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Choosing an MES Application Maintenance Delivery Model and Provider

Outsourcing the management of MES application maintenance to a highly skilled services provider is low-risk and foolproof.

Friday, November 10, 2023
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MES solutions need continuous monitoring and systematic upgrades to ensure they meet your ever-evolving business requirements. An error or a non-conformance won’t fix itself, and the system won’t simply upgrade of its own accord. The introduction of new MES enhancements can also be challenging.

That is why we recommend outsourcing the MES Application Maintenance to an experienced service provider. Aside from doing all the heavy lifting for you, the service provider will also assess and plan for mitigating risks and reducing the unscheduled production downtime to a minimum during maintenance hours.

But before we elaborate, there are a few things you need to know first. So let us start right at the beginning.

WHAT IS MES APPLICATION MAINTENANCE?

At its most basic, MES Application Maintenance is a Level 2 support service that proactively prevents most solution errors from occurring and solves ones that do crop up as soon as possible. For the sake of efficiency, maintenance is usually performed under contract by a third-party company. Thus, application Maintenance falls into a category of “managed services” and typically takes the form of a service level agreement (SLA). The good news is that there are multiple MES Application Maintenance service delivery models available, and most are flexible and tailored to meet your exact requirements.

WHY DO I NEED MES APPLICATION MAINTENANCE?

No matter what industry you are in, the success of your business depends on healthy system infrastructure. The secret to maintaining a healthy manufacturing system lies in performing consistent hardware and software maintenance, daily monitoring, diagnoses, troubleshooting in emergencies, rapid recovery, and more. There is no denying this can be a tall order, which is why Andea offers MES Application Maintenance services.

We typically perform solution handover activities before providing support services, especially when another vendor has developed the initial MES solution. The central part of this process is known as the knowledge transfer, which gives our support team, or the Focus Team as we refer to it, a better understanding of your business and Apriso MES implementation. That is a crucial step that enables our team to effectively solve your production issues and enhance your current enterprise system.

Usually, our clients and team members jointly define the actual solution handover steps before the start of the project. This solution handover process involves four steps:

  1. Knowledge transfer preparation.

    Preparing for the knowledge transfer takes place off-site and gives our team a chance to review your documentation. It usually takes a week to complete, and the aim is to understand the scope of your project and gain an essential awareness of your business processes.


  2. Knowledge transfer workshop.

    That is a weeklong on-site workshop during which your team explains business processes and gives our team an overview of your existing MES application. Andea’s Focus Team and your internal team both participate in the workshop. The purpose of this workshop is to give our team a better understanding of your manufacturing processes, the MES implementation, and deployment architecture.


  3. Hands-on training.

    We follow the knowledge transfer workshop with a one-week off-site training. This training allows us to get some hands-on experience with your MES application.


  4. Support process and tools setup.

    Here, our Focus Team shares their insights and prepares tools that we will use during the delivery of the support services. We also create a support process document during this phase.

WHAT’S IN AN ANDEA SLA?

In simple terms, the Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a contract that outlines our commitment by highlighting the response and resolution times for emergencies, defining reporting and resolution procedures, and listing any other applicable terms and conditions.

THE BENEFITS OF ANDEA MES APPLICATION MAINTENANCE

There are three good reasons for making Andea your MES Application Maintenance partner – the time and cost savings, plus minimizing your risk.

What you get

When you commit to using a first-class MES Application Maintenance company like Andea, you’re bringing in a group of skilled, experienced consultants on board who are deeply committed to your success. That is why global manufacturers like Straumann, Südzucker, Magna, and Doosan Bobcat have leveraged our expertise to guide them on their journey toward manufacturing excellence. Factor in a wide array of services at affordable prices, and aside from forming a mutually beneficial partnership, you also have the peace of mind your business deserves.

What you save

Partner with Andea, and you will minimize the time and money spent on training your personnel required to provide MES Application Maintenance services. We also offer additional services like MES database support and 24/7 support availability with a dedicated support contact for effective communication. This approach helps ensure that you save on the labor costs and sleep well at night, knowing you have a team of experts available any time support is needed.

NOW, ABOUT THOSE COSTS…

The manufacturing market is constantly changing, and companies need to adapt rapidly to these changes. As a result, manufacturers are continually looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage. One way of doing that is by outsourcing some IT services that can lower costs and minimize risk. That is why Andea has three payment models designed to fit any budget and any set of needs while keeping the risk factor to a minimum.

Let’s take a closer look at them to give you an idea of what to expect.

Prepaid services

The Andea prepaid model includes:

  • A fixed number of support hours for a given period of time
  • The ability to purchase additional hours or transfer unused hours to a new support period (under certain conditions)
  • Coverage of incidents and problems, including CRs and health checks
  • System enhancements are available, and clients can utilize our Solution Architects and Andea’s Project Excellence team to design and test new functionality.
  • Andea also offers access to Apriso specialists who can augment your internal team.

Managed services

The standard version includes the following features:

  • Andea takes full responsibility for delivering MES application maintenance services – no need for the client to worry about staffing
  • Predictable monthly costs
  • Proactive system monitoring and health checks
  • An agreed limit on number of incidents per month/week
  • Recommended for clients who know or can anticipate their average support load
  • System enhancements / Change Requests are typically not included
  • SLA requirements mainly drive support cost

Pay-As-You-Go

The Andea pay-as-you-go model is ideal for smaller clients with more conventional, less complex solutions. Clients pay an intro fee and are then billed only for the services they use. Should they need support, our team will be on call for them, but they will be billed only for the number of hours they use per month. Of course, in a case when our services are not required, the client will not be charged for that period. Additional benefits include:

  • A low entry cost
  • Detailed tracking of hours used
  • Coverage includes bug fixing, change requests, and health checks

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BUT DON’T JUST TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT

When you decide you need outstanding MES Application Maintenance, you should get in touch with us. Naturally, we think Andea is the best way to go. But we also have 50+ global clients who feel the same way. 

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