China is widely regarded as the “world's factory”. Nevertheless, China is no longer simply characterized by its low labor costs and promising huge market potential. Instead, Foreign Invested Enterprises (FIEs) might have to cope with greater competition in China. They have to be more flexible and efficient in order to sustain the fast growth of their business. Can IT (Information Technology) help? Does it make sense to leverage logistics efficiency with the help of IT, since labor costs in China are still quite low? Where are the benefits that compensate IT spending?

In response to these questions, the following emerging concerns of mid-sized manufacturing FIEs in China can be observed:

? Need for the right local IT-partner
Today, if one takes a look at the worldwide IT rollout plan of some mulitnational companies, China doesn’t necessarily receive the priority treatment it should. Moreover, for the IT director at company headquarters it can be a difficult task to find the right partner for IT development in China operations. The partner should not only act locally, but also think globally.

? Company group standards Vs. reality in China
Even for a company with group-wide IT strategy, the decision of selecting a rollout plan of IT solutions for its subsidiary in China could be quite a lengthy process. Some companies are running an IT solution which doesn’t have international support (e.g. language). This is one of the reasons why FIEs accept stand-alone solutions in China, even with limited functions.

? Need for more transparency and control in production
Manufacturers need more transparency in production, reliable, real-time production data-collection, and traceability for ad-hoc reporting. This turns out to be one of the most important requirements of FIEs in China. Here companies need a shop floor solution (or MES: Manufacturing Execution System) which can either be integrated into ERP or be implemented as a standalone.

When analysing general MES availability in China, it becomes evident that MES is still in the development, or localization phase (like language support) in comparison to other IT applications.? Many MES-solutions are individual developments, tailored for certain type of manufacturing or even for a single company. The low standardization level of MES solutions leads to a lack of ERP integration, or the possibility of integration only with costly interface maintenance.

MES solutions should have the following features:

(1) Modulized and standardized functionalities

? Advance planning and scheduling:
Makes out an optimal production schedule according to production orders, customer priority, machine capacity, personnel shift mode, material stock level, change-overtime, costing and so on.
? Online shop floor data collection and monitoring:
Makes transparent the actual production process via real-time data collection and monitoring; reduces the reaction time for exceptions and problems.
? Quality management:
Standardizes the quality assurance process and integrates it with other modules like data collection, scheduling, and reporting.
? Traceability:
For each end-product, replays each step in the manufacturing process in order to discover possible problems with materials, machines or operators.
? Material and warehouse management:
For each end-product, replays each steps in the manufacture process, in oder to find out the possible problems on materials, machines or operators.
? Multi-level data analysis and reporting:
Provides different tools and interfaces to analyze data according to the customers’ requirements and presents results in data charts which are easy to understand.

(2) User-friendly interface and role-management

MES should use accessible Gantt-charts to present the results of planning and actual manufacturing progress for managers. Operators at the shop floor level can use touch-screens, barcode-readers, RFID sensors and other devices to input data. The contents are based on different roles like shop floor manager, shop floor operator etc..

(3) Varied application scenarios

MES should have an adaptable integration interface that can work smoothly with other ERP systems (e.g. SAP, Baan, SAP Business One, Fourth Shift) as well as running standalone.