MES sessions at Siemens Automation Summit

Paul LeMert, Siemens Energy & Automation, kicked off a 2-1/2-day-long series of presentations framing the Siemens SIMATIC IT MES product line. The overview session highlighted market trends, ERP to MES interoperability and MES to PLC/DCS synchronization.

By Jack Smith, Senior Editor June 20, 2007

One of the featured breakout session tracks at the 2007 Siemens Automation Summit, June 12-15 in Orlando, covered Manufacturing Execution Systems. Paul LeMert, Siemens Energy & Automation, kicked off a 2-1/2-day-long series of presentations framing the Siemens SIMATIC IT MES product line. The overview session highlighted market trends, ERP to MES interoperability and MES to PLC/DCS synchronization.

The value framework for the MES offering from Siemens is a three-step process that considers all aspects that MES affects in a manufacturing process that impact customer needs and goals, according to Andrea Molinari, Siemens Energy & Automation, in his session on Wednesday, June 13. The framework steps are the benefit study, user requirement for detailed analysis and project evaluation. Use cases are the heart of the value framework because they link the benefit activity with detailed analysis of customer requirements, said Molinari.

Siemens’ MSI offering is a result of the combination of the domestic businesses of ORSI/HILCO, I&S ITPS, Compex USA and IndX Software. It combined technology from these ventures to form one product — SIMATIC IT — that operates on one common platform, according to Jesse DeMesa, director, product center, Siemens Energy & Automation. SIMATIC IT has three major components: the Production Suite (MES suite), R&D Suite and the Intelligence Suite, which DeMesa described as the newest part of the solution. DeMesa’s presentation covered the Intelligence Suite.

According to DeMesa, the Intelligence Suite part of Siemens’s MES offering allows plant personnel to align individual targets and results to higher-level business targets; benchmark plant results against other plants to reduce costs and eliminate waste; bring plant information into valuable operational profit/cost context; and facilitate appropriate operating decisions and analysis across plants, regions, business units and functional organizations.