Manufacturing Execution System (MES)

The Manufacturing Execution System, also known as the Manufacturing Execution Controller, enables two-way IoT communication of manufacturing business information between IFS Cloud and machines in the production facility. This integration provides a new level of insight, control, and efficiency in the production system. IFS Cloud can be used as a standalone MES solution or integrated with third-party systems. The supported architecture primarily relies on external requests using ODATA REST APIs, with the exception of the ability to send start and stop messages outbound to an external machine.

A common practice is to employ an integration platform (middleware) as an intermediate communication broker. This platform can serve multiple functions, such as acting as a network load balancer, a network security layer or bridge, an IoT address repository, a message protocol converter, and a Machine Language Translator.

Permission Set and Service Account

Set up a custom permission set with the MES projections, or alternatively, use the predefined MANUF_EXECUTION permission set. Create an IAM client connected to a service account user, and then add the permission set to this account. Subsequently, include the service account in the required company and site.

This client ID and client secret are utilized in the authorization process when using the REST APIs. This ensures that access is restricted to the specified MES APIs and the services they provide.

Time Zone Aware APIs

Refer to Time Zone Aware APIs if you want to input and output time in the correct UTC format. If this features is not used, in the header of the API messages, the site time zone will be used to interpret the time. When registering a transaction with a Time Of Production and Time Zone awareness enabled; entering the Site (Contract) in the payload is mandatory.

Note

Please be advised that frequent calls to REST APIs may pose a potential risk of overburdening the network service. In instances where multiple transactions need to be registered within a short timeframe (minute) or at tighter intervals, it is advisable to consolidate the data into a single API call.