A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) manages, monitors, and synchronizes the execution of real-time, physical processes involved in transforming raw materials into intermediate or finished goods. It coordinates this execution of work orders with production scheduling and enterprise-level systems. MES applications also provide feedback on process performance, and support component- and material-level traceability, genealogy, and integration with process history, where required. An MES enables you to manage all relevant resources related to manufacturing operations. These resources include machines, tools, carriers, labor skills, materials, procedures, and many other entities that you can configure to mimic and drive your operating model.
It is critical that operators allocate sufficient hardware to support MES application installations on a VM. The following sections provide examples of hardware and software requirement recommendations.