Members of the manufacturing industry who are looking to secure their success might want to make one important objective: linking shop floor to top floor. That's verdict according to a recent “Manufacturing and Logistics IT” article titled “MES vx. ERP – is it all in the jargon?”

What do those pesky acronyms mean anyway? MES refers to Manufacturing Execution System while ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning, and never the twain shall meet. That's because sellers of specialist MESs claim that ERP software is geared toward office-based tasks. Accountants and and order entry personnel will find some value in it, but ERP is virtually useless to the manufacturing department, they contend. Meanwhile, ERP advocates counter that claim with the assertion that it's a long outlived historic argument. “ERP software has evolved, with today's solutions, offering the functionality manufacturers need alongside the integration crucial for a unified, plant-wide view of production and effective utilization of shop floor data,” they argue per “Manufacturing and Logistics IT.”

Any way you slice it, the bottom line is which technology better aids the manufacturer in meeting its customers' need in a timely, efficient and cost-effective manner. A real-time MES data collection system that provides job tracking and factory floor control might just put this neverending argument to rest once and for all.

If better scheduling, work in progress tracking, data collection, and time and attendance labor management top a manufacturer's list of goals, a shop floor management solution is the way to go. With touch screen capabilities built in, such a real-time data collection system provides a visual factory that is easy to see and therefore easy to control. As a result, it delivers on the timeliness, efficiency and cost-effectiveness fronts.

Shop floor manangers who want to maximize their success potential will want to look into such a shop floor control system's additional modules. These add-on features improve production sheduling, thereby allowing more work to be completed on time without adding costly equipment or labor—shop floor timeliness, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, take two.

In addition, a factory floor system can make sense of all factory floor data being collected. That way, the shop floor manager can see just how effectively his manufacturing business is utilizing labor time and machine resources. From there, he or she can identify areas for making shop floor process improvements.

The specialist functionality that an MES provides may be essential to a niche manufacturer. Perhaps that's why such a system is also known as a shop floor control system. And because MES software centrers wholly on the manufacturing aspect of a business,” it's an ideal solution for shop floor managers. “

The largest benefits of MES come from using the factory floor visibility gained to improve overarching supply chain management and business strategies,” the Manufacturing and Logistics IT” article concludes. But results vary even among MESs. Only one shop floor manufacturing system enables manufacturers to compete on speed rather than cost and delivers real-time, continuous improvement for greater profitability and faster delivery to customers.