MES (manufacturing execution system)
Plant-level software that manages manufacturing operations, sitting between business planning systems and the control layer at ISA-95 Level 3.
The network analogy
An orchestration layer: it tells the production systems below it what to run, without doing the real-time control itself.
Why it matters for wireless
MES data that reaches mobile equipment or handheld devices over wireless shares airtime with control traffic, so it is one of the flows you need to identify and rank before deployment.
ISA-95, also published as IEC 62264, places manufacturing execution systems and SCADA at Level 3, which manages manufacturing operations1, between business planning above and production control below. IEC 62443 counts MES among the associated systems at level 3 or below2 inside the scope of industrial control system security.
About this page
Built from 2 sources: 2 standards bodies and labs. Researched and drafted with AI assistance, then reviewed and approved by Ben Rutter on . How pages are made
- First published
- Last updated
Cite this page
Plain
Ben Rutter. "MES (manufacturing execution system)." OT Wireless, published October 5, 2026. https://otwireless.com/glossary/mes/
APA 7
Rutter, B. (2026, October 5). MES (manufacturing execution system). OT Wireless. https://otwireless.com/glossary/mes/
BibTeX
@misc{rutter2026mes,
author = {Rutter, Ben},
title = {{MES (manufacturing execution system)}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://otwireless.com/glossary/mes/}},
organization = {OT Wireless},
}