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AWS Solutions Library

Guidance for GE Digital Proficy Smart Factory MES on AWS

Overview

This Guidance shows how you can drive value by using GE Digital’s Proficy Smart Factory manufacturing execution system (MES) with AWS services. GE Digital Proficy Smart Factory is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering from General Electric (GE) and is available on the AWS Marketplace. Proficy Smart Factory is a powerful operation management offering built to handle multiple uses, such as efficiency, quality, and production management. It also supports batch analysis, scheduling, digital operations, and industrial data management. Proficy Smart Factory spans on-premises, cloud-based MES capabilities and, when used in conjunction with other AWS services, can help you can gain more insights from manufacturing data through machine learning (ML) and predictive analytics. 

How it works

These technical details feature an architecture diagram to illustrate how to effectively use this solution. The architecture diagram shows the key components and their interactions, providing an overview of the architecture's structure and functionality step-by-step.

Download the architecture diagram

Well-Architected Pillars

The architecture diagram above is an example of a Solution created with Well-Architected best practices in mind. To be fully Well-Architected, you should follow as many Well-Architected best practices as possible.

Amazon CloudWatch can be configured with this Guidance to enhance your operational excellence. GE uses CloudWatch to collect and centralize logs, metrics, and application performance data. The GE Proficy Smart Factory application is managed by GE Digital, and these tools provide the capability to monitor and manage the application and the underlying infrastructure.

Read the Operational Excellence whitepaper 

Proficy Smart Factory MES authenticates and authorizes application users using a user account and authorization (UAA) service, an open-source identity server project, operated by the Cloud Foundry Foundation. You can integrate your on-premises active directories with this service. This Guidance also encrypts data in transit using TLS for user interfaces, API access, and data collector agents, and it uses AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) to encrypt all critical and sensitive data at rest.

Read the Security whitepaper 

In this Guidance, GE Digital manages the availability and reliability of the SaaS application for a highly available network topology. We do recommend using a reliable and redundant internet connection to maintain access to the application. Finally, resiliency is a shared responsibility between AWS and you. AWS is responsible for the resiliency of the infrastructure running the services in the AWS Cloud. Your responsibility is determined by the AWS Cloud services you configure. 

Read the Reliability whitepaper 

In this Guidance, GE Digital chooses AWS services for use in the SaaS to deliver a well-performing application. For data and analytics integration, you can use an Amazon S3 data lake along with purpose-built industrial AI/ML services.

Read the Performance Efficiency whitepaper 

Proficy Smart Factory is priced on a per line basis, so you pay only for each physical line you bring to the MES system. The data repository cost depends on the amount of data ingested from the MES and scales with the size of the manufacturing line.

Read the Cost Optimization whitepaper 

In this Guidance, GE Digital manages the resources for the SaaS application to achieve optimum usage. This Guidance also uses Amazon S3 data lakes, which scale based on data volume. You should use serverless versions of the analytics services when possible so that you will use only the minimum resources required.

Read the Sustainability whitepaper 

Disclaimer

The sample code; software libraries; command line tools; proofs of concept; templates; or other related technology (including any of the foregoing that are provided by our personnel) is provided to you as AWS Content under the AWS Customer Agreement, or the relevant written agreement between you and AWS (whichever applies). You should not use this AWS Content in your production accounts, or on production or other critical data. You are responsible for testing, securing, and optimizing the AWS Content, such as sample code, as appropriate for production grade use based on your specific quality control practices and standards. Deploying AWS Content may incur AWS charges for creating or using AWS chargeable resources, such as running Amazon EC2 instances or using Amazon S3 storage.