information can be integrated simultaneously, enabling the company to quickly respond to changes in customer needs and market changes to reach Time to Market & Time to Volume.

Co-working Systems

In the structure of Industry 4.0, the gradual refinement of the production system does not mean necessarily smaller factories, but instead greater control over production allowing more agility and lean from the perspective of production planning and management, giving the advantage of smaller, more flexible and easily optimized production units locally.

One of the features of smart manufacturing is the reconfigurable production system that changes the properties and parameters of the relevant production system. To comply with actual production control, it's frequently necessary to continually update data information, along with existing resources, their current characteristics, together with current and future orders.

The greatest challenge is the integration of information between the enterprise ERP layer and the production management, MES/MOM in the context of continuous refinement of manufacturing and planning units. The ERP system controls enterprise-wide administrative and business processes, and the ME system is closely related to the production line to continuously optimize production and record production process information and technical parameters.

The data includes time and quantity, quality, machine and equipment status, faults and their causes. This information reflects the state of the production system, which in turn affects the production plan in the ERP system.

The Next Steps

I hope the boundaries between ERP and MES systems will continue to blur in the Industry 4.0 environment, and the enterprise ERP layer will continue to be integrated into manufacturing operations management. The MES system manages the production process very carefully, and there are many ways to integrate with the ERP system based on the functionality provided by the individual system components.

The goal of integration is to improve the manufacturing business process, integrate MES and ERP through these processes, and design the API interface between the two systems based on the information “in and out” between the two.

ERP and MES form a complete closed-loop system of planning, control, feedback, and adjustment. Through the API, planning, command transmission and feedback response, so that production planning, control instructions, and output information are used throughout the ERP, MES, process control system, and foundation. Transparency, immediacy, and a smooth interaction in an automated system.

The key to the integration of MES and ERP lies in the optimization and integration of business processes and the specific analysis of the MES and ERP systems involved in order to give full play to the strengths of each system. First of all, the information system is to improve the manufacturing business. MES and ERP each solve some of the business problems and reflect some of the business processes. The process is the “glue” of MES and ERP integration.

In summary, care of Industry 4.0 it's about data and integration to cross the domains vertically and horizontally. Care of IIoT smart sensing technology, from both passive to proactive manufacturing process management, information is not only integrated, but also creates more intelligent and valuable applications.

The systems do not necessarily need to be rebuilt, but instead focus on open API architecture and networking

Edge computing, artificial intelligence, IIoT are all to become indispensable.

My name’s Andrew Sparrow and I blog, vlog & podcast passionately about our need to innovate & thrive, about managing the product lifecycle (PLM) & ever improving smarter manufacturing (MES/MOM/Digital Manufacturing). I love working with the solution vendors, the large consultancies & system integrators & helping them promote themselves & best practice, while at the same time helping deliver great projects through my networks

I love & thrive in working with some of the world's largest companies such as Airbus, Capgemini, Dassault Systemes, Ericsson, JLR, TOTAL, Siemens, Sony, Subsea7 & Unilever, to name a few

I'm a big people-person & have spent my life meeting as many people & cultures as I can. At my last count, I am lucky enough to have visited & done business in over 55 countries

So far my community is 20,000+ strong & continues to grow, as I try to bring value to that audience through my vlogs, blogs & podcasts

You can reach me on: 949 297-6836 | [email protected]

#mes #plm #mom #erp #3dexperience #enovia #delmia #catia #solidworks #apriso