We have a pretty stable home-grown MES system that we’ve been using for over 20 years.
Needless to say, it’s in need of an upgrade. Our process isn’t entirely unique, but the same part number can take hundreds of different routes on the way to becoming finished product.
The question here is whether we should use something like Sepasoft, or whether we should more-or-less port the existing MES into Ignition. It seems clear to me what would need done to port the old MES into Ignition, but I have no idea what a switch to Seapsoft would entail. In my mind, it has it’s own schema, and thus, everything that relies on current MES schema would need refactored?
Any opinions on whether the costs of Sepasoft would outweigh the benefits?
I guess you will have more experience by now to do a comparison.
This is definitely one question many customers ask these days.
Please share your success or learnings. Surely will help someone.
I feel the main advantage of Sepasoft is the database structure, and an object model to perform/save operations and track lots. You'll still do a lot of scripting. And if you're dealing with lots that may go negative (Qty < 0) because your physical qty/weight tracking isn't perfect, you'll have a few headaches.
You can easily compare the two, just install the Sepasoft modules and spend a few days trying to do basic tasks in it.
Please report back, I'd be glad to see someone reflect on this.
We are trying to use Sepasoft, we have multiple different product, in multiple database, with different approach. Pros and Cons for me, right now, are linked, as the Cons, will be Pros in the long run. We need to change our data to match the datastructure, but at the end, we will have a single structure for everything. More time needed to move the data, but less time needed on everything else, as you can use what is there. More time to explains the new dev how the structure work, but less time to explain when we work on a different product. More time to develop a screen, but no more screen per product.