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by Jeff Moad, MA Editorial Staff   | Abstract: | The ERP archrivals are both striving to become players in the MES and manufacturing intelligence space. Their strategies, however, are as different as night and day. Which one is right for you?
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It wasn't so many years ago that manufacturing executives came to the conclusion that it no longer made sense for different divisions and plants to select, configure, deploy, and run their own enterprise resource planning systems. In an attempt to drive consistent finance, planning, and other processes across the enterprise, manufacturers began to standardize on a single ERP platform. Today's ERP leaders — specifically SAP and Oracle Corp. — proved the most adept at encouraging and cashing in on that consolidation trend. Today, that scenario is being repeated on the plant floor. Intent on improving plant efficiency by spreading consistent, lean processes across their manufacturing environments, many manufacturing executives have begun to move toward standard manufacturing software systems that can be deployed consistently across the enterprise and integrated with enterprise systems and data. This, experts say, has unleashed some long-pent up spending on manufacturing execution systems (MESs) as well as enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI) software. According to a recent AMR Research survey, companies said their spending on manufacturing operations systems in 2007 will capture a portion of their software budget second only to ERP. Between 2006 and 2007, spending on manufacturing software is expected to grow faster than any other category, including ERP, CRM, performance management, and supply chain management, according to the AMR poll. [Click to continue] |