MTEK Releases Its No-Code Integration Engine, Mint, Highlighting the Importance of Effective Data Integration for Successful MES Deployments

At the end of January, MTEK announced the release of its no-code industrial integration engine, Mint. The tool has a simple to use drag-and-drop interface via which customers can use code blocks to construct integration pipelines. The workflow design of the integration process allows engineers and operators to focus on the production and business logic of operations, rather than getting caught up in the complexity of connecting the systems. Moreover, it reduces the reliance on external parties for deploying and adapting integrations through the Information Technology (IT) stack, further enhancing time-to-value and flexibility in the total setup.

Mint provides manufacturers with a greater ability to drive integration and data sharing between systems, enriching data ontologies. This is critical to driving increased value of AI tools and builds on MTEK’s AI-oriented strategic collaboration with Microsoft, which was announced in October of last year (for further information, see ABI Insight “MTEK and ETQ’s Recent Partnerships with Microsoft and Acerta Analytics Highlight the Value of Collaboration in the MES and QMS Markets”).

Mint’s capabilities are now an integral part of the MBrain Manufacturing Execution System (MES) deployment process, significantly speeding up the integration of customers’ new MES solutions with associated systems. MTEK is also expanding the reach of the new platform beyond supporting its MES product, with Mint running as a separate platform from MBrain, thus allowing manufacturers to leverage the integration tool to impact operations beyond an MES deployment.

Many manufacturers struggle to bring data together to effectively support production processes, with data silos highly common, especially caused by mixes of Operational Technology (OT) and IT data, which are structured and stored differently. The relationship between IT and OT teams was identified by manufacturers as a key challenge in ABI Research’s Industrial and Manufacturing Survey 1H 2024: State of Play for Digital Transformation (PT-3319), and removing data silos, in particular, ranked fourth out of nine top key technology-related challenges.

Historically, OT and IT teams have handled data in different ways and with different agendas, alongside having to manage legacy systems that do not easily integrate with modern Industry 4.0 solutions. Standardizing data integration and management across organizations is highly challenging without close IT and OT alignment, something that manufacturers have only recently begun to prioritize. Finaly, when investing in a new MES solution, manufacturers will want the solution to be up and running as fast as possible.

Leveraging no-code integration tools such as Mint allows manufacturers to drive OT/IT integration by significantly lowering the complexity and effort of bringing enterprise systems together, enabling data to flow easily between the two groups and providing manufacturers with End-to-End (E2E) visibility of operations. The no-code element democratizes integration projects, allowing operators familiar with the production process to build the data pipelines, reducing the need for dedicated resources in the form of internal IT teams or outsourced System Integrators (SIs), all serving to reduce costs and speed deployments. This is especially critical for data integration projects among Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) manufacturers, which, in most cases, don’t have large teams or resources available for such tasks.

Why is rapid and comprehensive data integration so critical for successful MES software deployment by manufacturers?

1. Creation of a Comprehensive Overview of Operations: MES software is not effectively doing its job if it is unable to draw data from across the production process E2E to be leveraged to drive process efficiency, identify bottlenecks, and improve production quality. Manufacturers that limit what an MES solution is integrated with, whether it be hardware or other enterprise software solutions, due to data silos or technical burden, will get significantly less value out of an MES.
2. Effective Utilization of AI Tools: Companies need to leverage data integration tools to construct large data lakes, which are essential to not only empower data-driven decision-making by operators, but also feed AI solutions that so many manufacturers are looking to deploy. The built-in AI features available in an MES tool are only as good as the data with which it is fed, following the old adage of “garbage in, garbage out.”
3. Ensuring Product Quality and Traceability: Without E2E data integration across the production process, manufacturers will find it challenging to ensure effective traceability and product genealogy. This is not just mandatory for heavily regulated industries to meet compliance standards, but it is also essential to ensure high product quality, allowing manufacturers to proactively identify defects and trace the source in the production process.

These low/no-code integration capabilities are not unique to MTEK, with Aegis Software’s FactoryLogix, AVEVA’s MES, Plex MES from Rockwell Automation, and Opcenter from Siemens providing similar capabilities; however, MES vendors need to continue to put such capabilities front and center. While not representing a headline functionality like AI, effective data integration tools are essential in driving successful MES deployments. Most MES vendors can integrate MES solutions with data sources in the factory; however, the ability to do this through no-code, drag-and-drop tools is quickly becoming the industry standard, and any vendors that do not offer it will quickly fall by the wayside. Notably, ABB’s MES, Autodesk’s Prodsmart, and iBase-t still do not offer dedicated no-code integration tools. MES providers looking to go further when augmenting MES data integration capabilities should focus on AI and security capabilities. This can include the automation of data integration processes, going the step beyond the no-code designs, alongside ensuring data quality and standardization. Promoting data security through elements such as access control, data validation, redundancy and backup, and standards compliance is also highly valuable.