Recently, the On Time Edge team examined some effects of organization culture on manufacturing execution system (MES) decisions. In response to our article, “MES Tug of War: The Battle Continues,” Farukh Naqvi succinctly lays out ISA’s ongoing work to develop a framework and methodology for “solving conflict among the three diverse stakeholders” of an MES effort. While the ISA-95 framework delivers perspective on system integration and the thousands of actions and data points throughout a manufacturing enterprise, it also inadvertently reveals the need for enterprise-wide cross-functional collaboration.
Ultimately, a manufacturing company’s effectiveness in realizing its vision and goals is the direct result of its ability to successfully collaborate across roles, levels, and functions throughout the enterprise. Collaboration must span the organization and bridge organizational clusters. While the ISA-95 framework contributes to bringing to the forefront exclusive operating unit requirements within a manufacturing organization (IT; operations, engineering, etc.), it also inadvertently reveals functional “fault lines” that manufacturers must bridge. However, the goal of collaboration is to build permanent bridges, not organizational “drawbridges.”
With fault lines exposed and when combined with immature collaboration processes, solution selection can quickly become an exercise in trying to satisfy as many individual expectations as possible. Cross-functional project teams become bogged down with entrenched “turf” demands rather than due consideration for clear strategic and tactical requirements to meet organizational goals. The implicit project goal/charter becomes “let’s get this thing over as quickly as possible by trying to make everybody happy” or an elaborate quid pro quo bartering exercise. The question of how MES can best support strategic and tactical goals gets trampled into the ground.
Not surprisingly, when uncertainty sets in and the organization doesn’t meet deliverables, up goes the drawbridge.
Ultimately, successful MES design and implementation must span the organization and bridge fault lines. By developing and applying mature collaboration practices, an organization can:
The hinge to turn this is a more in-depth understanding around organizational “collaboration.” Effective organizations have established norms that orient and guide the collaborative process. In the case of an MES system, a collaborative process would be in place for guiding principles and norms for “critical decision” projects. This guide would govern, for example, the type of team to be formed, competencies required, expectations around the project charter, and the rules of governance. A critical decision team is distinct from a tactical project team or an emergency response team, for example. (Northwestern University’s Professor Leigh Thompson’s work is invaluable in shedding light on architectonic foundations of building an effective collaboration process).
MES projects are, by their very nature, hybrid projects. While they are, for the most part, tactical (L3-L1), they encompass strategic elements within L4, and depending on company size may include L5. As a result, MES requires a strong corporate commitment and vision. This vision is a “north star” to guide the project team. Several takeaways from Thompson’s work prove highly relevant for MES projects:
Ultimately, a company can only meld clearly defined functional requirements into positive outcomes using collaboration framework best practices tailored to its maturity level. Best practice collaboration is both the salve and the suture that binds the organization and the mechanism to successfully realize corporate goals and objectives such as MES implementation.