BPMN and DMN for Easy Customizing of Manufacturing Execution Systems

Abstract

Manufacturing execution systems (MES) are the central integration point for the shop floor. They collect information about customer orders from ERP systems (enterprise resource planning), calculate the best plans for production orders and their assignment to machines and monitor the execution of these plans. It is therefore also the central data hub on the shop floor and communicates progress back to the ERP system. However, each company and production facility is a bit different and it is a hard decision to find a good compromise between standard products with a long customization period, industry-specific solutions with less customization need and company-specific solutions with long development times. This paper proposes the use of business process management (BPM) as a means for easy graphical customization of production processes that lead to immediately executable workflows (zero code development) or need very few code additions to get executable (low code development).