There are so few folk songs! Manufacturing systems require a new governance framework

This article is shared from Huawei Cloud Community " Industrial Internet Series (9): Folk Songs! Manufacturing Systems Need a New Governance Framework ", author: Yunqi MAE.

When the previous article introduced the status quo of the domestic manufacturing system MES/MOM market, it was analyzed that the current MES/MOM system products have a low degree of standardization, serious industry fragmentation, and a customized project delivery model, which leads to a low level of homogeneity in the market Competitive conditions, enterprise users, and service provider supply and demand are painful.

In recent years, with the significant reduction in the technical threshold for software development, the shift of the manufacturing model from "supply-pull" to "demand-pull", the blessing of capital hot money, and the fact that domestic business managers have become increasingly confident under the overall improvement of China's manufacturing industry, etc. Under these environmental factors, the traditional information architecture with the PLM/ERP/MES system as the core is being deconstructed at an accelerated rate. A number of single-point application vendors have emerged in China. "Management" background system, the traditional MES system that has not yet been standardized is not immune, and it is deconstructed and split along the planning layer/execution layer/control layer. Domestic top manufacturers of single-point applications can achieve more than 200 million in revenue, but the human efficiency is still low (more than 300,000), unable to make ends meet, and relying on capital to survive, so that investors of single-point SaaS applications are desperate enough to switch behaviors "Talk show actor" sent out the soul cry of "China does not need SaaS" in the "Snowball" community.

With the continuous change of the external environment, the complexity and scale of production management have also undergone great changes. Enterprises must be able to quickly respond to the diverse and uncertain needs of the market, and the rapid manufacturing of multiple varieties and small batches can provide products that can meet customer needs. product. Under this new normalized manufacturing model, do manufacturing companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, really need to purchase and use so many single-point applications? Is there a contradiction between the fragmentation of applications and the requirement of the front-end market to respond quickly to the back-end production of enterprises? The traditional ERP/MES needs to be transformed. Should it continue to be split up, or should it improve the refined operation management capabilities and user experience of single-point business modules while maintaining the "business integration" framework concept? These issues need to start with the software system Comprehensively consider the business value of the end customer and the cost of life cycle use.

The operation mode of the modern industrial manufacturing industry has changed from the early Ford "Gigafactory" as the benchmark, to the extension of professional division of labor, deconstruction and splitting into various upstream and downstream "single-point factories" that cooperate with each other, and in recent years, Tesla's "Superfactory" has reappeared. Superfactory mode. The architecture model of the information software industry has also gone through the transition from "software and hardware integrated centralized" to "software and hardware separated and distributed", and then returned to the "centralized" cloud computing form and "software and hardware integrated" intelligent products form. What has changed is the technical route and solution model, and what remains unchanged is the principle of meeting the needs of enterprise users while pursuing economical applicability.

Returning to focus on the architecture of the MES/MOM manufacturing system, we need to focus on the business environment background of the business sector it supports when re-architecting and designing the MES/MOM system:

Production is the core business of a manufacturing enterprise. The production link has always been the gathering place of various information and businesses. Almost all other business links of the factory are for the production of products. This essentially determines the MES that supports the production business. The /MOM system is the "place of the four wars", and there is complex information interaction and close business collaboration with systems supporting other business sectors.
In some industries of the "multi-variety and small-batch personalized customization" manufacturing mode, facing difficulties such as customized services with greater differences, smaller production batches, unpredictable supply chain changes and interruptions, MES/MOM systems need Ability to adapt to rapid change.
With the challenges faced by the manufacturing industry such as labor issues, the acceleration of automation in the production process is promoted, and the information interaction between the business plan execution layer and the automation equipment control layer tends to be real-time. MES/MOM systems need to be able to support data between such heterogeneous systems Stream in real time.
Even in the same enterprise, under different product types, different technological processes or different manufacturing modes, there are certain differences in the requirements for production execution, operation and control. MES/MOM systems need to be able to flexibly adapt to this difference.

Based on the business background of the above points, we examine how to re-deconstruct MES/MOM systems and build a new sustainable operation and governance framework.

(1) The common architecture idea based on "microservice modularization" in the industry

Based on the "micro-service" technical architecture, it is currently the mainstream practice in the industry to split and reconstruct MES/MOM systems. There are three common ideas:

Process-oriented reconstruction: Inherit the ISA95 architecture, split into multiple micro-service applications according to business links such as planning/production/quality/warehousing, and then integrate them with each other through internal and external API integration platforms.

MES system architecture diagram of a well-known industrial Internet manufacturer

Object-oriented deconstruction: It is advocated to deconstruct and split according to production factor objects such as "human, machine, material, method, safety, environment, and test". Each production factor provides some single-point applications or integrates into existing applications. Integration platforms, microservices, containerization, workflow engines, etc. integrate them with each other. (Related author's point of view: kill MES )
The middle route: It is advocated to extract and reconstruct the master data objects of manufacturing resources such as "people, machines, materials, and methods" into standard data model services, and then split and reconstruct them into multiple single-point applications for each business link in the production process. API orchestration tool to serialize the information flow between single-point applications.

MES/MOM system split architecture diagram based on master data sharing

The above three architectural ideas are essentially the same. Through the new "micro-service, containerization" technical framework to reconstruct the traditional single information architecture system, trying to split the MES system with a traditional architecture that is heavy and iterative and slow, and make it light and agile. , the author believes that these methods are more technical improvements. Facing the business environment background of the MES system introduced above, there are the following two unsolvable problems:

Close collaboration between business links and strong network coupling are indispensable : each business link in the production link from plan management, process execution to equipment control drives and restricts each other, and each business link is not completely linear in front and back, and needs to form a sustainable improvement In order to quickly respond to the needs of the front-end market. The essence of the microservice framework is to realize the "high cohesion and low coupling" of complex application system modularization, which requires the business coupling relationship of each single-point application module to be as low as possible. For production and manufacturing management, each business link is a strong coupling relationship and is indispensable. After splitting into multiple single-point microservice applications, the coupling relationship between applications becomes more complicated, the cost of application testing/deployment/governance becomes higher, the microservice framework does not give full play to its advantages, and the key has not been resolved business problem. The post-operation and maintenance of the microservice framework is more complicated than traditional single applications, and the requirements for manufacturing factory customers are too high, and it is beyond the capabilities of most integrated service providers and consulting companies.
Boundary problems of each single-point application manufacturer, difficulty in continuous operation and maintenance upgrade: MES/MOM system planning and scheduling/production execution/quality inspection/warehousing management/logistics execution/equipment maintenance, etc., if these business links are split into multiple single-point applications There is two-way data integration and business collaboration between these application services. On the one hand, this conflicts with the microservice framework's principle of "decoupling as much as possible and one-way dependence". On the other hand, before the split, the integration and testing of these business modules was an internal matter of a single system vendor, but once it is split into multiple single-point application services, then this integration becomes a matter between multiple external third-party suppliers. Collaboration between any changes will become very complex. Because of frequent information interaction and close collaboration in various business links in the production process, the boundaries between different suppliers' applications are not clear enough. Such collaboration often touches the interests of certain suppliers. At this time, technical or non-technical integration problems, artificial or non-artificial cooperation problems will not only hurt the integration service provider, but also the enterprise itself will pay a lot of useless costs.

(2) References for new framework ideas

The core of the MES/MOM production system is the efficient and close coordination between the modules of each business link driven by the business process, to meet the individual needs of the enterprise and the future expansion needs. For MES and MOM, what is more valuable is not to split according to the business links or production elements of the production process, but to build an integrated business application based on a unified data and application platform base while layering and expanding at the framework level: The platform basic model layer/industry extension layer/enterprise extension layer truly solves the problems of efficient and close collaboration between different business modules of MES/MOM production systems, rapid system customization, and low-cost sustainable upgrade operation and maintenance.

A New Frame Idea of MES/MOM Production System

Basic technology platform: solve the problem of architecture and technology unification, shield technical details and complexity, complete key basic capabilities, and provide related capabilities for zero/low-code extension development to improve the scalability and flexibility of the entire system.
MES/MOM application platform: solve the problem of providing common modules covering the entire business process of manufacturing operations, so as to maximize reuse and scalability, meet common needs, and do appropriate "modeling" abstract packaging to meet cross-organizational collaboration on data standard consistency requirements, while shielding the complexity of internal business details, ensuring the depth of capabilities to support the achievement of business function goals, and avoiding evolution bottlenecks in complex scenarios.
Industry expansion application : Based on the basic functional model of the platform layer, it is expanded for various subdivided industries to meet the common needs of specific industries, realize the deep cultivation of subdivided fields, and thus better create value for customers in subdivided fields.
Enterprise extended application: Customized development for a single customer based on industry extended application to meet the individual needs of a specific enterprise customer.

Among them, the first two layers have high requirements on technical capabilities and product power/brand power, and require a lot of investment. It is recommended to be developed by a powerful company in the industry. The latter two layers can be undertaken by integration service providers and implementation service providers with Know How and commercial resources in subdivided industries, so that they can divide labor well, give full play to their respective advantages, quickly establish a benign market ecosystem, and enhance commercial value.

(3) Suggestions for SMEs

For small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, there is generally a lack of key basic digital capabilities and corresponding digital talent pools, making it difficult to complete overall planning and system selection by themselves, and it is easy for various business departments to adopt "bottom-up, fighting on their own, treating headaches and footholds" Build multiple single-point business application systems in the way of pain and healing. It is very difficult to integrate these single-point applications from different manufacturers in the later stage. After the enterprise develops, many applications have to be discarded, and the cost and time are very high. It is recommended that small and medium-sized enterprises start from solving the pain points of business and management, aiming at economy and practicality, they should focus on the business itself, try to choose a mature, integrated and scalable application platform, and gradually build a digital production system starting from the core business, avoiding going it alone. fight.

(4) Introduction to HUAWEI CLOUD Digital Factory MOM Platform

Huawei itself is a large-scale manufacturing enterprise with "multi-factories, multi-product process types, and multi-production modes". In the past few years, Huawei has built an intelligent manufacturing system that meets multiple business lines and multiple production modes. The practice of the system and the study of mature foreign production management software, and the corresponding abstract packaging of products, have created a set of digital factory MOM platforms specially oriented to the production and manufacturing scenarios of small and medium-sized enterprises. The platform provides the ability to rapidly develop and deliver production digital systems, and taking into account the differentiated needs of different processes in different industries, it chooses to hand over the last mile of applications to enterprise developers or ecological partners, supporting growing small and medium-sized enterprises or ecological partners. Based on a unified manufacturing digital platform base, the key basic capabilities of digital upgrades are quickly completed, and an agile and flexible production digital system is realized that is independently constructed and continuously evolved.

Product framework diagram of Huawei Cloud Digital Factory MOM platform

Based on the abstract encapsulation of Huawei's smart manufacturing practices, the Huawei Cloud Digital Factory Platform has created 9 types of factory application model configurators, allowing enterprise developers or industry partners to quickly generate and adjust models for different industry segments through graphical configuration. The production management system has proved through practice that the construction cycle of business applications can be iterated from the original monthly to weekly iterations, and the overall online cycle can be accelerated by more than 3 times. The 9-type application model configurator supports expansion and adjustment at three levels of industry, enterprise, and business organization to flexibly meet the individual requirements of production management systems for different processes of different companies in different industries, and greatly reduce the need for small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises to build digital production systems. implementation and operation and maintenance costs.

On top of the MOM platform layer, the HUAWEI CLOUD digital factory platform is oriented to multiple key industries and cooperates with a number of high-quality ecological partners to transform the rich industry digital service experience of ecological partners into manufacturing digital applications and provide enterprise customers with out-of-the-box industry expansion. The application allows enterprises to quickly complete and improve digital management experience based on industry best practices. In later use, enterprises can use the easy-to-learn and easy-to-use application expansion and construction capabilities provided by the platform to continuously improve the production digital system.

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