Integrating Quality Control for Manufacturing With MES and ERP Systems

It’s Monday morning and you’re doing your rounds on the production floor. But instead of glancing at a stack of defect reports from yesterday’s shift, you receive a real-time notification that a batch is trending toward failure. The root cause has already been identified: a mis-set parameter in equipment. 

Since your quality control system is already integrated with the rest of your manufacturing and business systems, including things like inventory status, the production schedule and supply chain automatically update based on the ripple effect. 

Having that kind of visibility isn’t the stuff of science fiction. Instead, it’s where manufacturing quality control is headed, and it begins by integrating your QC systems with your MES and ERP backbone. 

The Risk of Siloed Models

Historically, quality control in manufacturing has pretty much been left to operate in its own lane: there might be a separate inspection station, some data logged manually, and much of its operation was segmented and disconnected from the overall production and business systems. 

But the complexity of manufacturing hasn’t slowed down. There’s less tolerance for errors, more SKUs and more complicated parts involved. The old ways of manual oversight and sample inspection are no longer enough. Thankfully, that’s where Matroid comes in. 

Using its no-code platform, Matroid is able to help manufacturing businesses take full advantage of their quality control processes by leveraging integration between both their MES (Manufacturing Execution System) and their ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). This means that both managers and owners have a full, 360-degree view that’s interconnected, and built to prioritize quality across the board. 

What Does Integration Look Like?

First and foremost,quality control becomes part of the operations network. Rather than being at the end of the line, QC data feeds into MES, ERP and even supplier systems. When QC defects, reworks or scrap volumes become available in real-time through your ERP/analytics dashboard, you’re able to see the financial risk earlier in the process.

What’s more, if your QC system detects a trend, your MES/ERP can trigger a hold, reroute material, trigger maintenance, adjust the schedule or update inventory. That kind of synchronized ripple effect is nearly impossible when QC is its own silo. 

Here’s an example of how it can work with Matroid: 

1. Your QC system (such as Matroid’s no-code vision detectors) flags a defect in a batch
   
2. That event automatically logs into the MES, which then updates the batch status, initiates a hold on subsequent operations, triggers a corrective work order and logs the root cause analysis
   
3. The ERP recognizes that this batch will miss schedule and updates availability for consumers while notifying suppliers and adjusting costs and variances accordingly.
   
4. Over time, as you refine process parameters, shift resources or restructure supplier contracts based on that information, you help close the loop and prevent more recurrences of the same thing from happening. 

Matroid also allows for stream monitoring, analytics, and real-time notification hooks so that you can integrate the system into your ticketing platform or via Slack or email alerts in addition to integrating it into your MES/ERP systems. In this way, quality control fits into your broader systems rather than sitting off to the side. 

Why MES and ERP Integration is a Must

When quality control is integrated, defects aren’t just found and marked, they’re a part of the process. Since they affect schedule, cost, inventory and customer promise in real-time, having such an integration lets you act before downstream processes begin.   What’s more, because your QC data is linked to your MES/ERP, you can trace issues not just to a specific part, but to the machine, shift, raw material lot, supplier or operator so that corrective action can be taken. 

With highly-regulated sectors like aerospace and certain types of manufacturing, having QC events automatically logged in your ERP helps with audits, recalls and overall traceability. Matroid’s no-code computer vision platform also allows production lines, products or sites to share detectors, analytics and workflows more easily. 

What to Keep in Mind When Integrating

So what should you keep in mind when integrating QC with your MES/ERP? At Matroid, we recommend: 

• Starting with measurable outcomes, like “reduce forklift collisions in loading dock A by 50% in 90 days” or “catch 95% of porosity defects > 0.5 mm” By defining key metrics, you’ll be able to map out how the system will help you reach those goals
  
• Design for interoperability – The tech stack needs to allow camera/sensor data, QC models, MES/ERP APIs and dashboards to communicate. Matroid is camera-agnostic and platform-agnostic for easier integration
  
• Automate workflows – Integration isn’t like sharing a spreadsheet. You can automate status updates, triggers, alerts, holds, tickets and more.
  
• Make sure the data is rich – QC data needs to carry context, like batch, machine, operator, time, raw material lot and so on, so that when it enters the MES/ERP you can correlate the data across different areas. 

From there, it’s simply a matter of iterating and scaling, and with Matroid, you can customize, deploy and scale – fast. 

It’s Time to Tear Down the Silo

If your plant still treats inspection as a standalone step and your ERP only gets QC numbers after the fact, it’s time to tear down the silo. With Matroid, you can connect your QC detectors, feed them into MES/ERP workflows, automate the triggers, measure the impact, and scale the system. Stop dealing with a system that’s sitting at the end of the line and start working with an integrated process that’s a part of your competitive backbone. 
Ready to learn more? Get a free demo from Matroid and see for yourself how our no-code computer vision platform works. We’ll share use cases, features, pricing and more to show you how your manufacturing quality control can transform from a cost center to the strategic differentiator that takes your manufacturing business to the next level.