Manufacturing Execution and Visibility

Get Incremental Results with Industry 4.0 with and Robust MES Solutions

Build on Existing Systems with Our Open and Layered Approach

We work closely with you and your key personnel to pinpoint areas of improvement and to start designing solutions with rapid incremental results. Our cooperative approach will improve your business processes and ensure greater efficiency by optimizing the functionality of your manufacturing execution systems. Enjoy greater visibility and control over your manufacturing operations with a proactive MES Software solution.

Obtain everything you need through insights gained by implementing MES functions such as OEE, Downtime, Track and Trace, ERP Connectivity, Real-time workorder confirmations, and much more. We help you by providing greater visibility, advanced analytics, and guaranteed results.

Manufacturing Data Analytics

Path to get to Industry 4.0

Downtime and OEE Tracking

Plant Floor to ERP in Real-Time

Get MES and KPIs

Get insights into your plant by implementing MES functions like OEE,
Downtime, Track and Trace, ERP Connect & more. We’ll get you visibility and get you results

ge plant applications

What Are Manufacturing Execution Systems

Our MES Solutions are software solutions that ensure improvement to the quality, efficiency, and production management of your manufacturing processes. These solutions can connect multiple machines, lines, and plants and can easily incorporate them into other business applications, manufacturing, scheduling, etc. Thus, you can enjoy complete visibility, control, and optimization of your production and manufacturing processes.

industrial data visualization

How MES Systems Help

Rapid innovation in manufacturing has resulted in an increase in change, variability, and the pressure to maintain high-quality levels. Despite having clear strategic business initiatives, it is essential for manufacturers to make real-time, informed decisions in this rapidly-changing operating environment. MES systems monitor and synchronize manufacturing activities with your ERP system, linking them in real-time for optimal performance.

You can track products and order details on the plant floor, collect transactions for reporting to ERP and scheduling systems, and you can electronically dispatch orders, BOMs, and work instructions to you your production floor. The risk of human error is minimized with the help of real-time quality data checks, yield monitoring, automatic enforcement of business rules, etc., which all lead to increased productivity with improved and enhanced product and process quality.

MES System Integration is a key step to Digital Transformation. It enables a more paperless workflow that helps reduce scraps and eliminates manual errors as well as redundant checks. You are given the flexibility to model and change complex processes immediately and effectively. These systems also provide real-time feedback that quickly identifies and resolves issues, enabling continuous product and process improvement and optimization of manufacturing processes.

Reduce Downtime, Improve Quality, Track Production

Open and Flexible Solutions for MES and Manufacturing Intelligence

We help Manufacturing companies gain visibility and achieve operational improvements. We augment your current architecture with Open and Layered technology that can fit your landscape and give you scalable capabilities to connect to any data source and provide visual applications to optimize your operations.

Gain New Insights from Analytics

Optimize OEE and Energy Utilization, Reduce Downtime Are just some of the gains from real-time event processing and manufacturing data

Boost People Productivity

Deliver actionable information to the shop floor and integrate to the enterprise systems simultaneously.

MI to Increase Business Value

Improve synchronization between OT and IT and optimize operations using machine-to-machine (M2M), implement IIoT and Industry 4.0 with ROI

What you can do with MES and Manufacturing Intelligence

  • Track performance, availability and quality in real-time with dashboards, scoreboards, and mobile
  • Eliminate paper and the overhead, errors, and risk associated with it on the plant floor
  • Pull down orders easily from ERP and track KPI’s like OEE in real-time
  • Digitize production reporting and alert key personnel on variances
  • Have a single view and user interface for ERP, production, quality, labor and maintenance
  • Integrate to any PLC, CNC, test equipment, scales, RFID, etc.
  • Have a “black box flight recorder” and enable IoT
  • Simplify all production confirmations to ERP and do confirmations automatically from machines
aws azure analytics

Technology Manufacturing Analytics

  • All about solving manufacturing issues
    • Predefined Analytics and Model
    • Standardize Configurable Tools for Data Scientists
  • Connect to wide variety of sources
    • Devices: PLC/SCADA/DCS/Sensors/Edge Devices
    • Databases: Time (Historian) and Event (SQL)
    • Systems: ERP, CMMS, Quality
    • Misc
  • Data Transformation and Management
  • Apply Analytics Tools

MES to ERP Connectivity and Integration Produces Big Improvements

MES to ERP integration closes the information flow gap in real-time, and it helps to transform production by maximizing the ability to quickly respond to changing customer demands. Any size manufacturing company can benefit from MES to ERP connectivity. We have provided real-time interfaces to SAP, Microsoft, Oracle. We have the experience to assist with your ERP integration.

With ERP integration to your manufacturing systems, you benefit from:

Improved Track and Trace

Product issues that are reported by customers can be traced back to original parts and batches, which helps with the swift resolution of customer issues. The data provided by track and trace can include information such as product genealogy, lot information, raw material usage and waste, and real-time production progress monitoring. The value of track and trace is realized by utilizing this data to implement process optimization and limit risk in critical situations.

Data Integration Improves Quality

Tight MES to ERP data integration ensures comprehensive quality assurance since defective products can be quickly found through product tracking, genealogy, and quality management. With MES to ERP integration, the origins of the defects are easily found and returned to the supplier.

Accurate Demand Forecasting

Real-time, work in process Inventory management becomes difficult at times. Delays in delivery schedules and production schedules can negatively affect the integrity of the business. Consistency helps accurate demand forecasting. MES to ERP connectivity provides for changes in demand directly from the production plan.

Whole Business Process Modeling

INS helps you improve manufacturing consistency, overall efficiency, and product traceability through a centralized process and automated data collection. Having well designed and robust manufacturing execution systems helps with a broad diversity of manufacturing industries and processes. MES integration with ERP helps in handling complex process workflows.

Get The Inventory Control And Optimization You Need With INS

Reach out to Industrial Network Systems (INS) to streamline your manufacturing processes by improving your existing MES Solution or implementing new functionality as needed. You will enjoy lower manufacturing costs with guaranteed high quality production solutions. Contact us for a no charge walkthrough or a no charge assessment to see the kind of results we can achieve together.

Gain complete control over your manufacturing process with Industrial Network Systems (INS) MES Solutions. Get MES Software solutions that breathe new life into your manufacturing business.

Industry 4.0 Workshop

Join us at our Workshop to learn how Industry 4.0 can help you lower Production Costs and Optimize your Process!

Case Study | MES for Food

  • Use Microsoft ERP, GE Historian and MES, and Tatsoft FrameworX
  • Converted Entire GUI Application to Tatsoft Frameworx, 2 Plants, 100+ Clients, One redundant pair per plant
  • Tightly integrated to ERP and MES for line efficiency, order execution, material consumption, label printing, warehouse movements, etc..
  • Actual Consumption, Real time and product losses, Changeover to ERP to better estimate REAL costs
  • Power of database connectivity and interactive real-time GUI flexibility
  • Plant Survivability Database
  • Dashboards
  • Power of connecting to PLCs
  • Tell the Quality of Peanuts using process data and ML
plant applications dashboard

Case Study | SAP Interface & Scoreboards

  • Sargento is a Cheese Processor / Packager
  • Converted their SAP to S/4HANA
  • Interface to SAP to floor and warehouse via XML files and SQL Linked Server
  • Connect and Store from Rockwell PLC and other devices into Historian
  • SQL Base Event Monitor aggregating KPIs such as Line Efficiency, Operator Efficiency, Giveaway
  • FrameworX GUI and Dashboards communicate in real-time with SQL based MES Event Monitor
  • ERP/Warehouse/MES/Historian System Coordination
  • Advanced Analytics based on data collected in Plant Floor Systems delivered to Snowflake+ThoughtSpot

A Simple Proven Process

plant walkthrough and pathfinder process

FAQ

Can you use my existing MES system and add to it?

In general the answer is yes.  That can be anything from feeding MES with better data, additional MES functionality; adding dashboards, scoreboards, and reports; analytics; and ERP integration.  INS specializing in getting more values out of existing systems, by utilizing a augment not replace, with open and layered technologies to get the most out of your existing investment. 

Do you provide connectors to my ERP?

INS has direct experience and connections with SAP, Microsoft Oracle, and a few others.  The methods have varied from direct connections (such as SAP MII), to simple XML file upload’s and downloads.  We have integrated with the ERP, and even created a Plant Survivability Database to enable the plants to continue to function of the connection to the ERP (typically that is not in the plant) is down for a period of time.

Can I enter manual downtime reasons and split downtime reasons?

Automatically collected data is always the least cost and most accurate.  The reality of manufacturing is there will always be a need for manual downtime reasons.  From the pressing of a cycle stop or e-stop button (there is a reason it was pressed by the person) to the fact that some machines, just do not have signals saying why they went down, to the want for operator comments.  A machine may go down for an issue, then not come up because and operator was on break, so there is a need to split that event.  Sometime you need to merge events, and sometimes you want to ignore micro-stops.  All of these scenarios and more are supported.

We want custom KPIs similar to OEE but a different calculation?

The technologies utilized by INS allow for custom calculation of KPI’s, and even modifications to the standard OEE calculation.  INS has implemented well over 10 different ways to calculate OEE at customers.  The process is define the calculation, verify the raw data sources, and configure the event to calculate the metric from the raw data. 

Can we get a mobile and or web view in to our MES system?

INS partners with world class technology companies that support the latest architectures, including the ability to run on many platforms and architecture.  The tools have a visualization development environment which support the publishing of content to multiple platforms.  For example we can design a scoreboard, and push it out as a web-page, or have it be responsive, changing the layout automatically as it goes from phone, to tablet, to big screen TV.

Can we run MES in the Cloud?

Yes, you can run MES in the cloud.  The most common practices are running the MES as close to the process as possible and inside the plant walls.  It is also common practice to take the information collected by the MES system, and aggregate it in the cloud for reporting, combining with other systems, and doing manufacturing analytics in the cloud.