Tuesday, April 30, 2013

MESA Gartner Survey 2013

Has your company implemented plant-wide software?

We need you for research on The Benefits Of Implementing MES/MOM!
The purpose of this survey is to understand MESA members' experience of MES. The findings from the study will be reported back to MESA members in the coming months.

Please contact MESA/Gartner Survey Support if you have any questions.


Monday, April 22, 2013

Press Release: MESA International Launches “Executive Point-of-View” Program

MESA takes action on one of community’s most pressing priorities: Showing senior leaders the value of MES/MOM as a strategic business enabler


GREENVILLE, SC, April 22, 2013 — MESA International announced today the launch of a new program aimed at showing the business value of MES/MOM solutions to company executives considering such investments. The “Executive Point-of-View” program will frame these real-time Operations solutions in a business context, helping a company’s senior leadership understand the value of a potential solution and the guiding principles required for implementation success.

The program further aims to help demystify the space, educating executives in practical business terms about what MES/MOM is and what it can mean for their organization. It will address many of the questions companies ask when considering an investment in real-time operations solutions, including:

•What is MES/MOM, and what will it do for our business?
 •How is this different from our ERP solution?
 •What are the real benefits? What benefits have others in our industry realized?
 •What are MES/MOM best practices? What should we avoid?

MESA will team with Brock Solutions, a long-time MESA supporter and integrator in the real-time space, to drive the initiative and deliver the program. On behalf of MESA, Brock’s experienced consultants will work with a company’s senior leadership to understand the business and challenges. The team will develop an initial hypothesis for MES/MOM as a business enabler and map those goals to people, processes, and applicable technologies. The program will clearly articulate if and how MES/MOM can enable the company’s business initiatives.


Engagements are expected to occur over a 2 to 4-week time period, culminating in a wrap-up workshop with Brock reviewing their findings with the broader executive team as a group. General information and findings not proprietary to a company’s engagement will come back to MESA to be prioritized and added to the pool of Executive Point-of-View deliverables.
MESA itself does not staff business consultants and has no plans to do so. The not-for-profit prefers to build a broad set of tools that will better enable manufacturers/producers and solution providers to work more effectively together. That effectiveness is hampered due to a knowledge gap between business leaders and their teams.

MESA president Mike Yost said, “Our members are telling us loud and clear they need MESA’s help educating their business leaders on the value of MES/MOM solutions. Brock has extensive experience working with executive teams from a variety of industries to help educate executives in practical, business terms about what MES/MOM is and what it can mean for their organization. I’m excited to be teaming with them to address one of our members’ most pressing priorities.”

Stephanie Mikelbrencis of Brock Solutions will lead the initial executive engagements. Julie Fraser, MESA’s Outreach Director, will lead the overall program within MESA. Mikelbrencis, also a MESA Americas Board member, commented, “A week doesn’t go by that we’re not asked by our customers and others we meet in the market to help fill a gap in their understanding of MES/MOM from a business context. We at Brock have been delivering consulting services to many organizations to provide the kind of clarity and alignment required for an executive team to make decisions on how to best start down the MES/MOM path. We think MESA should have similar tools for its members and are excited to spearhead the initiative to formalize them.”
 
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Press Release: MESA's North American Conference is Launch Venue for Tata Consultancy Services’ Plant in a Box

New Offering Uses MESA Best Practices with Aim to Improve Software Outcomes for Manufacturing Industries
 
Greenville, SC, April 22, 2013 – MESA International (MESA) is pleased to announce Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) launched its first Plant in a Box (PIB) offering during the MESA 2013 North American Conference today. MESA’s community focuses on best practices for successful software implementation and TCS states that this new offering leverages such models as MESA’s B2MML and ISA 95. TCS says this offering is intended to help manufacturers rapidly set up, operate, optimize, and replicate lean manufacturing plant business systems. For companies moving production facilities close to their target markets, enabling quick and effective ramp-up of new facilities is critical to success. The offering will initially focus on the Automotive Industry – both OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, with the intention to extend the solution to other discrete and process industries down the road.

“We are delighted that TCS has chosen MESA’s North American Conference as the venue to launch this new offering,” said MESA President Michael Yost. “Our members need to see new and evolving solutions as they come to market and understand how they can most successfully and reliably leverage them. MESA encourages companies to contribute to the conversations shaping how modern Information Technologies enhance production operations, and that’s what TCS has done here today.”

TCS is a Gold Keystone Sponsor of MESA International and a sponsor of the Business Forum at MESA’s 2013 North American Conference. The PIB offering includes both commercial enterprise software and Process Framework that rests on a set of models specific to automotive needs. The intention of the models is to help optimize the plant and supply chain and better ensure the enterprise software implementation results in the desired business outcomes.

“Implementing the TCS PIB solution will provide customers with better opportunities to enable a performance-driven plant with visibility to performance driven by key performance indicators (KPIs). With that advantage, they can improve on the key metrics that MESA identifies in its Metrics and Performance Management research: time to market, market share, costs, and return on investment,” said Sanjay Karve, Head of the Innovation and Transformation Group at TCS.

At the core of PIB are a plant management model, detailed business processes and KPIs for lean operations realized on an enterprise software platform. PIB also includes interface models for effective interaction with supplier, customer and shop-floor systems. The software included has pre-configured processes, scenarios, reports, collaboration, and integration to select MES and PLM systems. PIB combined with TCS’ Manufacturing Operations Transformation (MOT) methodology is intended to allow customers to rapidly deploy standardized processes and systems in a plant and enable quick value creation.
 
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About MESA International

MESA International (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) is a global not-for-profit industry association dedicated to improving outcomes for businesses and their people through the use of manufacturing information. MESA is comprised of manufacturers, producers, solution providers, and industry thought leaders collaborating to formulate practical strategies to turn plant-floor data into valuable knowledge for enterprise success. We do this by:
 •Collecting, sharing, and publishing best practices to help drive greater productivity and the overall profitability of the manufacturing enterprise. Over 800 webcasts, guidebooks, whitepapers, studies, and surveys are available for download in our Resource Library.
•Educating professionals through our IACET-accredited MESA Global Education Program (GEP).
 •Facilitating collaboration among members in over 40 countries who connect, contribute, cultivate understanding, and exchange strategies to drive business results through real-time enterprise and Plant to Enterprise (P2E) integration.
 •Creating partnerships with other industry associations and experts like the World Batch Forum (WBF). Our 2012 merger broadens our knowledge of ISA-95 related standards like B2MML, and ISA-88 related standards like BatchML.

The bottom line? Members benefit from knowing what MESA knows.

About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS)

Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPO,infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model™, recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata group, India’s largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 276,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 44 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $11.6 billion for year ended March 31, 2013 and is listed on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in India. For more information, visit us at
www.tcs.com.

Press Release: STI SlimSoft Starts Cloud-Based MES/MOM Discussion at MESA 2013 North American Conference

Company sponsors MESA Business Forum to
engage marketplace and jumpstart broader, public dialogue

 
Greenville, SC,  April 22, 2013 – MESA International announces that STI-SlimSoft introduced a new initiative aimed at “bringing Manufacturing Operations Management (MES/MOM) software to the cloud” during the MESA North American Conference today.  The intent, according to Andrew Waycott, CTO of STI-SlimSoft, is to open up the power of today’s Operations Management solutions to a much broader set of customers.  Most notably, he said, was that small and mid-sized manufacturers will be able to benefit from advanced capabilities often available only to larger enterprises.

STI-SlimSoft gave a presentation entitled, “The Cloud in Production Operations” as a first step in opening a broader, public discussion on the topic.  Company leaders are leveraging MESA as the forum to drive the discussions in industry, and are offering their leadership in doing so.  The MESA Technical Committee is considering white papers, presentations and other deliverables on the topic, as well as a possible Working Group.

MESA’s president Mike Yost commented, “I’m excited that STI-SlimSoft is stepping forward to offer their leadership in driving the conversation around ‘the cloud in production operations’.  As often happens with new technologies, people try to figure them out on their own.  MESA is the place where those conversations are unified and everyone’s best interests are represented.”

STI-SlimSoft also said they are ready to take inquiries from manufacturers about participating in a beta testing program for their first application available in the cloud environment.  The first is a packaging line application based on STI-SlimSoft’s proven SlimUp offerings, and is fully complemented with mobile apps for iPad, iPhone, and Android-based phones and tablets. The official launch is planned for Q3 of this year, with other vertical solution offerings to follow.

CEO of STI-SlimSoft, Charles Horth adds, "Today we are breaking new ground for Operations Management in the world of manufacturing. We hope to bring more manufacturers into a strong market position by delivering data where it’s needed without the investment in infrastructure."

Manufacturers interested in participating in the beta program or in gaining more information can go to www.stislimsoft.com/plantasaservice or send an email to plantasaservice@stislimsoft.com
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About MESA International
MESA International (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) is a global not-for-profit industry association dedicated to improving outcomes for businesses and their people through the use of manufacturing information. MESA is comprised of manufacturers, producers, solution providers, and industry thought leaders collaborating to formulate practical strategies to turn plant-floor data into valuable knowledge for enterprise success. We do this by:
•Collecting, sharing, and publishing best practices to help drive greater productivity and the overall profitability of the manufacturing enterprise. Over 800 webcasts, guidebooks, whitepapers, studies, and surveys are available for download in our Resource Library.
•Educating professionals through our IACET-accredited  MESA Global Education Program (GEP).
•Facilitating collaboration among members in over 40 countries who connect, contribute, cultivate understanding, and exchange strategies to drive business results through real-time enterprise and Plant to Enterprise (P2E) integration.
•Creating partnerships with other industry associations and experts like the World Batch Forum (WBF). Our 2012 merger broadens our knowledge of ISA-95 related standards like B2MML, and ISA-88 related standards like BatchML.

The bottom line?  Members benefit from knowing what MESA knows.
www.MESA.org


About STI-SlimSoft
300 years of combined, real-world, manufacturing experience, coupled with proven expertise in implementing real-time manufacturing systems through a wide range of industry verticals makes STI-SlimSoft the best choice as your manufacturing systems partner.  Regardless of where you are on your operational excellence journey, STI-SlimSoft's proven solution offerings and implementation methodologies will ensure project success and real ROI for Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) solutions and Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM).  With offices in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom and Central America, and with over 400 projects delivered in over 30 countries, STI-SlimSoft has the global reach to support manufacturers in 6 languages around the world.
www.stislimsoft.com

Plant As A Service™, plantasaservice.com™, SlimUp™ are trademarks of STI-SlimSoft and its affiliated companies.  All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Charles A. Horth – CEO, STI-SlimSoft –
charles.horth@stislimsoft.com
Andrew Waycott – CTO, STI-SlimSoft – andrew.waycott@stislimsoft.com
US Toll Free: +1.888.475.4676 International: +1.678.813.2332

Friday, April 5, 2013

MESA Sponsorship Opportunities for 2013 NA Conference Going Fast!


MESA's 2013 North American Conference has sold out of Business Forum Sponsorships!

There are a few sponsorships still available including 3 unConference Session Sponsorships, a Pen Sponsorship, and a Notepad Sponsorship. Your company can also Sponsor a Literature Drop at MESA's booth and in the MESA Conference bags! Then get your company logo and description featured on MESA's Conference website like our other Sponsors!

The following are the current Sponsors of MESA's 2013 North American Conference:

Business Forum Sponsors:


 



 




unConference Session Sponsors:


 

 
 

Literature Drop Sponsors:
 
 
 



Sponsors, we thank you for your support of MESA International!

Click here to view company descriptions of MESA's Sponsors.  Find out how you can become a Sponsor of MESA's 2013 North American Conference here.