Field notes for teams running Odoo.
Guides, comparisons, and how-tos on Odoo, ERP, and manufacturing systems.
Practical articles for the engineers and operators who work with Odoo and the systems around it.
A manufacturing execution system, almost always shortened to MES, is one of the more misunderstood pieces of software in a factory. It is described as essential by some manufacturers and as unnecessar...
Read postA manufacturer that has decided it genuinely needs a manufacturing execution system faces a crowded market and a lot of confident sales claims. This piece is a practical way to choose MES software, wr...
Read post"Manufacturing execution system" is a heavy phrase for a fairly simple idea. This is a plain, jargon-free explanation of what an MES is and what it does, for anyone who has met the term and wants it e...
Read postMES and ERP are two of the most confused terms in manufacturing software. They are sometimes presented as competitors, as though a manufacturer must pick one. They are not competitors. They do differe...
Read postThe benefits of a manufacturing execution system are easy to find in any vendor brochure, and brochures tend to flatten them into a list of promises. The benefits are real, but each one comes with a c...
Read postA manufacturing execution system has traditionally been on-premise software, running on servers inside the plant. As with most business software, a cloud option has appeared, and manufacturers now ask...
Read postProduction planning is the part of manufacturing that decides what gets made, when, and with what. Most manufacturers do it on spreadsheets and in the heads of a few experienced people, and most manuf...
Read postProduction scheduling is the sharp, detailed end of production planning. Planning decides what to make and roughly when; scheduling decides the exact sequence on the floor. This piece explains what pr...
Read postProduction planning and scheduling is often described in the abstract, which makes it sound more mysterious than it is. This piece walks through how it actually works, step by step, from a customer or...
Read postThe master production schedule, almost always called the MPS, is a term that appears whenever production planning is discussed and is rarely explained plainly. This piece explains what an MPS is and t...
Read postProduction planning and control, often shortened to PPC, is a phrase that bundles two related jobs into one term. Understanding it means seeing that it has two halves, the planning half and the contro...
Read postA manufacturer looking for production planning software finds a wide field: standalone planning tools, scheduling specialists, and the planning capability built into manufacturing ERPs. They are not a...
Read postIf a question keeps coming up in your operations, it might be worth a blog post.