Manufacturing Execution System

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What Does Manufacturing Execution System Mean?

A manufacturing execution system (MES) is a software control system for managing work processes in industrial situations. Businesses can use this software as part of an enterprise resource planning solution for tracking manufacturing data in real time.

Techopedia Explains Manufacturing Execution System

A MES can be used in many different ways. It can be used to track the production life cycle from raw materials to finished products. It can also work with machine-to-machine systems where the individual components of a manufacturing setup share data or communicate with one another. For example, an array of automatic machining, bottling, sorting or separation machines can route data between each other to explain manufacturing processes and provide benchmarking. An overarching MES will gather all of these data and manage them in ways that allow human decision makers to get a complete view of the whole manufacturing process.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.