Opinions are very divided when it comes to clearly distinguishing between MES and MOM.
Some think that the MES is a subset of the MOM, while others are of the opinion that they describe different functional spaces; still others think they describe exactly the same thing...
Origins
The acronym MES was invented in the mid-1980s, while MOM arrived a little later and seems not only to describe a somewhat wider space, but, above all, a set of operations that is found in the ISA-95 in terms of architecture and functionality.
Roughly speaking, even though these domains were present in the original MES functions, the MOM emphasised, beyond the domain of production, those of quality, maintenance and inventory.
Development
The MES, which equally includes the ISA-95 standards, can also be understood differently since it designates, first and foremost, as its name suggests, a "system", i.e. a tool, software program that actually performs MOM domain operations.
The first MES systems offered little flexibility and sometimes struggled to adapt to changing business needs.
In response to these growing needs, in terms of production facilities and also in terms of quality, inventory management and maintenance, the term MOM appeared to be the obvious choice to designate this broadening of expected functionality.
This was how the term "Manufacturing Operations Management" came into use thereby, detailing the various activities as well as the operational processes.
Commonalities
Of course, ultimately, MES and MOM both refer to the same domain : the management and control of manufacturing operations, in compliance with modelling and integration standards (ISA-95 and ISA-88).
Therefore, an MES system will, by definition, execute real-time manufacturing operations (MOM) and allow the manufacturer to commit to continuous improvement thanks to, for example :
- better dissemination of information (synchronisation, coordination and flow centralisation)
- a simplification of manufacturing processes
- compliance with regulatory requirements
- management of controlled inventory
- optimised quality monitoring
- systematic traceability of the process and of products
- analysis and continuous performance improvement
All the functions of MES, as well as supervision, are delivered in an integral and modular way by the COOX® solution.
