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by Stephanie Neil, MA Editorial Staff Posted on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 2:50:50 PM   | Abstract: | The part requires more than a passing knowledge of enterprise systems. MES vendors are called upon to immerse themselves in ERP through formal alliances. |
The criterion for selecting a manufacturing execution system has just changed. It used to be that if a company needed an application to schedule production, trace work in progress, or manage quality, the buying decision was based purely on software functions and price. Today, however, there's a new dimension that determines which MES software will take center stage: ERP alliances. "We would not have selected a vendor that didn't have a relationship with SAP," says George Chappelle, CIO of Sara Lee Corp. The reason? Pressure. External factors ranging from regulatory compliance, to global competition, to increasing customer demands are putting pressure on manufacturers to integrate internal operations so that everything runs like clockwork. [Click to continue] |