Europe
MESA activities in Europe have grown significantly over the last year. In 2008, MESA held its second annual P2E European Conference which was held in Prague, Czech Republic.
MESA has recently elected to expand the MESA Europe Board to include the regions of Africa and the Middle East (EMEA). The EMEA Board consists of the following officers:
Jan Snoeij, Logica - Chairman
Karl Schneebauer, MPDV - Vice Chairman
Mike James, ATS International - Treasurer
View the full list of MESA EMEA Board Members here.
MESA Working Groups in Europe
MESA has formed International Working Groups for its manufacturing and solution provider members in selected European regions. The main objective of these groups is the exchange of knowledge and experience in applying MES. In addition to the general MES topics, typical European subjects are:
- Regulations in labor management and control in Europe;
- EU Food regulations related to documentation needs and traceability;
- Concepts and definitions of quality management and quality assurance;
- When--and how-- to apply FDA regulations in European manufacturing;
- Multi-language environment needs in multinational organizations in Europe.
Netherlands and Belgium
On March 2, 2010 the MESA Dutch / Belgium Working Group meeting was hosted by Tata Steel / Corus in The Netherlands. As usual the meeting was held at a manufacturer's site and a very good place for both a formal and informal exchange of experiences in the MES field. Reinoud Visser (Atos Origin), chair of the Dutch/Belgian Working Group committee and member of the MESA EMEA Board, opened the meeting and welcomed everybody on behalf of Tata Steel / Corus. First points on the agenda were some MESA highlights such as the upcoming EMEA conference in Germany, MESA's strategic initiatives and the Educational Program which is driven by Peter van Vliet (SAP) and Mike James (ATS). Fred Vreeburg from Tata Steel / Corus continued and gave an overview of MES at their site in the Netherlands. After that, Paul Koper and Leon van Rooijen from Corus Packaging Plus (CPP) gave an overview of 20 years of MES History at the Dutch site and an outlook of the next five years to come. Then a plant tour was planned and coordinated by Jack Suurland, manager ICT of the CPP plant. We had a very interesting look at the production facilities of one of the largest Packaging Steel producers of the world.
To see pictures from the meeting, click here.
For more information on the MESA Netherlands and Belgium Working Group, please contact:
Reinoud Visser, Atos Origin
Reinoud.visser@atosorigin.com
Wim de Bruyn, Hogeschool Gent
wim.debruyn@hogent.be
Frans Jan Wijma, SC Johnson
fwijma@scj.com
Germany, Austria and Switzerland
In Germany and the other German speaking regions in Europe, there are several organizations active with MES, like VDI, VDMA, NAMUR, etc. Instead of adding new activities independently, MESA elected to cooperate with these organizations. The expert forum "MES 2007: Steigerung der Produktivität" (MES 2007: Improving Productivity) organized by VDI and supported by MESA on March 28 in Darmstadt was a nice example of this. With over 130 attendees, it was a great success!
For more information, contact:
Karl Schneebauer, MPDV
k.schneebauer@mpdv.de
Ireland
MESA Ireland held a very successful one-day conference recently with the ISPE organisation, which was attended by approximately 70 people from many different industries. During the conference, members of MESA Ireland made presentations to the audience, which received terrific feedback and appreciation from all that attended.
Delivering Benefits from MES
Exception Reporting in Life Sciences
MES in BioTech
Paperless Systems
MESA Ireland 2010 Plan
David Sheppard, Bausch & Lomb
Irish Working Group Chair
t: +353 872247837
david.sheppard@bausch.com
France
For more information on the MESA France Working Group, please contact:
Arnaud David, Logica
French Working Group Chair
t: +33 47 2821100
Arnaud.David@Logica.com
United Kingdom
| Event: | February 23, 2010: 13:00 GMT MESA UK Working Group Meeting |
| Location: | Britvic Soft Drinks Limited Drayton House, Drayton Road Shirley, Solihull, West Midlands B90 4LE |
| Details: | 1:00 - Arrivals
1.30 - Introductions and agenda E-mail Steve Diggines, UK Working Group Leader, to RSVP: |
The MESA UK working group met for the first time on the 18th November in Leeds to discuss how to move things forward in the UK. The event was well attended by UK representatives of the major MES and automation suppliers and by several of the major UK based manufacturing companies.
The event started with an overview of the wider MESA organisation. Based on information provided by Jan Snoeij, Steve Diggines and Paul Ashmore gave an overview of the MESA organisation and activities.
There followed a group discussion on Manufacturing System Strategies. Rob Guest (Reckitt Benckiser) and Colin Sirman (CCE) kicked off the discussion with an overview of their respective strategies. The different approaches being taken and what worked well in the different companies led to an interesting discussion on different strategies and what is right in which situation.
Before breaking for drinks, the group finished the meeting by discussing how the UK working group should move forward. The group discussed what they wanted to get out of the UK working group and what they thought the key objectives of the working group should be. The group agreed 4 key objectives - to share experience, provide advice, promote manufacturing IT, and provide access to information. It was agreed that the key first step was information gathering and several of the attendees took specific actions to investigate different areas of MESA and other areas that the group may be potentially interested in.
Going forward, the group agreed that there should be quarterly face to face meetings and initially monthly conference calls to get things moving. A number of practical actions were identified for communication including a contact list and the set up of a group on "linked-in" for communication.
Overall, everybody was positive and enthusiastic and committed to making a success of the UK Working Group going forward.
For more information on the MESA United Kingdom Working Group, please contact:
Steve Diggines, STICorp
United Kingdom Working Group Chair
t: +44 (0)7814 490699
sdiggines@sticorp.com
Israel
The Committee has identified Israel's technologically advanced industry as a good platform for initiating this activity. Leading manufacturers from a variety of market segments in Israel are showing an increased interest in Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), with several companies already in the process of implementing an organization wide MES solution.
The objectives of the Israeli MESA Working Group are to share best practices of MES between end users, consultants, System Integrators and Vendors; Learn and adopt industry standards such as S95, S88 etc.; Feedback special needs concerning the Israeli market to MESA International, thus drive better alignment of needs and solutions; and enable MES "ambassadors" to better promote MES in their own organizations.
The Israeli MESA Working Group will meet on a quarterly basis, and share knowledge and thoughts on key topics of interest, such as: MES vs. ERP: What are the boundaries?; The value of MES: real life examples, how to justify an investment in MES? Methodology for successful implementation; Driving a behavioral change in the organization, following an MES implementation and more.
December 2008 Meeting
The 3rd MESA Israeli Working Group meeting took place on December 22, at the office of General Engineers in Netanya, Israel. Some new members (from an MES consulting firm and End User companies) as well as existing members joined this meeting to discuss the expected effect of the global recession on the investment in MES in Israel. It was widely agreed, that the complete effect of the slowdown is yet to be assessed. However, the group believes that the current circumstances will actually have a positive effect: As investment in MES is very often driven by Operations Managers in need for accurate and timely information from their shop floor processes, and as the need to improve operational performance will rise in times of recession, it is expected that more and more companies will search for solutions to enable continuous improvement of their performance measures. These solutions might be found in upgrading their homegrown MES systems, but may also lead to an investment in new MES solutions. Those solutions, though, will need to be focused, dedicated and easy to implement - to enable a quick ROI and an affordable implementation.
The working group members then joined a conference call with Mr. John Dyck, MESA International's Chairman and Chairman of MESA's Strategic Initiatives Working Groups. John took the group through an overview of the tremendous work done at MESA International to develop guidebooks for five key Strategic Initiatives.
Finally, the group members lit candles to celebrate Hanukah, and enjoyed some delicious doughnuts - all part of the holiday spirit...
For further details and to join the MESA Israel Working Group - please contact ron.yosefi@gefanuc.com.
June 2008 Meeting
MESA Israel Working Group is continuing to gain members and leverage the group for sharing experience and exchanging thoughts on MES. The group met on June 23 at the Haifa site of Shemen Industries Ltd., for yet another interesting and successful meeting. Shemen's VP of Supply Chain introduced the implementation of MES, based on GE Fanuc Proficy solution, which is focused on increasing productivity and providing Shemen management with "a pair of eyes into the process." Although this implementation is in its early phases, it is already helping Shemen to "produce more with less staff", hence supporting this Food Oil manufacturer with its strategic initiative of continuous performance improvement. The group exchanged ideas on how to convince internal management to invest in MES , such as: Align this investment with a strategic initiative; get mid and top level management to "sign off" improvement percentage they expect to achieve to ensure their involvement in the implementation; and slice the implementation project into digestible sizes as opposed to attempting to implement it all at once. The group also expressed the challenge of driving a change in the organization following the MES implementation, and discussed various approaches to enforcing discipline of data collection and analysis. The group also discussed how to expand and recruit more members, including manufacturers/producers, system integrators, vendors and consultants, and concluded the meeting with a site tour of the manufacturing process at Shemen. For further details and to join the MESA Israel Working Group - please contact ron.yosefi@gefanuc.com.
Download the meeting minutes from the June Working Group Meeting.
Russia
On Nov-24, 2008 the first meeting of MESA Russian working group took place on the premises of Invensys Process Systems Russia. Sixteen employees of international MES vendors, leading Systems Integrators and Universities discussed the purpose and goals of the working group - how it could contribute to the prosperity of MESA International, Russian industrial companies and Russian Federation. As a result of the discussion, the following was decided:
Purpose of MESA-ru (a short informal title of Russian working group, used by the members):
To popularize MESA as such and to share MESA knowledge on innovation, best practices, operations-centric enterprise solutions among industrial companies of Russia.
Objectives for 2009:
1. To build up an active working group.
2. By end of 2009 to increase # of MESA members from Russia from 28 to 100.
3. By end of 2009 to translate 4-5 MESA articles into Russian and to place them in mesa.org data base.
4. To organize the first MESA conference in Russia in October 2009.
5. To develop and maintain the MESA.ru web-site.
Today the working group consists of 6 activists and each of us is focusing on a particular objective. The main objective which will support achievement of all others is the first International MES conference in Moscow.
THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL MES CONFERENCE IN MOSCOW
'Enabling Technologies for Operations Management'
TARGET AUDIENCE: General management and C-level technological management.
DATE AND PLACE: 22-23 of October, 2009, Business-hotel "Milan" (http://www.hotelmilan.ru/), Moscow, Russia.
PATRONAGE:
- MESA International, http://www.mesa.org
- Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, http://www.tpprf.ru
- Russian Federal Space Agency, http://www.federalspace.ru
Today's manufacturing enterprises face challenges beyond globalization and commoditization. The global financial meltdown, volatile raw materials markets and rising energy costs are just a few of the factors putting manufacturers squarely in the trenches in the battle to fight through the current global economic crisis.
The theme of the MESA's 2009 Moscow regional conference "Enabling Technologies for Operations Management" focuses on how companies can reduce and save costs, create compliance, transparency, visibility and increased agility.
At the conference, manufacturers will discuss the impact of their initiatives on short and long term savings and, where possible, documented ROI.
This regional conference provides an excellent opportunity for beginners and experts alike to learn how their peers are leveraging innovative information technologies to lower manufacturing risk, increase productivity, increase agility and improve quality. The presentations in the program will provide an excellent networking platform to exchange visions, trends and experience across the industries.
TRACKS:
- Modern trends of MES solution development
- MES solutions for discrete and batch manufacturing
- MES solutions for continuous manufacturing
- MES solutions of Russian software producers
- Analytical support of decision making
- Solutions for Quality Management and Production Lifecycle Management.
ROUND TABLE:
Collaboration of producers and the state during crisis times
Other Ways to Participate in the Conference:
- As an exhibitor - obtaining a platform for live communication with potential clients and partners;
- As a sponsor - full coverage of the target audience, business meetings planned in advance and active promotion of the company brand;
- As an advertiser - advertisement in the catalogue and at advertising and souvenir products.
ORGANIZING: By FORT-ROSS - a professional event organizer for IT businesses, http://www.fort-ross.ru/?page=about&lang=eng
For more information or to participate, contact Alexander Tunyatkin at a.tunyatkin@mesarussia.ru
or visit http://www.mesaconf.ru/?page=about&lang=eng
