Is SAP Manufacturing Execution the ultimate MES solution?
SAP announced the release of SAP Manufacturing Execution Suite 15.1 in January 2016. This offering became a reality following discussions between SAP and its customers, partners and industry analysts.
This latest suite consists of SAP Manufacturing Execution (ME) 15.1, SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (MII) 15.1, with SAP Plant Connectivity (PCo) 15.1. With this release, the entire SAP Manufacturing Execution Suite is now available on the SAP HANA in-memory platform, increasing analytical performance and providing a simplified system.
SAP HANA: A Game Changer for Industrial Process Management Systems?
With the release of SAP ME 15.1 software, customers in industrial sectors could benefit from a number of enhancements to SAP ME 15.1 software, starting with the following innovations:
- Added sub-steps, typically representing a list of tasks or activities to be completed;
- Increased support for configurable product scenarios;
- Enhanced mass deployment capabilities;
- Consolidated Production Agent Dashboard (POD) for a semi-automated environment, reducing operator intervention;
- Support for multiple browsers including IE, Safari, Firefox and Chrome;
In addition to this, the SAP MII 15.1 release (including SAP PCo 15.1) includes the following:
- Simplified manufacturing reporting with the Self Service Composition Environment (SSCE);
- Improved operational visibility through the integration of 3D files;
- Internet of Things (IoT) support for an additional destination with remote PCo notification;
- Energy monitoring and analysis;
- Simplified configuration for Overall Plant Efficiency (OPEX), OPEX reporting using SAP Lumira and SAP PM (Plant Maintenance) integration.
Customer adoption is illustrated by the fact that 19 customers have successfully participated in the three-month Early Adopter Care programme, sharing positive feedback on the new SAP manufacturing offerings.
DELMIA Apriso from Dassault Systèmes has been investing in combining Industrial Decisioning (ID) with operations execution for many years now. SAP seems to confirm that this strategy is best practice, which is good for all manufacturers. Furthermore, migration to the Cloud is not going away, and will probably become more common practice in the future. Especially when we look at Business Intelligence (BI) software to provide better decision support: the Cloud and mobility make a lot of sense.
Many of the enhancements in version 15.1 make analysis easier, allow users to consider predictive analysis of Big Data and address the growing importance of IoT. Connecting objects via the Internet is managed by PCo and, based on this connectivity, SAP can offer business processes and analytics such as energy monitoring, predictive maintenance, connected logistics and smart metering that go beyond the average MES scope.
IoT is changing the way plant controls interact, and there are even questions about whether SAP might be the next-generation MES solution. The old SAP ME design was tightly integrated with SAP ERP. The old machine controls were analogue and MES software was needed to automate the controls. Large specialist MES software providers often provided the plant controls, but with the advent of IoT, users may no longer need one of the specialist MES software solutions for this purpose.
Specialist MES systems are future-proof
Yet specialist MES software does some things better than the major ERP software vendors that add MES functionality, as their longevity shows.
As for the differences between ERP and MES, there is still the question of the performance of non-specialist MES vendors. Whatever new products SAP and Oracle launch as an extension of their product ranges or a Cloud-based ERP, there may be a design gap for the volumes or performance required on the sales floor. Of course, low-volume environments with little product diversity don't need all this performance and can therefore be run without a 'full' range of specialist MES software such as Apriso, Siemens Simatic IT, GE or iBASEt. But for large organisations with extreme complexity, accelerated new product introductions (NPI) and frequently changing product models, ERP can't do it all and shouldn't, because it wasn't designed for it in the first place. Some ERP systems have industrial origins and native MES functionality, such as ProfitKey, Plex Systems, IQMS and Epicor, but these are generally targeted at medium-sized companies.
For large companies, the issues go much further than computing speed. SAP HANA is essentially a special, very fast database and a set of programming interfaces (APIs) for connecting to other applications. With SAP HANA, information can be more easily delivered to enterprise IT applications. However, it will not get around the challenge of processing transactions that occur before the item reaches the shop floor - for example, in engineering - and especially on the shop floor.
ERP is based on routings and bills of materials (BOMs), whereas MES creates much finer-grained processes, with many small parts and steps - a routing step in MES requires time, resources and generates costs. An MES step can have multiple setpoints, tests, hardware versions, outputs, etc. An MES process may run for a period of time, in which case it is necessary to take a sample, test it, adjust it and then repeat the operation. MES structures are very different from ERP, and MES scripts generally generate 'custom' code.
ERP and MES software have a role to play. SAP HANA can better flag up and analyse 'what if' scenarios. On the other hand, the capabilities of some MES vendors in vertical sectors, for example, with iBASEt in the aerospace and defence (A&D) market, as A&D has longer operations, specialist tools and skills or certifications and regulatory capabilities that drive cost and planning issues - have so far outpaced the functional footprint and improvements of SAP ME.
Significant benefits and performance improvements are possible when operations are consolidated on a single common data model and platform to facilitate central management and distribution of best practice. But some manufacturing companies may prefer to look at a combination of technologies to achieve distributed federated functionality, where different sections have their own - rather than centralised - MES needs. This is what some members at MESA International have been talking about recently, in relation to intelligent manufacturing.
Potential and existing SAP customers in industrial sectors should be interested in the new capabilities mentioned above. Some may benefit enormously, while others may still require SAP to co-exist with other leading MES vendors.
Article translated from French