Brooks sees lean, TPM as MES opportunities

In the semiconductor industry, Brooks Automation is one of the biggest suppliers of factory automation systems. But Brooks also wants to be known as a provider of manufacturing execution system (MES) software capable of supporting lean manufacturing in multiple verticals.

Joe Bellini, senior VP of Brooks' Software Systems Group, says Factoryworks3, Brooks' MES, has the analytics and real-time event management needed to support lean and Total Productive Manufacturing (TPM) efforts. The system's roots go back to Brooks' acquisition of FastTech in 1998, but Bellini says over the years, Brooks has enhanced the MES and paired it with real-time monitoring technology.

"Companies are trying to get to real-time management, and have had some success on the logistics execution side, but the process tends to break down at the manufacturing level," says Bellini. "Unless you look at semiconductors, most sectors have had limited access to real-time plant-floor information. What is changing is that real-time data is becoming available to a broader cross-section of discrete manufacturers."

Factoryworks now is on its third generation, featuring a thin-client architecture and use of Web services protocols, as well as more functionality for splitting production across multiple plants, says Bellini. Besides semiconductor, he says, Brooks targets with the MES include automotive and medical device.