FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION CONTROL- A FRAMEWORK TO INTEGRATE ERP WITH MANUFACTURING EXECUTION SYSTEMS

Manufacturers are under pressure to improve their shop floor processes for more cost effectiveness. At the same time they are required to adapt their products to fast changing customer demands and regulatory constraints. This can be achieved through IT-support but the flexibility of human decision-making should not be decreased. To meet these requirements the transparency of shop floor processes needs to be increased, traceability throughout the supply chain should be assured or improved – even beyond organizational boundaries- while labour cost should be decreased at the same time. ERP-suites are not up to the task of providing a suitable IT-support for shop floor processes due to certain limitations although they are the informational backbone of many IT-infrastructures. Manufacturing execution systems (MES) are information systems which are specifically designed for facilitating shop floor processes. This paper proposes a framework for the integration of an ERP-suite with a MES to provide an up to date support for shop floor processes. Based on this framework, a systematic approach is shown for designing the integration and implementing a MES