Overcoming the barriers of effective implementation of manufacturing execution system in pursuit of smart manufacturing in SMEs

Manufacturers, especially SMEs, are increasingly adopting digitalization to improve their agility to respond to the fluctuating market dynamics and to be transparent. To achieve sustained competitiveness, SMEs are shedding their reluctance to invest in technologies like Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics. Further, Manufacturing Execution System (IVIES) can serve as the intelligence hub, integrating product lifecycle with manufacturing, augmenting the IoT investments to orchestrate their facilities to be aligned to deliver what the customer needs. MES is a pivotal function integrating virtual and physical worlds and that makes it worthy of deeper examination. Integrated Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) is the evolved state of standalone MES, and it consolidates production processes to facilitate quality management, scheduling, manufacturing execution and more. The motivation of this research is to study the potential barriers of implementing MOM/MES that reduces its effectiveness and it has three goals. Firstly, the current knowledge associated with MOM/MES needs to be examined to derive its relevance, functions and benefits. Secondly, potential barriers of MOM/MES are to be identified that can reduce its effectiveness. Thirdly, approaches need to be established to overcome the barriers and improve the overall value of the initiative. SMEs cannot afford delayed returns on their digital investments; therefore, it is crucial to mitigate the barriers of implementing MOM/MES. This study resulted in calling attention to five barriers and its corresponding mitigations - constructive closed-loop, cross-functional integration, flexible operations orchestrations, high-availability cloud connection and insightful data contextualization. Most barriers discussed in the past studies can be classified as readiness related, i.e. funding, expertise, compatibility, priority, capacity, security, whereas the barriers discussed in this research paper are directly related to implementation. Knowing the barriers and its mitigation approaches, manufacturers can now pre-empt measures to neutralize the challenges and make MOM/MES adoptions successful. (C) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.