MES ‘vapourware’ that fails to deliver

30-Jun-2015 - Last updated on 08-Jul-2015 at 12:08 GMT

Manufacturing intelligence systems operate in premises or in the cloud

Manufacturing execution system (MES) software is failing to deliver on what it promises for food and drink manufacturers, according to the head of a software systems supplier, who previously worked on the integration of MES for UK companies in the sector.

Martyn Gill, now general manager for US-based firm InfinityQS, described some MES software pejoratively as “vapourware” “software that doesn’t really exist”, since it is written to suit the application on which it is used. “They can do it, but it has to be customised,” said Gill.

“One of the reasons why I left the company I was at before was because I was disheartened with the whole process around MES. So many companies claim they do it, but nobody can tell you what it is. They can tell you the great things it can do for your company; nobody can actually say how to do it.”

He added: “If someone says MES is rapid deployment, then you just need to turn your back on them and walk away I’d rather people told the truth about what these systems can do rather than make up stories to get sales.”

Proven results

InfinityQS specialises in manufacturing intelligence (MI) systems, particularly for food and drink firms. It markets ProFicient, a software platform – in the cloud or within premises – that gives manufacturers a real-time view of manufacturing operations, allowing them to control quality at each point of a product’s lifecycle. Its systems are “proven” in installations around the globe, claims Gill.

MES typically sit in the middle of the systems hierarchy between top end enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and shopfloor supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and programmable logic controllers (PLCs). MIS overlaps between MES ‘middleware’ and SCADA and PLCs. In contrast to customisable systems, InFinityQS is a “configurable solution, which is a big difference”, claims Gill.

Does 80% what the MES do

“Arguably, MI does probably 80% of what MES can do,” said Gill. But MI also covers quality management (statistical process control), laboratory information management, overall equipment effectiveness, plus downtime and process monitoring, he added.

InfinityQS works with a number of UK food and drink firms, such as confectionery company Mondelz, with which it has worked globally.

As well as working with a large unnamed dairy processor, which had a previous bad experience with an MES system, InfinityQS is currently in talks with another large plant bakery and “an extremely large” global soft drinks firm.

“With MES, nothing is ‘out of the box’,” said Gill. “Where we have positioned ourselves as an MI company, it is ‘out of the box’ because it can configured to suit the application. MES solutions can be installed, but then have to be customised, which takes hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of time and resources.”