“If your business isn’t growing it’s dying” is a common aphorism—and with good reason.

Growth in manufacturing can be pretty linear. You started with one machine, reached capacity, added a second machine, then a third, then another production line. Over the years, you repeated this process and now have a significantly larger capacity for meeting your customers’ needs.

But, this approach can only take you so far. Eventually you will run out of space for new equipment. Adding another production line will complicate your operations even more. Or you might not be able to find enough additional people to run the line. It will also become too much information to keep track of in your head!

If you can’t make more product, you can’t acquire more customers—and your growth will plateau. Do you want to maintain the status quo and still be where you are now in five years? Or, do you want to keep growing and show the world you can crush your goals and lead your industry in that same time period?

By using Manufacturing Execution Systems as a core component of your business’ technology stack, you can uncover inefficiency, increase productivity, and grow your overall capacity without needing to add more people, equipment, or new production lines.

Turn Your Business Up to 11

Growing a company isn’t easy. You have to hire people. You need to source, install, and maintain equipment. And it all has to happen while you constantly manage suppliers, invoices, and cash flow. Without tracking everything, you’ll lose sight of the big picture.

This struggle is real. We deal with it at Corso Systems, and see it across most of the companies we work with. Everyone wants the ability do more without adding layers of complexity to their lives or investing in more and more resources.

As manufacturing processes become more complicated, there is an exponentially larger risk for hidden inefficiencies.

Luckily, you can leverage tools and technology to manage your operations information. Using a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to track all of the information about your entire business, you can amplify—and multiply—what you and your team can accomplish.

Understanding your operations in greater detail will allow you to find the inefficiencies that are wasting your time and money. These ROI-killing issues are slowing your progress and cut into your future growth. With the information generated from three basic tools, every Manufacturing Execution System can directly improve your capacity, cashflow, and profit with the equipment and people you have right now.

Manufacturing Execution Systems: the “Hardware Store” for Operations Management

If you’ve done a DIY project, you know that you find just about any tool you could ever imagine at a local hardware store. At a local mom and pop shop, some of the old timers will tell you exactly which tools you need, how to use them, and which flashy items you can leave on the shelf. Contrast this experience with a big box chain where you can get lost in dozens of aisles with every type of tool, chemical, and piece of wood under the sun.

Manufacturing Execution Systems are like hardware stores—except they’re stocked with tools for managing manufacturing operations. You have the choice of “grabbing something from every aisle in the big box store and sorting out what you actually need later” or you can follow the advice of someone with experience who will help you choose a hammer, screwdriver, saw, and the materials to start building what you need from the start. Once you need to a more specialized tool to get the next job done, you can grow your collection along with your progress. This approach might even save you a few trips to the “hardware store” along the way!

What’s Included in a Manufacturing Execution System (MES)?

If a Manufacturing Execution System includes tools, here are basics (like a hammer, screwdriver, and saw) that everyone can start with to fulfill the most common needs:

1. Product Codes and Work Orders

   Product codes and work orders provide the backbone for “what” you are making.

   Leveraging product codes and work orders will help you keep track of what you are making, which orders your products are in when they go out the door, and sets you up for success when integrating your entire business with your Manufacturing Execution System over time.

2. Production Schedule

   The Production Schedule tells you “when” you are making your products. It informs the people on the plant floor when they need to run particular work orders, helps you understand if orders are delayed can update your customers. A production schedule also allows you to manage your resources, materials, and personnel scheduling to meet your manufacturing demands.

3. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)

OEE tells you “how” the process is doing. It gives you a single number encapsulating downtime (“am I producing?”), cycles times (“how much am I producing?”) and scrap/rework (“is what I am making meeting spec?”)

Combining OEE with your Production Schedule and Work Orders/Product Codes gives you insight into you overall operation. You can learn if some products are more efficient to make, which products have more quality issues, and even if particular operators or production lines are getting better results than the rest.

These three components of an MES system are the basic tools you need to understand any manufacturing operation. You can gain an immense amount of knowledge and save real money with these three tools alone. Johnsonville Sausage was able to save $40,000 a month in overall operating costs on a project by leveraging Ignition to track Product Codes, Work Orders, the Production Schedule, and OEE. The information they obtained allowed them to reduce waste, increase throughput, and reduce unplanned downtime.

When you’re first starting with MES, keeping the scope of your tools small will allow you to spend time learning how to use them. Eventually, you will need to get to the next level, but if you have learned how to use the basics, you will be able to intelligently assess the options and make the right choice. This approach will help manage overwhelm as your business grows.

Once you know the what, when, and how of your process, you will be able to choose from a variety of additional functionality to add to your MES system. By starting with the basics, you will also be better equipped to understand what you need as your understanding of your business grows too.

MES isn’t Scary,
Being in the Dark About Operations is Terrifying.

If you don’t understand your operations and the gaps preventing you from reaching your full capacity, adding more equipment and people won’t maximize your ROI. Without fixing foundational issues in your process first, you can put in all of the time and money in the world and never come out ahead.

An MES system will expose any gaps while providing actionable solutions you can use to fix them. You will continue to find ways to improve your process with an MES without having to spend a lot of time or money—and the MES system will automatically prioritize the most impactful solutions you can implement right away.

Companies in every industry are using MES systems right now to improve their operations. Don’t let your competitors get ahead simply because they have sharper tools. If you want to learn more about Manufacturing Execution Systems before reaching out to learn how we can help guide you down the best path for your company, check out our Ultimate MES Guide.

Stop wasting time and money trying to fill a void of inefficiency that might be hidden. Leverage an MES system to figure out how to improve quickly and meet your true potential!