Production and Inventory

The production and inventory functionality of Infor MES is the core upon which all other functionality is layered.

The production functionality enables the download of production orders from your ERP to MES automatically or you can create them manually. Progress of the production order is tracked through the factory for each manufacturing operation or batch process.

Production runs (jobs) are executed on the production line and all related production, inventory, and quality data is linked back to the production run.

Production data is typically collected automatically in real-time from machines through Open Platform Communication (OPC); collecting production, scrap, and downtime figures to calculate Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

You can configure MES to handle continuous, batch/semi-continuous, or discrete production methods.

The inventory functionality provides you with a real time overview of factory stock. MES manages the state, location, and quantity of all inventories in stock. The additional capability of consuming raw materials and semi-finished materials into the process ultimately created finished goods.

This provides capability to efficiently split, merge, sort, or package inventory and more, enabling full traceability, inventory inspection – when paired with quality functionality, and logistics management, when paired with the material handling functionality.

Integration with your ERP enables reporting of newly created inventory and other inventory-based transactions, keeping your ERP aligned with the real-time information in MES.

These are the key benefits of the production and inventory capability of Infor MES:

  • Downloadable production order schedule
  • Execution of production orders
  • Connection to plant equipment for real-time data capture
  • Recording of production counts, scrap, and downtime
  • Dashboards and reporting for OEE and other KPIs
  • Tracking of labor hours
  • Creation and labeling of inventory out of each production operation
  • Consumable lots and serialized items by each production operation
  • Full bi-directional traceability
  • Enables easy use of PCs, scanners, kiosks, and mobile devices in the factory
  • Accessible, powerful, and flexible reporting library

After integration with your ERP, these additional capabilities are available:

  • Download items and production orders
  • Upload production confirmation, including production and scrap, and hours
  • Upload consumed inventory, lot controlled and serialized
  • Upload created inventory