The value of MES integrated with business software

In today’s industrial landscape, businesses must face increasingly complex challenges, such as managing large volumes of data, optimizing processes and ensuring real-time efficiency. In this context, the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) has become a crucial tool for monitoring and controlling production.

However, to fully unlock its potential, it’s essential to integrate it with other business systems, creating a cohesive digital ecosystem.
This article will explore the benefits of integrating MES with other business software, highlighting how a connected system can lead to greater efficiency, visibility and agility.

What it is, from ERP to Business Intelligence

MES is the brain of production: it captures real-time data from machines, sensors and various production devices, delivering full visibility and immediate control over performance.

MES is not an island; it’s just one part of a larger system that includes business software such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and Business Intelligence (BI).

These software address other critical areas such as resource management, warehousing, customer relations and data analysis.

Benefits: consistent data and total visibility

Integrating MES with these systems creates a smooth information flow, ensuring that data between different business functions are consistent and updated in real time and reducing risk of misalignment. Thus each department can have access to accurate data, which are reflected in different processes in real time.

  • ERP and MES: integration between the two allows production data to be synchronized with financial and management ones, leading to accurate monitoring of costs, resources and materials.
    This enables more specific planning, reducing waste and downtime. In addition, integration promotes greater responsiveness, optimizing and making the entire supply chain more efficient;
  • WMS and MES: linking the two enables more punctual control of material, component and finished product flows, ensuring that the raw materials needed are available at the right time, reducing delays and waste.
    It improves material tracking across the production process, reduces inventory errors and speeds up order;
  • CRM and MES: integrating MES with a CRM leads to improved relationship management with customers and within the same team by enabling more transparent and responsive communication.
    This helps to better manage expectations, reduce delays and offer more personalized service. In addition, the CRM can release information about customer demands or market trends to the MES, enabling more targeted production, increasing customer satisfaction and business competition.

More informed decisions: Business Intelligence and predictive analytics

Business intelligence (BI) software integrated with the MES enables the analysis of data from different business departments. Using advanced analytical tools, companies can obtain predictive forecasts of future production trends, machine maintenance and supply needs.

Using real-time and historical data, companies can improve planning and make more informed decisions.

Logica’s point of view

In the past years, ERP or MIS were at the printers’ world center. The reason was simple: work orders were still in good supply and print buyers were in the situation where work was available and printers really “just needed” to get their hands on it.  For decades we heard MIS suppliers saying, “No other system has an estimate as good as ours!” That is: make an attractive offer and you’re done.

Years passed and the amount of work available became smaller and smaller. So, printers had to be able to take jobs. And the need to understand what was happening in production began to show up.
And slowly, alongside ERP, embryonal shop floor data collection appeared.

Then, jobs had to be executed correctly and efficiently. In addition, it was important to be cost-efficient, so production costs had to be reduced, and the performance of machines and staff had to be kept under control. 
Report and analysis came on the scene.

And again, is our ERP/MIS calibrated with the right technical data sheet for each of our machines, as to provide the right quote against the operational capacity of our resources? How can I achieve this?

Again, we need to reduce waste and carbon footprint, which is important today (and “a la page”).
And customers want to know more every day, they want to be always informed about their jobs status, so communicating the right information at the right time became an issue

And isn’t it strategically important to demonstrate to the print buyer how we processed their jobs, step by step, to avoid being late in delivery; and in case we were, we were also aware of the reason for the delay, and we applied correctives to prevent the event from happening again. Which will reduce the additional costs of urgent transportation and missed deliveries.

Last but not least, with the advent of AI in our industry, how do we feed AI with correct information to really take advantage of its potential?

See. Now it is no longer ERP at the center of our world, but data, data management, reporting and analytics. In other words, the MES is now at the center of our world

An MES that integrates with existing MIS/ERP to interface and collaborate with WMS, CRM, and B.I. will bring any company into a different comfort zone, where everything is under control before things happen.

Our roots at Logica are in manufacturing tracking, and with our GPC MES we began answering all these questions almost two decades ago, providing software that integrates with third-party ERP/MIS, today using our algorithms to make AI our best ally.