Case Study: “Greenfield” MES Integration Deli Meat Facility TEC Systems Group Planning and Coordination Results in Early, Under Budget Completion

Customer’s Challenge

Based on TEC’s successful completion of a “MES Ready” retrofit at another facility, a major food client selected TEC to coordinate design and documentation of OEM equipment and Manufacturing Execution System (MES) interfaces to implement various MES use cases in a “Greenfield” facility.

From the outset of the project, the client wanted to implement MES using a structured approach to avoid equipment integration issues later in the project. The challenge was to ensure that the numerous OEMs that were providing equipment for the new facility would develop the customized control software for that equipment to support the MES use cases.

TEC Systems Group Solution

TEC Systems Group was selected to provide the plant software interface specifications and Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) documents for each OEM.

To do this, TEC:

• Divided the plant into process areas based upon the MES use cases.
• Created a MES to data concentrator interface document for each process area.
• Created an OEM to data concentrator interface document for each process area.
• Wrote the data concentrator program and FAT documents for OEM testing early in project.
• Implemented the data concentrator to MES interface using the MSSQL /PLC appliance.

Customer’s Outcomes

As a result of this up-front planning and coordination, the startup of the overall plant was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.