I am a Mechanical Assembler. What Walker states from 3:08 - 3:19 is DEAD ON!!

Electronics, Medical - if MES is not setup for a product - you can't run - especially due to material traceability requirements for each serial number produced.

3:30 "The MES system should be a reflection of the reality on the plant floor." It's great that you are providing a foundation to make this possible in MES Bootcamp! Looking forward to the next session on Saturday! Thankful Walker doesn't treat his company's MES 4.0 like Gollum and the ring -"my precious". It will be great to see our MES Bootcamp projects work on real data!

I've been in the industry over 20 years & am amazed at the rate of change technology has been changing, the hardest part is working for an end user & getting them to actually follow through to make a move towards the industry 4.0 way of thinking. Some days I see it, others I don't. At this rate of change, the industry is in high demand for automation techs. In order for engineers to work on these things, here is a great need to skilled automation techs. So one hand can be fixing, maintaining, and improving while the other hand can focus on the data to help understand what the real hold backs are. I've seen the power of data & the more we use it then better educated we get. With that said, I have always seen an improvement once someone knows an improvement can be made. Thank you for all the information you share, it really helps the cause.

I agree to some extent that MES gotta be a reflection of operations vs dictation. Which means MES is more of collecting and reporting but not controlling the process/production run. BUT does it benefit to enforce some processes that are critical to quality?? In facilities with poorly defined SOPs, the reality is ugly out on the shop floor as in operations will do ANYTHING to meet production targets even at the cost of quality and traceability at times and so they hate MES when it blocks them from deviating or captures audit holding them accountable. And if a facility has no set guidelines and has frequent unpredictable patterns of running ops, then there is no MES system that can satisfy their needs while assured data/process integrity (not even a custom MES). I think the first important step is to clearly identify all possible “plan B” (plural) and try to incorporate them in the MES workflows and then keep up as new options emerge. There cannot be too many as they are bound by physical, logical and regulatory limitations. That way MES not only can prompt alternate options but also allow room to override and go creative, and then capture electronic notes as to how the situation was addressed. A well designed MES system should not only collect, but enforce certain activities/checks that are uncompromisable, only allowing a selected groups of personnel (supervisors or higher) to override. If may slowdown production in the beginning, yet worthwhile in the long run.

Physical world is more complex than any manmade world.

lol... letting the ERP or MES dictate your operations. 🤣 not going to happen.

George Lopez?