Describing the offerings from what it has determined to be the top 20 vendors in the space, LNS Research has released its “Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) Solution Selection Guide”. LNS defines the MOM software space as encompassing Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence (EMI) software, historian software and Manufacturing Process Workflow software.
The “MOM Solution Selection Guide” covers each vendor in depth, with individualized overviews and analyses of their business strategies, solution capabilities, industry expertise, geographic coverage, and technology delivery models, says Mark Davidson, principal analyst at LNS Research. Vendors listed in the guide are: ABB, Aegis, AspenTech, Camstar, Critical Manufacturing, Dassault Systemes (Apriso), Emerson, Epicor, GE Intelligent Platforms, Honeywell, iBASEt, Invensys, iTAC Software, Lighthouse Systems, Oracle, Parsec, Plex Systems, Rockwell Automation, SAP, and Siemens.
When asked how LNS determined what it considers to be the top 20 vendors in this space, Davidson said the research group looked at a combination of well-recognized companies as well as up-and-coming technology leaders. “We then reached out to these companies to explain our goals and invite them to participate at no cost other than the investment of their time,” he said. “Some vendors were responsive and open to inclusion, and others were not. This process narrowed down the field to the 20 represented.”
Davidson added that each vendor represented in the guide went through the same process of filling out a quantitative survey and then having detailed briefing sessions with the LNS Research team to clarify the survey responses and discuss the current state of their markets and offerings, as well as their future strategy.
Since such guides typically tend to be more directed at enterprise level executives, I asked Davidson if engineers would find information of interest in the guide. “We believe that the guide addresses concerns of executives as well as some of the technical, integration and functionality issues in which engineers would be interested,” he said. Specific topics covered in the guide of interest to engineers would be the strengths of the software offerings detailed across: 25 different functional areas, specific integration standards and technologies, and software delivery approaches (e.g., on-site, cloud/SaaS, etc.). Davidson noted that information on the applications’ core development/software environment is also included in the guide.
