Governing MES at Scale: A Practical Guide to Global Template Development

Governing MES at Scale: A Practical Guide to Global Template Development

A New Way to Standardize

Today, the question many manufacturers are asking is not “should we standardize our MES across our enterprise,” but rather, “how can we roll out a standard without causing mass disruptions?”

For those businesses using TrakSYS, we have developed Solution Studio, a tool purpose-built to aid template solution management and development. With TrakSYS Solution Studio, creating templates is simple, enabling faster deployment across multiple sites, standardized processes, and reduced costs.

Watch this video demonstration to see Solution Studio in action, and keep reading to learn even more about how and why TrakSYS templates can optimize global MES governance:

Solution Studio for Complex MES Template Management

Early MES projects often begin with this intention: build once, reuse everywhere. In practice, global template development—when treated as static exports—introduces common compounding challenges.

To be as effective and non-disruptive as possible, global templates need to be viewed as governed, versioned assets with lifecycles that include controlled development environments, clear ownership and approval paths, and version history and rollback.

That’s why we created Solution Studio.

As a purpose-built MES development workspace, Solution Studio enables manufacturers to tackle common template rollout roadblocks:

Challenge: Solution Studio Capability:
Colliding Parallel Development
There are often multiple teams working on the same MES solution. Without proper isolation, one team’s changes can overwrite another’s—or worse, introduce regressions into live sites.
Multi-Team Enablement
Different teams can work in parallel without stepping on each other’s work, enabling corporate COE teams to define standards, regional teams to extend capabilities, and systems integrators to build industry-specific logic all within a shared framework.
Version Drift Across Sites
Once templates are copied manually or via ad-hoc scripts, sites can begin to diverge, leading to negative outcomes such as local fixes not being captured centrally, revisions existing in some plants but not others, and an unclear understanding of which version is running.
Structured Development Layers
Solution assets—such as logic, pages, data models, and configuration—are organized and versioned intentionally, making dependencies explicit and changes auditable.
Governance vs Speed
Strict governance can slow delivery; loose governance can create risk. Thus, most organizations oscillate between the two: locking things down after a major incident, then loosening controls to keep projects moving.
Governance Without Gridlock
Standards can be defined once, reused everywhere, and evolved intentionally without blocking local innovation. A structure that allows both speed and governance.

Solution Studio acts as a centralized design and governance environment for TrakSYS solutions. Rather than developing directly inside production systems, teams work within an isolated, managed workspace.

Template Transfer: More Than Copy-and-Paste

TrakSYS Template Transfer is the mechanism that moves solution assets from Solution Studio to site systems. It’s not a bulk overwrite nor a copy-and-paste; Template Transfer is a structured, auditable process.

Each transfer is intentional, traceable, and repeatable. The tool allows for granular selection and transfer of specific assets, such as logic components, UI elements, configuration objects, and data structures. Once selected, template assets move through environments the same way mature software does, creating a clear lineage, traceability, and accountability from idea to deployment.

The path looks like this:

Design → Test → Validation → Production

This clear transfer process allows for updates to be made safely and at scale. When standards change, they can be propagated across sites without risk of wiping local adaptations.

Branching and Merging Workflows

One of the most powerful capabilities of Solution Studio is branching and merging.

In global MES deployments, teams across regions, departments, and disciplines are constantly developing new features, making updates, or addressing site-specific requirements. This is where the ability to branch and merge solutions becomes invaluable.

Branching and merging in TrakSYS Solution Studio enables:

  • Experimental development without risk
  • Parallel feature work
  • Controlled reconciliation of changes

This means developers can spin off isolated environments to test new ideas, make changes, or build site-specific extensions, all while preserving the integrity of the core template. When development is complete, changes can be reviewed, validated, and selectively merged back into the main template.

With branching and merging, Solution Studio is more than a development model; it’s flexible, resilient, scalable, and primed to help solutions adapt to the real-world complexities of manufacturing.

What This Means for Global Manufacturers

For manufacturers operating across geographies, business units, and regulatory frameworks, strategic standardization is crucial. MES solutions need to be robust enough to enforce global standards, yet adaptable enough to accommodate local realities.

TrakSYS Solution Studio helps strike this balance.

By moving away from ad-hoc template exports towards a governed, lifecycle-managed development approach, manufacturers can establish a reliable MES-based template management solution that scales and adapts with their organization. This enables faster rollouts, greater reuse, and clearer visibility into system changes—all without sacrificing site-level flexibility.

The result is not only reduced rework and improved compliance, but a development approach that mirrors the way global operations actually function. TrakSYS doesn’t just make it easier to scale MES; the platform makes it safer, smarter, and better aligned with the needs of a modern manufacturing enterprise.

Conclusion

MES standardization isn’t just about enforcing uniformity—it’s about creating a shared foundation that evolves efficiently and effectively. With TrakSYS Solution Studio, manufacturers can standardize intelligently, support local needs, and scale their digital operations with confidence.

Ready to learn how to best scale your MES? Contact us today.

FAQs

What is the purpose of MES template management?
How does TrakSYS Solution Studio support global MES deployments?
What is the Template Transfer tool?
Why is this approach better than traditional copy-paste?

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