Tuesday, July 14, 2015

3 Requirements Prove MES/MOM Professionals Are Ready For Any Project

By Marc Leroux, Chairman of MESA's Education Committee, International Board Member, and Americas Board Member

MESA has just launched a new, two part recognition program. The first part is geared towards individual practitioners, the second is for organizations. In this post I’ll talk about the MESA Recognized Practitioner program.


The Recognized Practitioner program is for individuals who work in the Manufacturing Operations (MOM) or Manufacturing Execution (MES) space, have taken MESA provided training and who continue to invest in their education in this space with their ongoing participation in MESA.

Achieving MESA Recognized Practitioner status is not easy, so those that receive it are in a very select group of professionals. The criteria was purposely set so that this recognition is meaningful both to the individuals, and to companies looking to engage with these individuals.

There are three main components to the requirements for someone to achieve this status:

•The person must have completed the MESA Certificate of Competency (CoC) program. This is 4 day program that covers areas that a practitioner should be familiar with. These include common (and some not-so-common) standards, the fundamentals of running a MOM/MES project, creating vendor selection criteria, and many other areas. 

Anyone coming out of this program should be able to immediately participate in any MOM/MES project. The CoC program is given by qualified instructors, each having many years of experience in this area. The program includes both in-course and out-of-course testing, and it is quite rigorous. 

I have more than 35 years’ experience working in this space and I was expecting this to be a fairly straightforward and easy course. Instead I found that it was very challenging, required my undivided attention for the approximately 36 hours of the course, and the final out-of-course test took me around 8 hours to complete. This is not an easy course to complete, and I have a lot of respect for those that have completed it.

•The second criteria is that the person must be a current and active member of MESA. This demonstrates a commitment to their ongoing education in this space, either through formal MESA sanctioned education or by participating in one of various committees or working groups that are the core of MESA. By having the requirement of a minimum of 10 hours of MESA activity per year we are ensuring that people are committed to this space. 

•The third criteria is that individuals must agree to follow the MESA Code of Ethics and Conduct

The combination of these criteria ensure that those who achieve MESA Recognized Practitioner status are qualified professionals, demonstrating extensive knowledge and ongoing commitment to the MOM/MES space. 

And I believe that’s a good thing for everyone concerned: manufacturers, producers and solution providers alike. 

What do you think?

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Bio of Marc Leroux: 

Marc Leroux is the Global Marketing Manager for ABB’s Collaborative Production Manufacturing business, which provides products and solutions that sit above the automation system for industrial companies. In the 23 years Marc has been with ABB, he has been responsible for the design, development, implementation, and now has global marketing responsibility for Collaborative Manufacturing solutions. Additionally, Marc has been a key participant in some of ABB’s alliance activities and has also represented ABB in the development of ISA-95, the international standard for the integration of enterprise and manufacturing systems. Marc is a graduate of the Dawson Institute of Technology in Montreal, Quebec.  Marc currently serves as a MESA International Board Member at Large

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