Engineering change order processing in ERP systems: an integrated reactive model

Manufacturing execution system (MES) provides a common and single system to support most manufacturing processes. However, MES applications do not address all of the manufacturing execution processes required to replenish the supply chain while dynamically responding to unpredicted change and fall short of adding decision-making tools capabilities. To fill this gap, we propose a generic manufacturing execution platform that provides real-time decision support in reaction to disturbing events. More precisely, we demonstrate how this approach can support engineering change order processing in ERP-controlled environments. Our demonstrative example based on a real scenario in the aerospace industry illustrates how a genetic algorithm and a real-time discrete event simulation model can be integrated within an ERP and MES system platform. [Received 26 September 2008; Revised 23 April 2009; Accepted 6 December 2009]