Maximize manufacturing efficiency and flexibility with personalized and adaptable manufacturing execution system software
In today’s rapidly changing manufacturing landscape, the electronics sector requires a combination of productivity, innovation and agility to stay ahead of the competition.
The era of rigid, one-size-fits-all manufacturing execution systems (MES) is fading. The market expects personalized MES interfaces that adapt perfectly to the business processes and offer user-centric experiences. In this context, low-code embedded capabilities can empower manufacturers to take their MES software and practices to the next level.
This blog post will explore the key benefits of personalized MES experiences and how they can transform your manufacturing operations in the electronics sector, including electronics, semiconductors, medical devices and battery industries.
Increase operational efficiency with a personalized manufacturing execution system
Manufacturers of electronics and medical devices often use several software systems on the shop floor (i.e. MES, QMS, ERP, supply chain, IoT, PLM, etc.). These disparate data sources often result in inefficiencies for operators, engineers, and plant managers.
A personalized MES empowers operators to consolidate information from these multiple sources securely into a single screen. They can then access MES capabilities more readily and experience personalized functionality and interfaces. In addition, they can leverage ready-to-use templates, which draw upon industry and domain expertise and best practices.
By leveraging low-code capabilities, ready-to-use templates and easy connectivity of various data sources to personalize their MES workflows and screens, manufacturing team members can easily access the most critical information in context for their job performance, leading to better and faster decision-making. Processes are streamlined and collaboration across teams is improved, which is essential for manufacturers of batteries, electronics, semiconductors, and medical devices to remain agile and competitive. This increased efficiency ultimately translates into cost savings and increased productivity.
Improve flexibility with an adaptable manufacturing execution system
For the electronics sector, in particular, factors such as supply chain disruptions, new technologies, sustainable materials, and mergers and acquisitions are driving the need for adaptability. In this unprecedented pace of change in manufacturing operations, an adaptable MES can help.
By customizing and personalizing the MES according to specific business needs or user profiles on the manufacturing floor or cleanrooms, you have the flexibility to innovate and meet new challenges head-on.
For industries that employ a variety of process styles, such as the medical device industry, flexible UI/UX is especially important. With a process-centric and role-based user experience, operators, engineers and plant managers can easily view the real-time status of work-in-progress with the specific level of information they need — monitoring processes such as extrusion, manual assembly, reagent and batch processing, and cleanroom operations.
Maintaining high cleanroom standards is also a must for the semiconductors industry. Low code embedded in MES software provides UI/UX capabilities and ready-to-use templates to easily tailor applications to the needs of cleanroom environments in a configurable way. This leads to greater efficiency and precision in managing experiments by aggregating the information necessary to complete activities in the fab.
Accelerate innovation by leveraging business domain knowledge to refine MES applications
Your team knows your business needs best, and manufacturers of batteries, electronics, medical devices and semiconductors all have unique processes that require UI/UX tailored to their specific needs.
Because low code does not require software development skills, personalized and adaptable MES software with embedded low code enables you to tap into the informal knowledge of employees working closely with production processes and machinery to create applications that best suit business needs.
By empowering domain experts to spearhead experimentation, iteration, implementation, and refinement of MES applications, you can harness their expertise and motivation to complete projects quickly, making their jobs easier. This approach ensures that the MES software is aligned with the unique business needs and insights of your frontline manufacturing team.
Develop role-based MES applications faster while reducing costs
With personalized user experiences built in-house using low-code embedded capabilities, the total cost of ownership of your MES is not only reduced but also becomes visible and controllable.
By leveraging ready-to-use templates, manufacturers in the electronics sector can decrease IT backlog and expenses, enabling application development to occur faster and easier — as fast and easy as drag-and-drop operations. This empowers your business technologists and floor operators to implement their creative cost-saving ideas quickly, leading to greater agility in product and process changes.
Maintenance costs are also reduced since the personalized applications do not disrupt the core MES software. MES software updates are, therefore, easier, faster and less expensive because updating customizations is unnecessary.
Unlock the unlimited potential of personalized and adaptable MES
In a competitive manufacturing landscape, a personalized and adaptable MES leveraging embedded low-code capabilities enables electronics manufacturers to:
- Increase operational efficiency
- Improve flexibility and agility
- Accelerate innovation and application development
- Improve operators’ experience with MES applications and leverage domain expertise
- Streamline processes and improve collaboration across teams and stakeholders
- Facilitate seamless integration and connectivity of systems and data
- Reduce the total cost of ownership of MES software
Personalizing the MES user experience efficiently — without the dependency of systematically involving IT specialists and leveraging the business technologists and shop floor operators’ domain expertise (or informal knowledge) — empowers electronics manufacturers to accelerate innovation, maximize productivity, and drive greater business vitality.
Low-code capabilities embedded directly into the MES software also enable electronics manufacturers to embrace digitalization across the entire enterprise, uniquely taking advantage of seamless integration and connectivity of diverse data sources.
As part of the Siemens Xcelerator open digital business platform, Opcenter Execution and Mendix have come together to form a unique offering for manufacturers in the electronics sector. With Opcenter Execution’s rich MES functionalities and Mendix’s leading low-code capabilities and ready-to-use templates, manufacturers can create a landscape that quickly and easily supports their business needs. When connected to other systems, including PLM, ERP, QMS, IoT or supply chain applications, it is even more impactful.
This is how the unique combination of leading MES and low-code technologies is revolutionizing the electronics value chain, making it more efficient, productive, connected, and collaborative. Embrace personalized MES experiences and unlock the true potential of your manufacturing operations in the electronics sector.
Want to learn more?
Check out these other Opcenter and Mendix resources:
- Personalize manufacturing execution software with embedded low code
- A personalized user experience (UX) maximizes MES value
- Unleash the power of low-code capabilities on top of a rich and mature MES platform
Ready to take the next step?
Contact our sales team to see how Siemens can help your business.
