AI-Ready MES for your Smart Factory

FAQ

• What exactly is the MES FLEX solution?

  With MES FLEX, we offer manufacturing companies a turnkey and freely expandable platform solution for the era of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Included in the multi-cloud-enabled solution are.

  (a) comprehensive connectivity for the shop floor and top floor, i.e., the connection of heterogeneous machine parks as well as networking with the pot floor (corporate management level),

  (b) a semantic production data model as the digital twin of production, and

  (c) open web interfaces for free composition and collaboration of in-house and external IT systems.

• What concrete advantages does the solution offer?

  With the MES FLEX solution, customers gain full transparency in production, higher efficiency throughout the company, and the greatest possible freedom and flexibility in IT architecture.

  1. Full transparency on the store floor is achieved through extensive connectivity: machines of different vintages and manufacturers and the ERP level can be easily connected and networked. Plug-ins and templates for various machine types and vintages are used for this purpose.
  2. Higher efficiency through turnkey usability: companies can start immediately to increase productivity: A high-speed computer creates the digital twin of production. This production data model can be used immediately to increase efficiency with preconfigured MES applications with more than 70 analyses and reporting functions.
  3. Greatest flexibility for composition and collaboration of IT systems: The solution is freely extensible, and customers can create individual IT architecture with their own and external systems and applications – through the open programming interface Bridge API. In addition, hybrid infrastructures of edge and cloud computing are possible.
• What technological elements are included?

  Connectivity and Digital Twin: Comprehensive connectivity for the shop floor and top floor is ensured by standardized machine plug-ins and ERP adapters. At the heart of the platform are a main memory-based rule engine for business process modeling and real-time data validation. The rule engine contains a semantic data layer that transforms Big Data into Smart Data, and thus generates the digital twin of production virtually on the computer – a central prerequisite for greater transparency and efficiency.

  Turnkey MES Apps (Manufacturing Execution System): MES FLEX offers pre-installed MES applications such as tracking (Track & Trace), performance analysis (reports, visualizations, alarms), manufacturing data management (production data, order data, DNC), energy monitoring (overview of all consumption values), detailed planning and control (orders, capacities, dynamic scheduling).

  Open web interfaces: Any third-party systems can be integrated via the open programming interface  Bridge API. The MES FLEX solution offers pre-installed market-leading apps from FORCAM partners, for example, for artificial intelligence (AI), tool data management (TDM), quality assurance (CAQ), and product lifecycle management (PLM).

• How is corporate planning networked (ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning)?

  Adapters enable bidirectional communication between MES FLEX and your ERP backend for ERP system integration.

  If customers do not have SAP, there is an option for the customer’s ERP system to interact via the open interface. Suppose the ERP vendor does not support our technology. In that case, we can organize XML-based data exchange, which is usually necessary with any ERP system and requires appropriate application development on the ERP side.

• How does the Rule Engine work?

  The rule engine is in-memory based with Complex Event Processing (CEP). The combination of in-memory computing and CEP is a unique selling point of FORCAM: It provides the required real-time data processing in milliseconds. Only with in-memory-based data storage, i.e. data storage in main memory, can the speed required for real-time computing be achieved in the range of milliseconds.

• What are the benefits of open web interfaces - Open API?

  The MES FLEX solution includes the first open web interface for digital manufacturing called Bridge API. It allows customers and partners to interact with the FORCAM platform via so-called REST APIs freely. FORCAM developed, patented, and publicly published the Bridge API together with industry and academia in 2018.

  With this, FORCAM provides customers and partners with open application-level programming interfaces: Using these REST APIs, customers or partners can retrieve any information from manufacturing via the platform and write corresponding information back to the platform. Access to the FORCAM platform via REST API is license-free, making access barrier-free. If a customer wants to implement the applications themselves and perform the machine connection independently, the FORCAM Academy offers appropriate training.

• BRIDGE API - Open API

  Bridge API™ – The Open API for Smart Manufacturing. Below are all the available SDKs and some sample applications.

  Code Examples

  API Documentation