DEPLOYMENT THE MES (MANUFACTURING EXECUTION SYSTEM) AIMING TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVE PRIORITIES OF MANUFACTURING

Abstract

This work investigates the contributions of the MES - Manufacturing Execution System - for improving the competitive priorities of manufacturing. We present a theoretical framework on the information technologies (IT) and its business importance, the contributions of the organizational factors for the implementation of the MES, as well as the main concepts and the possible applications of this tool. The built theoretical framework was decisive to subsidize the research performance in the studied company. It was verified that the MES significantly contributed to the manufacturing related to improvement of cost, quality, flexibility, conformity and reliability. It was concluded that the MES enriched the information quality generated from the plant floor, i.e., information that makes it fast, standardized, reliable and precise. When integrated to the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) of the company, the MES filled out a gap, offering information other to other functional areas of the organization. The interviews, conducted in businesses departments in the company, showed the importance of the products tracking, and the MES implementation was decisive to improve that issue, concluding that the dimension is considered as a competitive priority of the manufacturing.