Intelligent Infrastructure and Connected Systems
Industrial Automation
Software engineering for automated operations: MES and ERP integration, work-order and recipe flows, operator applications and orchestration around the control layer.
Overview
Automation on the plant floor is governed by PLCs, safety systems and controls engineers. Around that control layer sits a second layer that is often far less automated: work orders copied by hand, recipes kept in spreadsheets, quality checks recorded on paper and production status relayed by phone.
iQsolutions engineers that surrounding layer. We connect ERP, MES and plant systems along ISA-95 boundaries, digitise operator workflows and automate information handoffs, working alongside the controls engineers and system integrators who remain responsible for control and safety logic.
Business applications
- 01
ERP-to-shop-floor integration
Pass production orders, bills of materials and material availability from ERP to the plant, and return actual consumption, output and scrap, reducing manual re-entry and reconciliation delays.
- 02
Electronic work instructions and checklists
Replace paper procedures with digital instructions, sign-offs and quality checks on operator tablets, capturing who did what, when, and against which revision of the procedure.
- 03
Recipe and parameter management
Manage product recipes and parameter sets with versioning, approvals and audit trails, delivering approved values to the control layer only through mechanisms defined and validated by controls engineers.
- 04
Material and warehouse flow automation
Coordinate material requests, kitting, line-side replenishment and finished-goods movements between production and warehouse systems, using system events rather than phone calls and radio messages to trigger each step.
Engineering approach
- 01
Map information flows against ISA-95
We trace how orders, materials, recipes and results move between business and plant systems, identifying manual handoffs and what they cost in time and errors.
- 02
Agree responsibilities with controls teams
A clear boundary is defined with the site's controls engineers and integrators, documenting which systems we change, which we only read and which remain exclusively theirs.
- 03
Design event-driven integration
ERP, MES and plant systems exchange defined messages and events with acknowledgments, retries and reconciliation, replacing fragile file drops and direct database access.
- 04
Build operator-centred applications
Operator interfaces are designed and tested on the floor with real users, accounting for gloves, noise, shift handovers and the pace of production.
- 05
Validate and hand over
Integrations are tested end to end in staging, then commissioned with site teams under change control, with documentation and support handed to internal owners.
Technologies and platforms
Standards and models
- ISA-95
- ISA-88
- B2MML
- OPC UA
ERP and MES platforms
- SAP S/4HANA
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Siemens Opcenter
- Rockwell FactoryTalk
- Tulip
Integration
- Apache Kafka
- MQTT
- Node-RED
- Apache Camel
- REST APIs
Operator applications
- React
- TypeScript
- PostgreSQL
- Progressive web apps
Technology names are trademarks of their respective owners and do not imply partnership or endorsement.
What you receive
- ISA-95 information-flow map with automation opportunities
- Responsibility matrix agreed with controls engineering
- ERP, MES and plant integration services with reconciliation
- Digital work instruction and checklist application
- Recipe management with versioning and approvals
- Commissioning documentation and support handover
Questions leaders ask
Do you program PLCs or safety systems?
No. PLC programming and safety-instrumented systems remain with your controls engineers and qualified system integrators. We engineer the software around the control layer, covering integration, operator applications, data and workflow, and coordinate closely with those teams so interfaces are clear and changes are approved by the right people.
Do we need an MES to benefit?
Not necessarily. Some plants benefit from a full MES; others need targeted applications for specific gaps such as work instructions or order integration. We assess your current systems and recommend the smallest effective step, which may mean extending an existing MES rather than replacing it.
How do you handle changes in a running plant?
Carefully, and under your procedures. Changes are developed and tested in staging, scheduled with production, commissioned under management of change with rollback plans, and confirmed with operators and engineers. We avoid changes that require unplanned downtime and treat production continuity as a design constraint.
Related solutions
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