The project is part of the industries that produce graphite and carbon fibre. The customer owns several worldwide plants specialized in these two large production areas, in which the graphite produced also becomes raw material for the carbon fibre production plants.
The project currently covers the needs of 4 plants (one in America, one in Scotland, and two in Germany), with extensions and installations currently planned for an additional 12 plants.
The MES is deeply integrated both with the planning system (SAP) and with the online automation, which is controlled by the MES itself with the ability to collect responses and values from the field in real time, which ultimately ensures greater control over the line.
Blue Star Software has played a key role in this project, covering the role of Solution Architect and enriching the development team with 3 senior developers, one of which from our American office in Boston.
The solution is based on Siemens’ MES product for the discrete manufacturing world (with UA DM first, and then OP CENTER EX DS) and on the interfaces for interconnection with the field (mainly via OPC UA server) and with SAP (via BAPI sap).
Deep integration with MES
