AI and MES: Why the Manufacturing Execution System Remains the Foundation of the Dark Factory

The vision of the Dark Factory—a fully autonomous production environment in which machines, equipment, and software systems make decisions independently—is gaining momentum thanks to the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. Autonomous production processes, intelligent assistance systems, and self-learning algorithms are considered the next stage of development in industrial manufacturing. But as the potential of AI grows, a key question arises: What role will the Manufacturing Execution System (MES/MOM) play in the future? For iTAC, the answer is clear: AI will not replace the MES—rather, the MES will become the indispensable foundation for the intelligent use of AI.

Long-term maturity development rather than a rapid transition to a final state

The “Dark Factory” is increasingly being discussed as the ideal model for fully autonomous production. In this future scenario, machines, equipment, and software systems make many decisions on their own and control production processes largely autonomously. How realistic is this vision?

«However, this is less about a final state that can be achieved in the short term and more about a long-term progression toward maturity. In highly standardized manufacturing environments, autonomous processes are increasingly becoming a reality. In many industrial companies, however, product variety, small batch sizes, and last-minute changes continue to define day-to-day production. The focus there is not on unmanned factories, but on intelligent collaboration between people, production systems, and AI,» says Martin Heinz, CEO of iTAC.

In this process, people are increasingly taking on management, oversight, and strategic roles, while AI supports them in analysis, root cause analysis, and decision-making.

AI Needs a Production Context

For AI to reliably analyze production processes, identify correlations, and derive well-founded recommendations for action, it requires far more than just large amounts of data. The production context is crucial: Which machine is processing which product? What materials were used? What process parameters were in effect? What quality specifications must be met? Only this context enables robust analyses and well-founded decisions.

This is precisely where the Manufacturing Execution System plays—and will continue to play—a central role. It controls and documents production processes, links machines, materials, employees, and processes, and thereby creates the production context that analytics and AI need to generate reliable insights and support informed decisions.

The future of manufacturing therefore lies not in replacing the MES with AI, but in the intelligent interaction between the two. While the MES controls and safeguards production processes, analytics solutions analyze production and machine data in near real time and identify opportunities for optimization. AI uses these insights to provide root cause analyses, recommendations for action, and assistance functions. Together, MES, analytics, and AI lay the groundwork for increasingly autonomous production.

Start with specific use cases

Many companies still launch their AI initiatives with a technology-driven approach. However, as Martin Heinz explains, a different approach is more successful: «The starting point shouldn’t be the question, »Where can we use AI?,’ but rather, ‘Which decision do we want to improve?’. Typical use cases include, for example, root cause analysis for quality issues, optimizing setup times, or helping employees quickly access production knowledge.”

Companies that already have a modern MOM or MES solution in place can put such applications into production much more quickly because the necessary process and production data are already available.

With solutions such as the iTAC.MOM.Suite manufacturing management system and the iTAC.CATi AI platform, iTAC is pursuing precisely this approach. The goal is to bring together production knowledge, real-time data, and artificial intelligence within a unified framework. This results in intelligent assistance systems that support employees while simultaneously paving the way for increasingly autonomous production. The Dark Factory can thus become a logical next step in the evolution of digitally connected production.

Source: www.itacsoftware.com

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/ki-und-mes-warum-das-manufacturing-execution-system-die-basis-der-dark-factory-bleibt/