MES and Industry 4.0

In the past two years quite a lot of talk about the concept of Industry 4.0, which is slowly growing from the political project of the German government in a widely accepted standard which the industry aspires. The basic idea in this concept is the division of industrial capacities to the layers to help them that ICT technologies easily more directly could be applied. A particular with the application of appropriate software solutions for each level and the problem of their interconnectivity and the free transfer of information between the layers as well as to direct requests from the management, maintenance or technical management.

Basic principles of industry 4.0:
• Interoperability
• Virtualization
• Decentralisation
• Service orientation
• Modularity
• Ability to access to information in real time

4.0 Industry as a concept based on cyber-physical systems and their interactions, as well as technologies IoT (Internet of Things, IoT) and Internet services.

In addition to the now ubiquitous software for management and control of company resources such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software, and CAD/CAM software (computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing) within the industrial capacities that seek speedy implementation of the concept of industry 4.0 there is another intermediate layer of software solutions linking the two, which is usually abbreviated as MES.

MES (Manufacturing Executive System) in practice is a system that connects the third level operating system (software, typically ERP classification) with the control and monitoring of production and manufacturing operations in real time.

MES software functionality:
• Optimize daily operations
• Import data from CAD / CAM software
• Tracking parts through the manufacturing process
• Informing all interested parties that there is a damaged part of (and offering answers to the question why?)
• Offering a clear answer when we have done part of the installation
• Time plans and financial reports

Benefits of MES systems are: small delays in manufacturing, increased productivity, higher efficiency, full integration - your entire business works smoothly as a single operation.

A special advantage of MES system is reflected in the finding and understanding the delays in production, and their solution which increases overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). This is especially important if it is known that due to the visibility of all processes possible to calculate the effects of certain delays and bottlenecks, and evaluate the financial effects of their rehabilitation using any other technical solution which is known in advance the time of return on investment while reducing business risk.

Overall equipment effectiveness is a multi-dimensional indicator efficient growth, that is the common factor that reduces all other performance indicators from various subsystems that they could be compared. The introduction of this indicator it is possible to compare the efficiency expressed in time, fuel, materials and energy, as well as other measures of efficiency of individual systems. There are several factors that determine OEE: availability, performance, quality, or no matter which factor is dominant in this particular case, a methodology that will be applied for measuring the efficiency, OEE and MES system is applicable to each production companies.

When selecting and implementing MES solutions it is necessary to adhere to the best recommendations resulting from industrial practice. This applies particularly to the fact that the core team for implementation of MES solutions must be composed of persons who possess expert and expert knowledge for all parts of the system, especially for those keywords such as operations, IT, engineering staff specialized in equipment used ( electrical, mechanical, pneumatics, hydraulics, statics and dynamics of the system) as well as the persons responsible for the supply chain and quality. It is recommended that teams depending on the complexity of the task should not be less than 3 to 6 experts. Another important recommendation is that analysts sistrema be time-limited in terms of giving their recommendations, because only a time limit prevents the system watching too granular, ie, at a higher level of complexity than that poterebana for the successful implementation of MES solutions. We should also bear in mind the fact that MES projects are mostly long-term and lasting at least half of the economic cycle (4-5 years, depending on the complexity and budgetary capabilities of the company). And that due to the complexity can not be conducted on the basis of information obtained predefined generic questionnaires as selection system depends directly on the work flows and functional requirements and complete functional specification process, materials, information and energy is the basic input for the design and selection system.

It is also important to note that despite a traditional opinion that such an advanced IT systems are expensive, and that is necessary for their implementation devote the time in practice often arise situations in which ad hoc solutions achieve significant effects. Both are known examples of the implementation of individual MES solutions in a well structured and regulated production systems, implementation of some (vital) functionalities MES solution was ordrađena within the period of 3-4 days starting with a budget of 10,000 $.

It is noteworthy that in the selection of MES solutions need to be taken to predefined solutions that come as part of an ERP solution (this is particularly true for SAP) are nothing more than the corresponding batch procedures and that as such they do not offer real-time data but by an advance selected dynamics.

Without going into the technical details of the selection MES solutions as well as elements of the same interconnectivity leaning towards other solutions it is obvious that the application of such a solution we come up to full production line visibility and clear qualifying event on it.

Each project involves system integration cross domain skills of engineers and managers and must be initiated in view of the objective that we want to achieve with the design of the system will only go back to the necessary conditions, resources and design solutions.

However, that whatever the methodology to be managed by the manufacturer in the selection and implementation of MES solutions is the fact that the implementation of such a solution greatly accelerate the business and make it sufficiently transparent that the technical staff and managers within the production system. In today's business environment where they expect quick answers to new challenges and threats from the environment such a system provides undeniable competitive advantage is logical to assume that the trend accelerated introduction of MES system to continue in the future.