How projects get long
Long MES projects share a pattern. A year of requirements workshops produces a specification for the whole plant. Heavy customisation follows. Go-live is a big bang. By the time the system runs, products, people and processes have changed, and the specification describes a plant that no longer exists.
The narrower route
Take one line. Model it against ISA-95: its equipment, materials, operations and orders. Configure the system for that line without writing code. Connect the machines, go live, and measure against the baseline you recorded before you started.
Ten weeks is realistic for this: two for discovery, four for configuration, four for the pilot.
Scale with evidence
The second line reuses the first as a template, so it goes faster. So does the second plant. Scope grows because the first line produced numbers, not because a specification assumed them.
The discipline that makes this work is saying no to customisation in the pilot. If a requirement cannot be met by configuration, write it down and revisit it once the line is live. Most of them turn out not to matter.
In short
- Big-bang scope is the main cause of long projects.
- Pilot one line by configuration, not customisation.
- Use the pilot as the template for everything after it.