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Overall experience with Critical Manufacturing MES
“Improve our factory skills. ”
“In No Way a Plug and Play; Vet Your Project Team and Demo Every Requirement”
About Company
Company Description
Critical Manufacturing is a provider of advanced, adaptable, and configurable manufacturing execution systems (MES). Its key role is to help manufacturers conform to stringent product traceability and compliance mandates, reduce risk by integrating closed-loop quality mechanisms, ensure smooth integration with enterprise systems and factory automation, and provide comprehensive visibility and intelligence of global production operations. Thereby, manufacturers are equipped to adapt their operations easily in response to demand fluctuation, opportunities, or requirements, anywhere and anytime, positioning them to be Industry 4.0 ready.
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Critical Manufacturing MES Likes & Dislikes
Runs in a Container, Fast deploy and Fast updates
There is a nice little task assignment/notification pane with which you can assign certain types of tasks to users. Navigating to a particular workstation/resource in the system is really nice; you are able to build a multi-level folder/sub-folder structure (ex. Site, Area, Line, Station) to navigate to the station you need to begin work on.
Modularity and ability to customize the software, all complex functions derived from few elegant concepts. Abstraction layers allow to handle simple customizations (like Custom GUIs) very easily, while increasing effort for complex customizations only slightly. Scope of functions and integration of functions fits to our requirements and business processes. Modern architecture.
We have a little issue with an integration with another partner, but there is another way to do what we need, so we move forward.
Many aspects were very inflexible, with inadequacies you would not expect from a system that touts itself as heavily customizable. For example, there is *NO STEP ID* for Process/Checklist Steps in the system. i.e. Your current records may have step 1.0, 1.1, 1.1.1, etc. or 10/20/30, etc. There is no field or identifier in the system that natively manages this. If you want to reorder or remove steps later, get ready for a LENGTHY process just to remove or change the names of your other steps---it is NOT a simple drag and drop process; the system does not track that for you. Additionally, there is no way to initiate an NCMR/Deviation *at* the step of the production record at which it occurred. One can be opened ad-hoc to point the general step of the record, but there is no way to prevent users from proceeding in the same checklist. Developing reporting is also fairly painful and unintuitive; make sure you maintain an resource with SQL DB administration experience.
The consulting capacity of CMF is limited when implementing the MES in multiple locations. Experienced developers and managers on the local side are necessary for implementation and adaption of business processes. Updates to new minor or major versions are typically more complex and work intensive than we expected, especially due to dependency on update of customization-layer after product updates.
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Critical Manufacturing MES Reviews and Ratings
- Systems Implementation Consultant50M-1B USDHealthcare and BiotechReview Source
In No Way a Plug and Play; Vet Your Project Team and Demo Every Requirement
The system has a fairly modern GUI, with about average ease of navigation (provided you know which section of the system has the module you need). For simple processes and checklists it works fine--check off your steps, get your UserID recorded, and complete a checklist. Some of the administration is intuitive, such as modifying datasets or assigning training certifications, but much of it is very interwoven, unintuitive, and extremely difficult to manage for a non-expert. Even our implementation consultants regularly had trouble and needed to look for guidance. To meet very basic needs in an MES, this system is probably overkill from the depth and breadth of configuration required for a standalone MES and/or CMMS. Similarly, for a company with the need for flexibility across products and processes running in the same areas or workstreams, or that regularly (i.e. every few months) need to revise their processes, Manufacturing Instructions, Batch Records, etc., I would steer clear of this system. It is not easy to manage unless you plan to have a team with in-depth knowledge of your production process staffed specifically for system management. That said, once set up it WILL generate data, though you may need to work a bit to get the reports you want. Note also that Critical Manufacturing does not staff their own implementation teams, you are required to work with 3rd party consultants. - IT Services Associate50M-1B USDManufacturingReview Source
Improve our factory skills.
The MES System is a very important tool in our production. The MES helps us to improve and grow fast. - Project Manager50M-1B USDManufacturingReview Source
Excellent product but average customer service
The experience with Critical Manufacturing has been improving, but projects still get delayed and communication is inefficient. - Senior Manager Process Digitalization50M-1B USDManufacturingReview Source
Software successfully implemented in multiple sites with different prerequisites.
It's used at many sites for some years now. We really enjoy the base software, data model, modularity and customization possibilities, they are easy to use and easy to manage. Product evolves in the right direction. - CIO1B-10B USDManufacturingReview Source
Great product. Great team. Frictionless results.
Team quickly understood our requirements and was very patient with us during our extensive evaluation. We started with 52 MES vendor then shortlisted to 10 (RFI), then 4 (RFP) and Critical made the final 2 (POC). Robust, comprehensive platform.