How to integrate an ERP with a MES

The ERP software (acronym of Enterprise Resource Planning) is born at the beginning of the years 2000 with the scope to exceed those that were the present business managers to the epoch.

While the advent of computers in the 1960s has dramatically increased data processing capacity, subsequently the increasing competition of the enterprises and the orientation to the customer have carried the companies to reingegnerizzare own processes of business in order to return them more efficient and effective.

That is why information systems have become indispensable to correlate and coordinate the many internal functions that exist.

The program for ERP accounting is now used in the management of orders. An ERP uses integration logic to map business processes and flows.

ERP software is able to guarantee with speed the availability of data, a function necessary for continuous monitoring of business performance.

ERP software monitors business performance, providing tools and procedures to support strategic choices for management.

An ERP has specific functions for the management of:

• orders,
• purchases,
• sales,
• warehouse.

It is an excellent tool for the ‘administrative office that supports accounting with specific tools for the first note, VAT, schedule, customers, suppliers, assets, withholding taxes and balance sheet.

First of all it is necessary to clarify that MES software for the management of industrial production is not an ERP.

The MES is the operating arm within the production, the shop floor mainly extended then in the area of machine management, maintenance and quality. It allows to have the management, the control of the optimization of the operations tied to the production process: from the release of the order up to the finished product.

The MES is therefore the link between ERP and production. It allows for example the collection of production data, or interconnection.

In Qualitas Informatica since 1997 we realize the connectors to integrate the ERP to our MES NET@PRO System, to do so we use two methods:

• Frontier tables
• Web Services

ERP interconnection with border tables

The “classic method” is to use frontier tables and to do so, we work closely with the IT company that follows the company.

In the input the ERP makes available two data streams for the import into the MES.

In the first flow “1 Import” are made available the data of personal items, customer/ supplier and warehouse personal data in “frontier tables” which, after checking the data, are then imported into internal tables of the MES NET@PRO.

In the second flow defined “2 Importd” it is referred instead to the orders like buy, sell, work, to the operations and the members legacies to the orders.

There are therefore different types of data exchanged, it also depends on the modules that are implemented. Having to mention a few we can talk about:

• data from departments – work centres
• data from contract warehouses

The third flow instead represents the output of the data from our MES NET@PRO to the ERP. The MES then makes available the final data in frontier tables, which the ERP collects and uses to present the data to the management.

There are several manufacturers of ERP management software with which the MES NET@PRO integrates.

It seems important to mention some of the major management that are used in Italy and for which we have already built the connector:

• ACG Enterprise from Team System
• Ad Hoc Enterprise by Zucchetti
• Ad Hoc Infinity by Zucchetti
• Ark of Wolters Kluwer
• Arca Evolution produced by Wolters Kluwer
• Business Cube by NTS Informatica
• Easyone opensource productEmbryo of Team System
• Enterprise Range of Team System
• ERP company of Office Group
• Jgalileo di San Marco Informatics
• Infor LN di Infor
• Method of Team System
• Mexal by Passepartout
• Microsoft AX by Microsoft
• Microsoft Dinamycs 365 Business Central
• Ocean Wave of Edisoftware
• Oracle JD Edwards
• Oracle Netsuite
• Sage X3
• SAP Business One from SAP
• SAP S4/Hana from SAP
• Abbreviation Ultimate ERP of Delta Phi Abbreviation
• Starnet of Impresoft Group
• Starty by Impresoft Group
• Star4 of Impresoft Group
• Targhet Cross by Four Solutions
• Team System Enterprise from Team System

For our partners we have made available a guide to the creation of the connector between MES and ERP directly on our academy.qualitas.it