Data Integration for Manufacturing: MES, ERP, Historian, and Everything in Between
ERP-to-MES integration, OPC UA gateways for shop-floor data, Historian-to-cloud pipelines, and the master data alignment that makes downstream analytics actually work. Built by integration engineers who can read an ISA-95 diagram.
Why Manufacturing Integration Projects Drag
Manufacturing integration sits at the intersection of three different worlds with three different conventions. ERP runs on transaction-batch logic with end-of-day reconciliation. MES runs on near-real-time event flow with strict ISA-95 layer separation. The Historian runs on sub-second time-series with proprietary tag naming. None of them were designed to talk to each other, and most attempts to bolt them together produce a fragile mess that breaks every time someone updates a PLC.
The integration patterns that actually hold up in manufacturing follow a few rules: OPC UA as the canonical protocol from PLC to MES (not a vendor-specific driver that locks you in), an event-driven backbone for ERP-MES messages (not point-to-point spaghetti), a master data hub with clear ownership of items, BOMs, routings, customers, and suppliers, and a contract-tested API layer between them all. With those in place, integration becomes routine. Without them, every PLC firmware update is a fire drill.
How Manufacturers Apply It
ERP-to-MES Integration
Bidirectional integration between your ERP (SAP, Oracle, D365, BC, Epicor) and MES (Wonderware/AVEVA, Rockwell FactoryTalk, Siemens Opcenter, GE Proficy). Production orders flow down, completions and consumption flow up, and the contract is versioned so an MES upgrade doesn't break the ERP.
OPC UA & Historian Pipelines
OPC UA gateways from PLCs and SCADA into the Historian, then from Historian into the cloud data platform via secure egress. Tag normalization, calibration metadata, and time alignment so the data is actually usable for analytics — not 4 million tags with cryptic names.
Master Data Hub for Items, BOMs, Routings
A central hub for the master data that lives in too many systems — items, BOMs, routings, customers, suppliers — with clear ownership, change workflows, and synchronization to all consuming systems. The unglamorous foundation that determines whether your analytics, planning, and finance numbers all reconcile.
What You Receive
Manufacturing integration delivered to last: ISA-95 layer architecture, OPC UA gateways for shop-floor data, contract-versioned ERP-MES interfaces, Historian-to-cloud egress with tag normalization, master data hub for items and BOMs and routings, monitoring and alerting for every integration, and the runbook that tells your team exactly what to do when something breaks at 2am during second shift.
Related Xylity Capabilities
Data Integration Consulting
The full Data Integration Consulting practice across industries.
Manufacturing Industry Hub
All manufacturing technology services from Xylity.
All 22 Industries
Industry-specific consulting across the verticals we serve.
Data Integration for Manufacturing — FAQ
Vendor-specific drivers lock you into one MES or one Historian forever. OPC UA is the open standard and works across Rockwell, Siemens, Schneider, ABB, and most modern PLCs. Once you're on OPC UA you can change MES vendors without re-doing your shop-floor connectivity from scratch — which matters more than people realize until they need to do it.
We start with a profile of the actual state — duplicates, inconsistencies, orphans — then build a remediation plan with clear ownership. Master data isn't a one-shot cleanup; it needs governance to stay clean. We deliver both the cleanup and the governance model so it doesn't drift back.
Yes. Pre-qualified integration engineers and architects with experience in ERP-MES integration, OPC UA, Historian connectivity, and middleware platforms (MuleSoft, Boomi, Azure Integration Services). 92% first-match acceptance.
Integration That Doesn't
Break at 2am
OPC UA, contract-versioned APIs, and master data done right — so PLC firmware updates stop being fire drills.