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xMII-MES integration

Former Member
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Hi,

Has anyone worked on xMII-MES integration...

I'm exploring ways of connecting different MES softwares with xMII...

In case any of you have any idea about ways of integrating xMII and MES, plz let me know

Ur responses are valued...

Thanks,

Ajitha

Message was edited by:

Ajitha Buvan

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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Hello Ajitha. I'm the Integration Architect at Visiprise. We developed Visiprise Manufacturing, an MES for discrete manufacturing in particular assembly and fabrication. We done many interfaces to both shop floor machinary and to other applications like SAP ECC, CAPA systems, and PLM systems.

We've developed several interfaces to SAP ERP (4.6c+) via xMII 11.5 SR02. Our inbound interfaces (inbound to Visiprise) accept either IDOCs via xMII's IDOC listener (with a little bit extra logic to handle logging, monitoring, and reliable messaging); we can also accept the XML-form of IDOCs if SAP XI (or other middleware) is between the ERP and xMII. Our outbound interfaces use the JCO action and perform business functions like confirmations/scrap, manual backflush, and a bit more; we're adding new functionality all the time. We're also starting to utilize the new ES web services in ECC 6.0. The interfaces between xMII and the MES are all web services; both synchronous and asynchronous. Visiprise Manufacturing is a J2EE app, so we use JMS to support guaranteed delivery from Visiprise to xMII.

We have many machine interfaces including support for OPC, CNC/DNC, a few others, and our propriety interface. We're always looking for new, good shop-floor standards to support.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions, if I can.

-tim

Former Member
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Hi Tim,

I am reletivly new to the part of integration of xMII with MES. But only involved in visualization services. If you can explain in tecnincal terms of scenarios of pushing data to MES system and vise-versa that you have done that will be very usefull for SDN community.

Thanks,

Srinivas.

Former Member
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Hello Tim,

Thank you for your inputs.

From all your responses, I understand that Integration to any MES system greatly depends on the MES services and features.Usage of IDOCs, Web services or B2MML schemas are options available.....

Thanks for all your inputs.

In case any one has experiences on any MES integration, please share yours thoughts here.... that will be really helpful for all the beginners to this scenerio.

Thanks,

Ajitha

Message was edited by:

Ajitha Buvan

Former Member
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Hello Srinivas, I would have responded yesterday but for some reason my SDN account was locked and I couldn't log in.

Our current ERP-to-MES feeds involve sending MATMAS, BOMMAT, LOIROU, LOIPRO, CLFMAS, and a few others. The ERP is typically configured to send these upon saving their respective business object (material, BOM, routing, etc.) using change pointers, but that's not my expertise. In some cases, we supplement the data from the IDOCs with RFC calls - e.g. revisions on the material. We have a few other download feeds being developed now but since I don't yet know what will and won't be included in the next release, I won't mention them.

We use xMII to take the IDOCs using either the built-in IDOC listener or as a SOAP message to another xMII transaction. The IDOCs are persisted so if any connectivity or system failures occur, we can retry them later. Depending on the complexity of the mapping from IDOC to our MES object model, we may use only an XSLT to transform the IDOC or we may use a combination of the xMII BLS and our XSLTs to perform the transformations. Some data enrichment may take place using the xMII BLS - some is necessary for building some MES required fields that the ERP doesn't provide and others are deployment-specific.

The resulting XML is suitable to send to Visiprise Manufacturing - we wrap it with SOAP and call the appropriate VM web service. Note that VM requires WS-Security which puts authentication credentials in the SOAP header and, as of xMII 11.5 SR02, the xMII Web Service action doesn't support SOAP headers. We used the HTTP Post action and got creative with HTTP headers to inject the required SOAPAction header.

For the MES-to-ERP interfaces, we support the typical operation confirmation/scrap BAPI calls. We also provide manual backflush if desired. These are implemented by either synchronous or asynchronous web service calls from Visiprise Manufacturing to xMII. VM uses JMS internally to disassociate the user thread from the confirmation to support asynchronous handling. These confirmations are collected in xMII and batched according to the manufacturing style: for discrete manufacturing confirmations are batched by order; for repetitive manufacturing they're batched by production version. The appropriate BAPI is then called and status reported back to VM via a status/event notification web service.

When discussing these interfaces it easy to lose track of the bigger picture - the actual business scenarios you're trying to solve. SAP is the system of record of Materials, BOMs, Routings (not all the time!), and Orders. Visiprise Manufacturing, as the MES, is the system of record of all WIP (work in progress) and As-Built information (exactly what components were assembled into which finished products). Often the most valuable scenarios are those which require orchestration between both systems to produce an answer to questions like,

Q: "Where is Customer X's order?"

A: "3 units are assembled and packed, 1 is at Operation 0090, and 2 have not been started because component 123 is on back-order."

or,

Q: "Where is the component with serial number ABC and which customer received it?"

A: "Component with serial number ABC was assembled onto MES control number 999 on 3/17/2007 at 3:30PM by Joe P. MES control number 999 was marked with serial number XYZ and completed on 3/20/2007 and moved to warehouse 001 on 3/21/2007. It was shipped to Customer Z on 3/22/2007, ..."

and so on...

The existing IDOCs/BAPIs can answer these questions, but things start getting interesting when you explore SAP's new SOA push - in particular the ES architecture around MES. In my opinion, it's not all there yet, but I participated in the ES MES community workshop a few weeks ago and was encouraged that SAP was listening to our ideas. I look forward to the day when Visiprise Manufacturing and SAP web services reside together in the same registry/repository and are orchestrated via BPEL.

Former Member
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Hi Tim,

WoooW, I am really amazed with your experiance. I need to spend some time comfortably to understand your reply. Your note will definetly value added to SDN.

I may come back with more questions.

Thanks for your time.

Srinivas.

Former Member
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Hi Tim,

great response ....

Will come back with my doubts soon.

Thanks,

Ajitha

Former Member
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Hi Tim,

From your post understand that you have detailed knowledge on XMII.Need your help. I need to design the architecture for xMII integration with MES system.Have following doubts :

1>Can xMII (with required connectors) be directly connected to MES for data exchange ?

2> Why is XI system required to connect ERP system to xMII ?

3> How is xMII system connected to ERP ?

regards,

Pravash Raikar

Former Member
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Pravash,

To answer your Question:3, xMII has built in JCO connectors to connect to ERP system.

xMII-ERP connectivity can take place with BAPI\RFC call from xMII or using IDOCs which xMII can listen to.

Question 2:

xMII does not necessarily need XI to connect to ERP. xMII is more plant specific and when you have multiple plants it is always desirable to have XI that can connect multiple plant xMII systems to ERP. xMII is configured according to the plant and XI will act as a middleware connecting multiple systems to ERP

Question 1:

xMII communicates to MES using B2MML (in most cases). MES is capable of sending B2MML files with real time data from shop floor.xMII is configured to read these B2MML files.In some cases MES can also extend web services that can be used by xMII.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Ajitha

Former Member
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Hi Pravash,

#1: depends on the MES system. Visiprise supports several protocols, but our web services are the preferred interface methology. xMII supports calling web services out-of-the-box. It also supports FTP and XML over HTTP.

#2: XI is not required, but most of our larger customers already have it in-house and prefer the interfaces run through XI to give them another level of control.

#3: we use the JCO action in xMII to call SAP BAPI/RFCs

-tim

Former Member
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Dear Tim / Ajitha ,

Thanks for ur reply.

regards,

Pravash Raikar

Answers (2)

Answers (2)

Former Member
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Hi,

You can Integrete with different MES & Historian packegs with xMII via various connector avaliable in SAP xMII which help to post all your MFG data to SAP and Put SAP Data back to MFG system i have tried with Wonderware & GE Fanuc MES System

Vaibhav

Former Member
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Hi,

It depends on the MES System. We have connected serveral different MES systems.

Depending on the MES there are different possibilities.

We have encounter MES that only provide some API to store data in it. In this case we write some kind of Web Service based Interface that encapsulate the API functions. xMII can simply use the Web Service Action block to write and query data from the MES.

Some MES already provide Web Interfaces. In this case xMII can simply be connected using the different action block.

The third kind we encounter were MES using databased as interfaces. In this case we simply read and write the database tables.

Hope this helps.

Former Member
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Hi Martin,

Thank you for your response...

Do you have any document related to such integrations....

I have went through note 943237 that gives a list of xMII supported MES systems

(Camstar InSite, CIMNET InfoLink, Folders, DataSweep Advantage, Fastech FACTORYworks, Honeywell POMS, Mountain Systems Proficy, Wonderware InTrack)

But I dont really find any information on the xMII part...

If you have knowledge on integration of xMII to any of the above MES systems mentioned, plz let me know....

I value your inputs...

Thanks,

Ajitha

Former Member
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Hi Ajitha,

In MES(Manufacturing Execution Systems) used to design business process in manufacturing scenarios, like Process Order download, Production update those things. In general MES system follows the B2MML, B2CHML, S88/S95 standards. In xMII you can find those schemas in Referance documents.

I did a integration work with Simatic-IT which is a MES tool. For Simatic IT the front end is .NET, so you can transafer the data using the Webservices. Even for the case of Flex Net and other MES application they are also coming with Web Services and XML features. By using the schemas avialable in the xMII you can directly send in the same format the MES is expecting and vice versa.

I hope this information will give enough idea.

Thanks,

Rajesh

PS :Please award points if answer is useful.

Former Member
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Hi Ajitha,

sorry i have no experience with the MES systems mentioned in the notes.

In Central Europe there are a lot of other vendors of MES systems like Siemens, Werum and so on.

This systems are more common in Europe.

You should take a look at the documentation of the different MES systems. If you find any information about S95 standard, you should be able to integrate the MES with xMII like Rajesh mentioned (B2MML integrated in xMII).

Otherwise you have to found a different solution, this can also be MES depending.

Sorry that i can't help, don't know the MES systems in the notes 943237 well enough.