factorysemantics-mes

# FactorySemantics MES An open-source, modular, **agent-native** Manufacturing Execution System. Run one module on a laptop for a five-person shop, or the full suite across a fleet of plants. Every capability is an API and an agent tool first, a screen second. Every number is honest about where it came from. > **Status: pre-alpha, 0.2.0, running simulated plants only (as of 2026-09-14).** Orders and routings, OPC UA execution, OEE, quality with SPC and gauges, maintenance, finite-capacity scheduling, serialisation and genealogy, a 95-tool MCP agent surface, an ERPNext connector, and a scoring harness that measures whether the MES told the truth about its plant. **New since 0.1.2:** the ERPNext round trip is asserted against a real ERPNext v15.120.0 standing up in CI rather than checked by hand; [shadow mode](docs/operate/shadow-mode.md) closes every outbound path so this can run beside the MES a plant already has; inbound events arrive by file, by read-only SQL or over MQTT; and a plant is now a [pack](docs/operate/packs.md) — one directory — with `fsmes fleet` and a console that observes. The largest simulated plant is an 83-station cutlery works serialising every piece ([labs/cutlery](labs/cutlery/README.md)); it is the [public demo](https://factorysemantics.com/demo/). **Not yet:** a real plant — none has run this, and making a first one possible in shadow mode, beside the MES already in charge, is what 0.2.0 is for; [the guide](docs/operate/first-plant.md) is written and untried. Also not yet: ERPNext Job Card confirmations — whether Job Card is the right place at all is a question put to the ERPNext community on 2026-09-10 and not yet answered; the thin Frappe app that would list the connector on the Marketplace ([decision 0008](docs/decisions/0008-erp-connectors-are-modules.md)); and PLC write-back beyond a guarded recommendation queue. See [ROADMAP.md](ROADMAP.md) for what has landed and what is next, [docs/ARCHITECTURE.md](docs/ARCHITECTURE.md) for the design, [docs/LANDSCAPE.md](docs/LANDSCAPE.md) for why this project should exist at all, [docs/operate/compatibility.md](docs/operate/compatibility.md) for what has been tested against what and when, and [docs.factorysemantics.com](https://docs.factorysemantics.com) for the documentation. > > **Nothing on this page is measured on a real plant.** Every number in this repository comes from a simulated line and says so where it appears. --- ## Why this exists Three facts, verified 2026-08-28 (sources in [docs/LANDSCAPE.md](docs/LANDSCAPE.md)): 1. **No integrated open-source MES exists.** ERP projects (Odoo, ERPNext, Qcadoo) stop at work orders — no machine connectivity, no OEE, no SPC. Data-infrastructure projects (United Manufacturing Hub, Rhize) deliberately refuse to be the MES. SCADA projects have machine data but no manufacturing semantics. Nothing open-source does gauge/calibration management *at all*. Plants that can't afford a €200k–1.5M commercial MES implementation stitch together Node-RED, Grafana, and spreadsheets — and the ERPNext maintainers themselves published the missing-features list ([erpnext#50827](https://github.com/frappe/erpnext/issues/50827)). 2. **The agent-native lane is open, but the window is closing.** Every incumbent (Siemens, Bosch, Rockwell) is bolting AI agents onto closed platforms. Tulip shipped an MCP server; Ignition announced one for 2026. An MES whose *core* is designed to be operated by agents — permissioned writes, append-only audit, semantic events — with the source open, has no occupant. 3. **This isn't starting from zero.** The kernel came from a working, tested mini-MES (orders, routings, OPC UA machine layer, OEE, ERPNext round-trip) that was merged into this repository on 2026-08-31. The test plant is a deterministic line simulator that lives in `src/fsmes/sim/`. See *Provenance* below. ## The north star Siemens Opcenter-level functional coverage, as open-source modules on one kernel. The table is the **target**; the marks say how far each item has come as of 2026-09-14 (✅ landed · 🟡 partial · ⬜ not started): | | | | |---|---|---| | ✅ Production orders & routings | ✅ PLC / OPC UA / Kepware connectivity | ✅ Downtime tracking & OEE | | 🟡 Shifts, calendars & labor | ✅ Quality: inspections, holds, NCR, SPC | ✅ Gauge & calibration management | | ✅ Preventive maintenance | ✅ Finite-capacity scheduling | ✅ Traceability & genealogy | | ✅ ERP integration: ERPNext order-level, live in CI; B2MML-flavoured file; REST — no Job Card confirmations, and no SAP, Odoo, Oracle or NetSuite connector | ✅ Analytics & shift reports | 🟡 Agent operations layer (MCP) — 95 tools and the write discipline; the run that puts a real model against the live surface is a command, not a gate | Honesty about scale: Opcenter is thousands of engineer-years. The path here is not cloning it — it's shipping the **20% of each module that covers 80% of a small-to-mid plant**, correctly and honestly, module by module, with agents as the force multiplier. Depth grows where users pull. ## Principles 1. **Kernel + modules.** A small kernel (master data, orders, routing, dispatch, execution, events, audit, auth) that is always present; everything else — quality, maintenance, scheduling, gauges — is an optional module. A customer installs only what they need. 2. **Standards-shaped, not standards-burdened.** ISA-95 nouns for the data model, PackML for machine states, ISO 22400 for KPIs, B2MML only at the ERP border. Never invent a word the industry already has; never implement an XML schema internally. 3. **Agent-native.** Every function callable via REST and MCP. Read tools are free; command tools are idempotent, support `dry_run`, and pass approval gates. Agents act *on behalf of* an identified human, and every action — human or agent — lands in the same append-only audit spine. 4. **Never invent production.** Counter deltas book production; resets re-baseline and book nothing. OEE reports *unknown*, never a misleading zero. Unlabelled downtime is reported as unlabelled. Every screen states its data source. 5. **Runs anywhere.** SQLite on a laptop → Docker Compose in a plant → fleet of nodes with a console. Operator UI is plain HTML/JS with no build step, because a plant PC must render it for years without a node toolchain. 6. **Simulation-first.** CI runs a full fake plant (deterministic six-station line over a real OPC UA server). Every feature is demoable without hardware. Scripted failures — breakdowns, changeovers, counter resets, micro-stops — are named regression tests. 7. **Config, not code, at every plant boundary.** Which tags a machine exposes lives in a tag map. What a plant enables lives in a plant pack — one directory, validated offline by `fsmes pack check`, carrying no code and no secret. Three lab packs exist to prove it: two that disagree about the line, and a third invented to disagree with the pack format itself and to run the same wheel with two modules switched off. ## Provenance — where the code comes from This project is a *convergence*, and its origins are recorded deliberately: | Source | What it contributes | License status | |---|---|---| | **MES-TWIN** (the maintainer's earlier personal project) | The kernel: routing/order model, OPC UA agent + tag maps, OEE math, ERP adapters, auth, audit — merged wholesale on 2026-08-31 and built on since | Merged into this repository; Apache-2.0 here | | **LineSim** (the maintainer's earlier personal project) | The CI/demo plant: deterministic line physics → CSVs → OPC UA replay or Kepware | Ported into `src/fsmes/sim/`; not a dependency | | **FactorySemantics** (the semantic layer) | The canonical event envelope and manufacturing ontology this MES is meant to emit through its outbox | Not yet a dependency: as of 2026-09-07 the code does not import it (ROADMAP, "carried decision for M1") | | **factorysemantics.com** | Patterns only: plant packs, capability-filtered MCP tool surface, single-writer locks, observe-don't-push fleet console | Patterns re-implemented here; that code stays there | **Clean-room rule:** everything here derives from the personal projects above, public standards, and public documentation. Nothing derives from any commercial MES's internals, schemas, or documentation, and no employer data or configuration is ever committed. Domain *understanding* from running an MES daily informs what to build; proprietary *material* does not enter this repository. ## The FactorySemantics family - **FactorySemantics MES** (this repo) — the execution layer: runs the floor, books production, owns the audit trail. - **FactorySemantics** — the semantic layer: canonical events and ontology this MES is designed to emit (not yet published; see Provenance). - **factorysemantics.com** — the commercial layer: on-prem analytics/ML nodes and the fleet console that consume those events. The MES makes the data; the semantic layer names it; the intelligence layer learns from it. ## Decisions (ratified 2026-08-28) | Decision | Call | Why | |---|---|---| | License | **Apache-2.0** everywhere, contributions under [DCO](CONTRIBUTING.md) | The two closest industrial comparables (United Manufacturing Hub, frePPLe) both *left* copyleft because integrators are the adoption channel; closed-SaaS strip-mining of a niche on-prem MES is a phantom threat. Copyright stays concentrated, so every future option remains open. | | Package name | dist `factorysemantics-mes`, import `fsmes` | Brand on the index, four keystrokes in code. Both names verified free on PyPI, 2026-08-28. | | Publication | **Public from 0.1.0, with a fresh history.** The private era (2026-08-28 to 2026-09-07) is summarised in [docs/history/private-era.md](docs/history/private-era.md). | Readiness and permission were kept separate on purpose: the repository went public when a stranger could install it, run a simulated plant, and read why every number is what it is. | | Governance | **One maintainer, decisions in public.** [GOVERNANCE.md](GOVERNANCE.md), [docs/decisions/](docs/decisions/). | A page that tells the truth beats a committee that does not exist. | ## Getting started Install from PyPI into an isolated environment and run the built-in story: one order released against a routing, run down a simulated two-station line over a real OPC UA server, booked honestly, and completed. CI builds the wheel, installs it into a fresh virtual environment in an empty directory and runs exactly this, on every pull request — the `wheel-demo` job (`.github/scripts/demo_from_wheel.sh`), which also refuses a wheel whose `fsmes --version` disagrees with its own metadata, and a wheel that cannot upgrade a database made by the release before it. ```bash pipx install factorysemantics-mes # or: uv tool install factorysemantics-mes fsmes info fsmes demo ``` From a checkout, on Linux or macOS: ```bash python -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/python -m pip install -e ".[dev]" .venv/bin/fsmes info .venv/bin/python -m pytest ``` On Windows (plant PCs are Windows, and CI proves it): ```powershell python -m venv .venv; .venv\Scripts\python -m pip install -e ".[dev]" .venv\Scripts\fsmes info .venv\Scripts\python -m pytest ``` **What runs today (2026-09-14, 0.2.0):** simulated plants, each one a [pack](docs/operate/packs.md) — a single directory that answers *which plant is this?*, refused offline by `fsmes pack check` before it touches anything. `fsmes plant all start` brings them all up; `fsmes fleet` manages the plants this installation owns and refuses every other one; `fsmes fleet console` puts them on one page that reads and has no write path. Each plant is a complete MES over a real OPC UA server with its operator screens. `fsmes score <plant>` replays a scripted hour and reports whether the MES booked what the line produced, whether a planned stop was misbooked as downtime, and whether the scripted breakdown was detected. Two MCP servers: the product’s **95** tools and the simulator’s **13**. Ninety-five is every tool-carrying module registered — eleven of the twenty-three modules ship tools — and a pack that switches one off takes its tools away with it; nine of the twenty-three are the kernel and cannot be switched off, fourteen can. The test suite is the gate: CI runs `ruff` and the whole suite on Ubuntu and Windows, Python 3.12 and 3.13, and the suite again on a real PostgreSQL 16.15, on every pull request. The public demo is the cutlery plant from `labs/cutlery`, simulated, serving a copy of one scored hour. The way in is [factorysemantics.com/demo](https://factorysemantics.com/demo/), which emails a link; `demo.factorysemantics.com` is gated and turns away anyone arriving without one. It runs on one desktop. Nothing there is a real factory. ## Where things are | | | |---|---| | Documentation | [docs.factorysemantics.com](https://docs.factorysemantics.com) — plant, operate, develop, agents | | Questions and ideas | [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/factorysemantics/factorysemantics-mes/discussions) | | Bugs | [Issues](https://github.com/factorysemantics/factorysemantics-mes/issues) — say whether the plant is simulated or real | | Contributing | [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) — DCO, house rules, provenance rule | | Conduct | [CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md) | | Security | [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md) — private reporting, what is and is not in scope | | Governance | [GOVERNANCE.md](GOVERNANCE.md), [MAINTAINERS.md](MAINTAINERS.md), [docs/decisions/](docs/decisions/) | | Changes | [CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md) | | Licence | [Apache-2.0](LICENSE), with [NOTICE](NOTICE) |