Comments on: MES Requirements, MES Selection http://manufit.com/2008/04/09/mes-requirements/ The best and worst of manufacturing and information technology Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:25:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Scott Whitlock http://manufit.com/2008/04/09/mes-requirements/#comment-302 Scott Whitlock Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:13:29 +0000 http://manufit.com/2008/04/09/mes-requirements/#comment-302 Shripad, Thanks for the comment. You are right, this is always the hard part. Fortunately, there are some standards that are starting to define the transactions, terminology, etc. for this interaction. Have you heard of the ISA S95 standard? These standards will help the larger companies where the lines of demarcation between systems can be drawn with a little more certainty. In most companies, the rationalization between systems, master data, etc. is very difficult. Perhaps it would be a good exercise for me to define what the best practices are in this area and make that available on the blog. Thanks again. -scott Shripad,
Thanks for the comment. You are right, this is always the hard part. Fortunately, there are some standards that are starting to define the transactions, terminology, etc. for this interaction. Have you heard of the ISA S95 standard?

These standards will help the larger companies where the lines of demarcation between systems can be drawn with a little more certainty. In most companies, the rationalization between systems, master data, etc. is very difficult.

Perhaps it would be a good exercise for me to define what the best practices are in this area and make that available on the blog.

Thanks again.
-scott

]]> By: Shripad Lale http://manufit.com/2008/04/09/mes-requirements/#comment-301 Shripad Lale Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:26:05 +0000 http://manufit.com/2008/04/09/mes-requirements/#comment-301 I totally agree. But things are probably worse. When a family goes to a builder and says, "5 Bedrooms, 4 Full Baths,...", there is an implicit understanding of what a 'Bedroom' and 'Bath' means, what it is supposed to do and what not. Unfortunately in the MES domain, the boundary line between MES and ERP itself is fuzzy, and I have seen customers wanting to implement a specific funcationality, which I thought would be ERP's business, in MES, and vice versa. So, it would be good to hear your thoughts on how organizations should partition their functionality between MES and ERP. We call this 'application rationalization'. Deciding what to put in which bucket. In fact, in my opinion, this decision is perhaps the greatest influencer in selecting the right MES! I totally agree. But things are probably worse. When a family goes to a builder and says, “5 Bedrooms, 4 Full Baths,…”, there is an implicit understanding of what a ‘Bedroom’ and ‘Bath’ means, what it is supposed to do and what not. Unfortunately in the MES domain, the boundary line between MES and ERP itself is fuzzy, and I have seen customers wanting to implement a specific funcationality, which I thought would be ERP’s business, in MES, and vice versa. So, it would be good to hear your thoughts on how organizations should partition their functionality between MES and ERP. We call this ‘application rationalization’. Deciding what to put in which bucket. In fact, in my opinion, this decision is perhaps the greatest influencer in selecting the right MES!

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