Thales Missile Electronics Ltd. (TME), one of Europe's largest independent suppliers of electronic subsystems for missiles and munitions, has chosen the Mestec MES (Manufacturing Execution System) to help improve productivity and reduce costs in its innovative lean manufacturing environment.

"The decision to deploy the Mestec software is both tactical and strategic," said David Barnes, Chief Executive at TME. " We have calculated that by getting rid of paperwork at a production level and increasing our configuration and control capability, the system should provide a return on investment very quickly. This first phase will provide us with the experience to ensure that further deployment across the business will be able to realize the long term strategic benefits of MES."

Like most manufacturing organizations, TME is under constant pressure to continually improve productivity and the primary focus is on the shop floor to reduce waste and improve quality, whilst still remaining responsive to customer needs.

Mestec MES will be used by shop floor, engineering, and management staff. It will provide assembly staff with all instructional information (including work instructions, drawings, engineering updates etc.) as well as collecting essential plant-centric data at source. MES will replace the current paper-based methodology and will interface to the TME Internal LAN to enable data to be passed to and from other business tools.

"MES can be seen as the next logical step for us as it creates the kind of visibility, control and discipline we need to continue to be able to demonstrate real production efficiency and manufacturing excellence to our customers," added Peter Kipling, Operations Director for TME.

www.mestec.com