MES-ERP Integration Services
Real-time, ISA-95-aligned integration between your shop floor and your business system — work orders flow down, actuals flow up, and the books match the floor.
The most expensive gap in manufacturing IT is the one between MES and ERP. ERP says you produced 1,000 units; the floor produced 947 with 53 in scrap. ERP says inventory was consumed at 8am; MES says the kit landed at the work cell at 11. Closing that gap with batch jobs and overnight reconciliations is how plants end up with three sets of books that all disagree.
Volvsoft builds and deploys real-time MES-ERP integrations using ISA-95 patterns. Work orders, releases, and engineering changes flow from ERP to MES instantly. Completions, scrap, labor, and material consumption flow back the moment they happen on the floor. The financial books and the operational reality finally agree — and the same data feeds your OEE dashboards and predictive analytics without re-extracting from either system.
What you get
Bidirectional real-time sync
Sub-minute latency in both directions. Event-driven, not batch.
ISA-95 / B2MML aligned
Standard data models for production scheduling, performance, capability, and definition. Auditable architecture.
Resilient by design
Message queues, retries, dead-letter handling. Plant doesn't stop when WAN drops.
Engineering change propagation
BOM, routing, and document changes flow through with effectivity dates honored on the floor.
Scrap & rework genealogy
Lot/serial impact recorded against the original work order. ERP costing reflects actual yield.
Audit-grade event log
Every integration event is replayable, signed, and traceable. Built for FDA, AS9100, IATF audits.
ERPs and MES we integrate
We've built MES-ERP integrations across most major platforms in US manufacturing.
- ERP — SAP ECC, S/4HANA, Oracle EBS, NetSuite, Plex, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Infor (CloudSuite, M3, LN), Epicor (Kinetic), IQMS, Mapics
- MES — Aegis FactoryLogix, iBase-t Solumina, Plex MES, Wonderware MES, Rockwell PharmaSuite, FactoryTalk ProductionCentre, custom
- Custom MES — we've built and integrated custom MES platforms when off-the-shelf doesn't fit
- Hybrid — partial off-the-shelf MES with custom modules where the vendor falls short
Common integration patterns we deploy
Real-time integration is a specific architectural commitment, not a feature you toggle. We use proven patterns from the ISA-95 reference architecture and adapt them to your specific systems.
- Event-driven via message broker (Kafka, RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus, MSMQ)
- Idempotent message handlers — replays and out-of-order delivery don't break state
- Outbox pattern for transactional event publishing from ERP and MES
- Domain-aligned canonical model — neither ERP's nor MES's schema dominates
- Saga/choreography for cross-system workflows that span minutes or hours
When integration fails (and how we fix it)
Most failed MES-ERP integrations share the same root causes. Diagnosing those before the rebuild saves the next year.
- Batch jobs masquerading as 'real-time' (the actual SLA is 4-24 hours)
- Tight coupling — every ERP customization breaks the MES sync
- No replay capability — when a message is lost, the systems silently drift
- Missing master data alignment — same item has 3 different IDs across systems
- No observability — operations doesn't know there's a problem until accounting calls
Frequently asked questions
How long does a typical MES-ERP integration take?
Initial production-line scope: 10-16 weeks. Full plant rollout: 4-9 months depending on the number of work centers, transactions per shift, and master-data alignment work needed up front.
Do you replace existing integrations or build new ones?
Both. We've replaced fragile file-drop integrations with event-driven architecture, and we've built net-new for plants commissioning their first MES alongside an existing ERP.
What about iDOCs, BAPIs, and SAP-specific connectors?
Yes. We use iDOCs and BAPIs where they're the right tool, and modern OData/REST APIs where SAP exposes them. The architecture decision is per-message-type, not whole-system.
Can the integration run on-prem?
Yes. We support fully on-prem, fully cloud, and hybrid topologies. Plants with regulatory or DoD constraints typically run integration on-prem with cloud only for analytics.
Related solutions
Other Volvsoft platforms US manufacturers commonly pair with this one.
Industries we serve
Manufacturing verticals where Volvsoft has shipped production systems for US clients.
Ready to talk to a manufacturing software team?
Book a free 30-minute call. We'll scope your platform.
- Email: sales@volvsoft.com
- Phone: +1 415-729-8811
