Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) - People Not Following Work Process (WPs)

[dufeu.celine]

Hi,

I hope I chose the right forum. We have the ISO 9001 certification. Recently we have implemented the MES (manufacturing execution systems), and at a glance it raises more problems than solutions:

- People do not totally respect the Work Process, or they are trying to find other solutions, and finally disturbing everything. And it seems the time wasted because of the MES is quite important.

All the stakeholders perfectly know which is the correct way to use the MES, but they clearly reject it and ensure that will disturb their work.


I looked for some discussions/ forum/ testimony about the MES to know if other people have the same problem, and if good solutions are proposed. But I didn't find anything really interesting about that (just text to explain how MES work, and how great it is)
Any idea about this point? Do you know some forums or websites with some advices about it?


Thank you,


Celine

[harry]

Welcome to the Cove.

We have a similar thread here: MES Systems - Why MES is separated from the ERP layer

There's a link to an interesting article inside there.

[dufeu.celine]

Hi,

I already saw this thread. But it explains the different challenges, generally speacking.

I am really surprised that there is no more discussions/ websites about the different MES "experiences" (positives or negatives). My meaning is that I have the impression there are a lot of websites to "sell" it, but nobody gives any real feedback, why?

Celine

[harry]

In Reply to Parent Post by dufeu.celine

......................... I am really surprised that there is no more discussions/ websites about the different MES "experiences" (positives or negatives). ....................

I thought this is one of the observations made in the article linked. Seems this is an industry wide problem.

[Wes Bucey]

It seems to me the issue you present is not the MES, but the lack of effective Change Management in introducing and implementing the MES into your organization.

For one thing, it seems the concept of evaluating the effectiveness is being deliberately ignored. By not acknowledging and investigating the suggestions of alternate methodology, you may be missing a bet If not, then there is value in explaining to those making the suggestions exactly WHY their suggestion is impractical, unworkable, or uneconomical to forestall duplicate unworkable suggestions.

Sounds as if folks at your organization would benefit from a good presentation of Deming's Red Beads.

[dufeu.celine]

That's why I am looking for some people with the MES experience, to know more about this "change management" and how to convince people that using a scanner in the right way will improve their situations.
Concerning some tasks it is really easy to explain, but for others... I am out of inspiration.

From management point of view it is really easy to understand why MES can be useful. But as it is said in the article (see Harry's comments) "You cannot force IT solutions into manufacturing plants"

Furthemore, I am still thinking about this :

Reduce work in process by 20%
Reduce plant efficiency/downtime by 30%
Reduce manual data entry time by 75%
Reduce waste by 15%

I know that if you do a good analysis you may reach those results, but I am still convince it can be done without MES...