Manufacturing Execution System (MES) operating system migration to integrate leading-edge methodologies and leverage emerging technologies

This article describes the successful migration of The Poseidon MES from IBM´s OS/2 Warp Operating System to IBM´s AIX/Unix Operating System. The Poseidon System was initially developed by IBM/ITS (an IBM Japan subsidiary) and installed at Dominion Semiconductor (DSC) in May of 1997. This MES was developed for OS/2 and was customized to meet DSC´s Manufacturing and Engineering startup requirements. It became evident that the MES was not easily extendable while running on OS/2. Therefore, DSC decided to migrate the MES to an operating system (AIX/Unix) that was supported by 3^rd party vendor applications that did not support OS/2. The MES Development Team´s primary focus was to extend the functionality of the MES to integrate leading-edge manufacturing methodologies, such as Advanced Process Control and Real-Time Dispatching. The MES is now postured to take advantage of new and emerging technologies, such as the following: Java - for program portability; XML - for data portability; Internet protocols - for data transmission and communication control; Browser - for user interface; HTTP Server - for an HTTP Server with proxy and caching.