Introduction

Today’s fast-paced manufacturing environment demands complete, accurate, and accessible data from the shop floor.

Infor MES delivers the right information at the right time to everyone from the shop floor to the top floor, providing precise and actionable intelligence in an integrated enterprise solution.

These are the key capabilities of MES:

  • Digital transformation by integrating with your ERP and plant equipment to digitize your shop floor and automate data collection
  • Transform the operator experience with real-time visibility and control to drive productivity and efficiency of shop floor users
  • Improve operational performance with built-in best practices that enable error proofing and systematic enforcement of business processes to improve quality
  • 24/7 resilience by being independent from your ERP whilst seamlessly synchronizing with it
  • Fast time-to-value with out-of-the box and easy to configure features to deploy solutions and deliver ROI faster, whilst reducing costs
  • For medium to large enterprises offering multi-site roll out it enables standardization of cross-plant reporting, utilizing global master data

Because of the visibility it provides on operations, MES can open doors on opportunities for your improvement projects which might seem unthinkable if you currently have a manual system in place.

MES is critical

An MES solution is critical for your organization to ensure data consistency and real-time visibility across all plant operations. Integrating these capabilities with Infor's industry-specific ERP systems will help deliver even more powerful solutions to your organization as you look to digitize your operations and grow your business.

Infor MES is a specialized software solution that focuses on managing and monitoring manufacturing operations in which raw materials are transformed into semi-finished and/or finished goods. It provides effective monitoring and synchronization throughout the factory to achieve high productivity and ensure responsiveness to market demand.

These are the top benefits of an advanced, modern MES:

Provides real-time visibility with user-friendly dashboards
Empower operators and teams while promoting transparency, accountability, and reactivity with visual MES data in real time.
  • User-friendly dashboards enable line operators to work efficiently and react faster when issues arise, for example, with work orders and process monitoring data
  • Shift supervisors have a real-time view of shift performance and problems, for example, with production count and downtime data
  • Plant managers are able to focus on driving plant performance more effectively, with real-time data available 24/7
Enables continuous improvement support
MES supports continuous improvement plans.
  • Historical data held in MES helps your teams identify root causes of problems
  • Corrective actions can be measured and evaluated
  • Identifies sources of low quality and ultimately reduce the cost of good quality
Ensures regulatory compliance
Quality assurance control, often dealt with by departmental applications, can be integrated within MES to deliver significant added benefits.
  • Operators and quality engineers document nonconformance directly in MES
  • Recording, assignments, and follow-up of CAPA
  • Compliance to 21CFR11 for FDA requirements
  • Certificates of analysis for customers, instantly available
Improves agility and flexibility
Increase your competitiveness by improving processes and integrating people, technologies, and real-time data.
  • MES supports fast New Product Introduction (NPI)
  • Operations personnel can react fast and effectively to unplanned events
  • Real-time process monitoring helps prevent adverse quality issues
  • Connected to your ERP, MES delivers greater integration with the supply chain
Standardizes operations and enforces best practices
MES provides a framework to control business processes, for single and multisite manufacturers, by standardizing workflows and procedures.
  • Routing and workflows enforce processes and ensure control
  • Up-to-date documentation is available to operators at all times on the line
  • In multisite organizations, MES guarantees everyone works in the same way across all plants
Maximizes use of assets
MES drives efficiency.
  • Changeovers are sped up through alerts to key personnel when a job is nearly completed
  • Cycle time can be improved with accurate, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) monitoring, which enables operations personnel to focus on cycle-time improvement activities based on reliable information
  • Preventive and predictive maintenance of assets is enabled with real-time data from production and quality departments
  • Alerts can be triggered for preventive maintenance activities
Reduce operational costs
MES enables increased control and cost-efficiency of all production inputs.
  • MES monitors machines and jobs, operator time is released to focus on higher-value tasks, with the system alerting operators when issues arise
  • Operational data is automatically collected from the machines and equipment, improving accuracy and saving time in collecting and replicating data across multiple systems
  • MES drives down material costs with real-time process control that optimizes the quantity of material used to meet specifications and real-time production counting to prevent over-production
  • Automated monitoring of energy usage of all plant equipment in MES can quickly help identify faults and optimize energy consumption
  • Single solution that replaces the need for multiple disparate shop floor applications, enabling a reduction in overheads, for example, IT development and maintenance, support, licensing, and so on.
Replaces fragmented systems
An unbroken thread of critical data can be created across all manufacturing operations, from the shop floor to the head office.
  • The “paperless factory” can be achieved because MES integrates with machines and equipment, removing the need for manual data collection, while increasing accuracy and security
  • MES can replace all siloed spreadsheets, databases, and departmental solutions that do not communicate with each other or the business systems
  • MES builds a unified view of the state of the factory in real-time, with a single source of data available to all departments, including production, quality, maintenance, and logistics, that empowers them with smarter decision-making capabilities

MES is smart

Not only is MES key to executing production efficiently, it can serve as the foundation of digital transformation for your organization by providing a flexible framework to leverage new technology.

Smart manufacturing
MES enables automated data capture from all machines, production lines, and ancillary equipment; it communicates with ERP systems to provide a real-time view of the state of the factory, with visual controls and user-friendly, role-based interfaces.
Ease of deployment
MES is an out-of-the-box, full HTML5 application, built on standard technologies with trusted worldwide support.
Hosting options
MES can be deployed on-premises, in our corporate data center, or in the cloud.
A functional MES system
MES delivers rich functionality across all areas of manufacturing production and inventory, quality, material handling, maintenance, and energy.

A world-leading, enterprise-level MES system, Infor MES offers a flexible approach to digital transformation that’s particularly suited to multinational, multi-site organizations.