COMES for system partners

The COMES, Czech MES system has earned in its years of existence leading place on the market of production IT and recognition of many customers including an independent award for an implementation of the Czech IT project of the year. COMES, as of version 3, has been released for system partners (IT companies, automation suppliers or application engineers in production companies) whom it offers the opportunity to expand their activities.

As novelty is the ability to use configurable concepts, eg. production data monitoring and KPI as OEE evaluating, discrete manufacturing management, management of plastics production-injection molding, managing batch production or maintenance management CMMS.
COMES system partners can use their specialized know-how for production processes in the industrial sector in which they operate and efficiently apply COMES concepts. The experienced system partner can obtain from COMPAS projects for the self-execution.

COMES offers a favorable ratio of functionality and price compared to other MES systems and, in many aspects, is even more technologically advanced than costly MES systems of foreign manufacturers. System automation integrators are beginning to realize, that the MES market has increasingly been moving away from ITs tailored to specific needs or those built-in SCADA, which proved unpromising in the long-term perspective and represent an IT timed bomb to its users in terms of the limitation of the functionality expansion, interface to other systems, ownership costs and problems with support and maintenance.

The features of COMES from the system integrators point of view are summarized in this text. For more detailed business and technical information please contact the manufacturer – see contact.

Continuous technical innovation of COMES

Technical solution of COMES employs advanced IT technologies and is designed to be the most convenient solution for the customer in view of reliability and system administration costs. The developers have constantly been improving and updating the COMES with respect to the latest Microsoft IT platform. COMES has been certified to run on MS Windows Server and MS SQL server. Rapid innovation is important not only for a long-term protection of the end user’s investment but also with regard to the IT security policies of many enterprises. 
Innovation of COMES provides its users with many improvements. Among the key improvements are the handling and transparent use of the system at all stationary and many mobile platforms.

Up to date
COMES is constantly being developed both in line with world trends - Industry 4.0 and the IT technology platform, as well as in the implementation of user suggestions.
Flexibility
An extraordinary feature of the system is its flexibility, allowing us to tailor application to, so often required, specific needs of the users. Configuration rather than development allows you to minimize project related costs and meet tight deadlines, often requested by the customers, which would be unconceivable for solutions written just for a specific purpose.
Development environment
A part of COMES is an integrated development and configuration interface which allows unlimited number of workers to simultaneously work on “running” application without having to halt or restart the system. Built-in diagnostics with variety of automatic functions ensure logging, error handling, statistics and search.
For COMES project the system partner does not need any other licence of SW development enviroment (e.g. Visual Studio).
Interface
COMES is open to other devices to communicate (control systems, labelling systems, output devices, printers, etc) The communication openness is ensured by CCI (COMES Communication interface), which servers to not only use numerous built-in drivers, OPC interface, etc., but also to add communication drivers for new devices. The communication is sufficiently documented and easy to implement by the system partners.
Communication
COMES is ready to communication with other SW applications, databases, IT systems – for example of ERP type or others.
Language localization
A strong feature of COMES system is its language localization. Besides the primary language – Czech – it offers English and Slovak as standard. Additional language localizations can be added as wished by the client. Within the language localization it is possible to create output reports and forms as multilingual thus facilitate communication of users in multinational enterprises within teams of collaborators of multiple nationalities.
Support and documentation
A part of the delivery to the system partner are licenses and documentation of the system, training and long-term support, which can be implemented remotely through internet connection. The system partner may then carry out on-line support to the clients, modify the application, configure all system settings, e.g. user rights, and install new modules or applications.

Cost-effective MES solution

System partners can well assert themselves in both large and middle-sized enterprises, that seek a favorable ratio of MES functions vs. development costs and need a supplier that quickly responds to actual requirements and needs of the enterprise within production IT.  Should you be interested in expansion of your services with a modern and cost-effective MES solution, you can make use of a proven COMES system run by many enterprises.

Configuring COMES for concrete application

COMES application engineers can make use of the manufacturer’s support provided that similar task has already been dealt with, and use it as the basis for their application. Having done so, they can save it in a library for reuse or as a basis for other MES application. COMES allows you to write your own brand new functions, save them in a library and use them for other applications or their specific parts. This approach helps you maintain control over individual applications for your clients, to improve the quality of applications as well as the productivity of engineers working on projects still with a favorable impact on costs that need to be charged to the end users’ accounts. This significantly increases the competitiveness of the COMES system on the market.

Benefits to system partners

COMES is a universal MES platform, which allows the system partners to:

• be committed to the industry of their interest
• use modules, standard concepts and application or individual MES functions
• connect with various control systems, e.g. SIEMENS, ABB, B & R, Schneider, Bosch, Rockwell, Beckhoff, Omron and others

Simplicity, complexity and ease of implementation with a support from the manufacturer, are the advantages supporting a quick implementation in the form of a successful project and customer’s satisfaction.

Many MES functions can be offered by the system partners to their customers at very reasonable prices, which can help them to succeed.

Marketing and sales assistance to the system integrators can, if required, be a part of the cooperation. A trained system integrator has also the opportunity to participate in larger projects, part of which is COMES.