Resilience, elasticity define today’s MES

Industry conversations about fully autonomous factories (often imagined as “lights off, humans out”) are sometimes framed as a final state of maturity, even sparking concerns about workforce elimination. But in practice, manufacturing environments are far from that ideal. They are instead defined less by automation and more by variability and constant handling of exceptions and judgment calls.

Speaking at the Plex Summit during this week’s Automation Fair 2025 in Chicago, Michael Hart, head of industry strategy & growth, Rockwell Automation, set the stage for the morning’s presentations by the Plex team on how the smart manufacturing platform is evolving and integrating more deeply with Rockwell Automation’s broader portfolio.

As Hart described the shift of manufacturing operations toward intelligent, autonomous systems, he emphasized that autonomy is not about replacing people but about equipping them with better tools.

“The best manufacturers we work with aren’t just digitalizing; they’re learning,” Hart said. “Digitalization was about visibility. Today the question is ‘What do I do with the picture I see?’ They’re taking insights from connected machines, connected people, connected plants, and turning that visibility into action. They are not reacting after the fact, but making smarter, faster decisions in the moment, where [outcomes] are won and lost by combining human expertise with data intelligence.”

While teams already understand the process, the workarounds and exceptions, modern systems amplify that knowledge. “They don’t just report what happened; they help you predict what’s next,” said Hart. “That’s where gains and quality and uptime throughput are really coming from.”

And, despite the rise of automation, people will remain at the center.

“Autonomy isn’t about replacing people,” he added. “It’s about elevating them, moving from reacting to preventing, from firefighting to optimizing, from working on the system to working in the system. That’s the true definition of autonomous operations. Not factories that run alone, but factories that run smarter—where humans and technology learn from each other and continuously adapt to drive performance, quality and resilience.”

MES evolved, not replaced

In the domain of manufacturing execution systems (MES), humans and technology operate side by side, with software guiding and supporting human decisions on the shop floor. As manufacturers move toward intelligent, autonomous operations, argued Hart, the MES must become far more than a ledger.

“An MES is the operational backbone of your modern plant,” he said. “It’s what helps you understand not just what happened, but what is going to happen. In other words, it’s where operations live. It’s where decisions are made.”

To do that effectively, said Hart, an MES must provide three unique criteria: reliable, real-time data (“truth gathered close to the action”) to ensure decisions are grounded in reality; standardization across lines, plants and teams (“because you can’t automate chaos”); and the ability to evolve as the business evolves, since operations never stand still.

The future of autonomy, he stressed, isn’t about discarding MES. It’s about reshaping it into a flexible, adaptive platform capable of supporting more real-time business decisions and more complex operations.

That flexibility has become the defining principle behind Rockwell Automation’s “Elastic MES.” Rather than a standalone product, Hart described Elastic MES as a system that stretches across execution, quality, business operations, IoT and analytics. Built on a smart manufacturing platform, it ensures consistency, repeatability and scalability across the enterprise.

Elasticity transforms traditional MES

Hart outlined several ways the Plex Elastic MES stands out from legacy solutions:

Purpose built: Think of Rockwell Automation’s Plex Elastic MES as a utilitarian, industry-specific starter kit. It arrives preloaded with “Industry DNA at our Core,” meaning it already knows the way common tasks are completed and reflects data models and compliance rules common to sectors such as automotive, food & beverage and other regulated industries. Manufacturers can customize it to fit their specific operations.

Broader and deeper capabilities: Scope is another differentiator. “An Elastic MES is broader and deeper than the traditional MES,” Hart said. Beyond execution, it spans business operations, finance, receiving and shipping, quality, inventory control and maintenance. The advantage is flexibility, he said, as you don’t need to adopt all modules at once. There are logical on-ramps, so organizations can start where the value is highest and expand as their needs evolve.

End to end IT/OT integration: Elastic MES also sits at the convergence of IT and OT, connecting the shop floor with the rest of the operations—from process control to warehouse management. Operators gain visibility into how scheduling decisions affect production; schedulers can see what’s happening on the floor; and maintenance can intervene before equipment fails. “That’s how we move from reactive to proactive operations,” Hart noted.

Extensibility, interoperability and resilience: No manufacturer runs on a single vendor environment. The Plex Elastic MES platform is extensible and interoperable by design, said Hart. It is designed to integrate with other business systems, historians, quality tools, warehouse tools, and Hart added that “it does so without custom code that becomes technical debt for you in the future,” pointed out Hart.

Above all, Hart underscored resilience. Plants need to keep running, even when networks fail. Elastic MES is built on edge-to-cloud architecture, which ensures production continues at the edge, while cloud-based visibility remains accessible to the enterprise.

“When we say, ‘Elastic MES,’ we mean a solution that meets you where you are,” said Hart. “It will scale to solve your needs today, connects your people, process and data, and stays resilient no matter what’s happening around you.”

Futureproofing for what comes next

For Hart, Rockwell Automation’s shift to Elastic MES and more intelligent, autonomous operations is not hypothetical nor a distant goal. It’s already underway.

“We have the technology to run it,” Hart said. “We have the expertise to guide it, and we have the systems approach to make sure it scales and lasts for you,” Hart said. “Our goal isn’t just to [provide a solution], our goal isn’t to sell software. Our goal is to ensure that your operations are stronger next year than they are today, and that they’re prepared for what's coming next.”