What are the differences between ERP system and MES?

Enterprise ERP system and MES are an important combination for enterprises to achieve overall management planning. The former lies in the overall management and control of the entire enterprise and the group enterprise, and the latter focuses on the management of the workshop site. The two seem to be quite the same, but in actual management There is still a difference. Specifically, there are the following aspects:

Differences in the scope of management

ERP is the management of the entire enterprise or enterprise group business, while the management of MES is aimed at the workshop or production branch. Even the most complete MES system, for the entire enterprise, only provides a relatively narrow perspective, lacking the breadth and depth of data required for management and decision-making.

Different management objects

ERP is the management of the entire operating resources (human, financial, and material) of an enterprise, emphasizing the unification of logistics and capital flow, which is the so-called “integration of business and finance.” The management of MES is more concentrated on production site resources, namely equipment, processes, materials, etc. To

Differences in management content

ERP manages the internal value chain and supply chain of the entire enterprise, that is, sales, procurement, production, inventory, quality, finance, human resources, etc., emphasizing the integration of all these businesses, and emphasizing the planning (sales plan, production plan, purchase plan, etc.) Coordination and control; MES mainly manages the execution of production, including production quality, production operation scheduling, and production performance feedback. To

Different management timeliness

ERP has a relatively wide time range for planning and business management, taking annual, quarterly, monthly, ten-day or weekly and daily as the unit; due to the need for production site management and control, the management of MES is more detailed and manages to days, shifts, and hours. Under the guidance of the long-term plan generated by the ERP system, MES conducts short-term production planning and scheduling, monitoring, resource allocation, and optimization of the production process based on the real-time production data collected by the underlying control system.

It can be seen from the above four points that MES and the company’s ERP system are not only different, but also highly related. As long as the two are highly integrated and each perform its own duties, it can bring the best work efficiency and economic benefits to the company.