It is very exciting to see the wide application of Industry 4.0 ( Manufacturing Execution System, MES ) projects almost every industry including food, steel, automotive, chemistry and other continuous and batch process industries. Importance of MES projects for discrete manufacturing is obvious and critical. People need to know how much they produce, with what cost, with what quality and they want to be sure that right materials with correct manufacturing procedures are used. On the other hand, correct recipes are critical for the process industry. Due to variable material chemistry or physics, operators adjust the parameters during production. Production Managers want to keep track of these changes and make intelligent correlation for future batches. In classical SCADA based Operator Interfaces these valuable data is lost, hence no intelligent corrections are performed.
The critical issue is to connect real time data coming from machine or process with business data. In other words the connection of produced goods with customers, planned schedule, purchased materials, logistic plan, transportation plan, quality criteria and maintenance activities. Everyday ERP software is getting more complicated and with the help of advanced planning and scheduling software with desire to have the status of each machine online and to implement almost immediate production as well as logistic plan alterations. The best way to plan these dynamic and probabilistic activities is to generate a layer of information which serve the needs and requirements of ERP with the help of Automation Data coming from machines and processes.
Current Industry 4.0 projects deal with human operators and most of the time manual or semi-automatic machines. Hence the procedures for error free production is complicated and rely on the story of the operators describing the production needs and procedures. Most of the time these stories change from person to person and there are always loop-holes which will provide power to human for smarter choices. However, in very near future, automatic machines will work together with robots and fully automated transfer and transport vehicles with deterministic software. Then ERP, Execution Layer, Planning Software and Machines will run the factory and execute the best performance ever available.
In the mean-time industry is in a large transformation coming from production of standard mass-produced goods and going to individually designed and produced goods. Due to changes in technology producing a single product with the speed of mass production is possible. This transformation allows customers design their goods in great extend and enjoy their unique look, taste and functionalities. However, there is need to redesign machines and processes in order to serve personalized products for the customers. In the struggle to respond customer requirements, factories invest in modern production systems in order to increase their speed according to the shorter time expectations of the customers. As a result, most of the internal logistic operations started to change. Machines are forced to be more complex work centers capable of multiple machining or process operations. During the design of new machines and processes it is very easy to simplify MES and embed some basic steps in the machine control and automation software. Therefore more and more machines automatically will know their OEE values, good, defective or to be repaired products, amount of materials used, quality of the materials as well as the details of the maintenance activities.
The transformation of the Shop Floor is also expected to affect ERP side. Business requirements determine the planning and flow of the work orders. Most of these actions will transfer from ERP to MES due to the increased expectations on speed of delivery. The strict traceability requirements and increased amount of data to be collected from each product will not fit with the current architectures and capabilities of ERP Software. The need for immediate fast scheduler, real time data collection, manipulation and storage capability will be stronger. This need can be compensated from MES side by adding business capabilities and observing each work center as an individual shop floor with its order, customer, work, quality and maintenance plans.
Today production and delivery times are the most critical issues in customer attraction and their loyalty. This pressure will increase in the near future. Hence increased production complexity and pace will force ERP to act like MES and MES software will extend its capabilities to ERP production activities, including production planning, materials management, quality management and maintenance management.