93% of Manufacturers Deploy MES, But Only 23% Achieve Full Integration

Deployment is widespread, integration remains elusive

Manufacturing execution systems have reached near-universal adoption among large industrial companies, but the majority are failing to extract full value from their investments. According to a new report from Rockwell Automation, 93% of manufacturers have deployed MES technology, yet only 28% have rolled it out enterprise-wide, and a mere 23% report full integration across ERP, PLM, quality management, and operational technology systems.

The research, titled "Scaling MES Across the Enterprise," surveyed 1,560 manufacturing and industrial operations decision-makers across 17 countries. More than half work at organizations generating over $1 billion in annual revenue, and 54% hold primary decision-making authority, lending operational weight to the findings.

Why it matters

This integration gap directly undermines manufacturers' ability to deploy AI at scale. With 43% of respondents admitting they do not effectively use the data they already collect, the path to AI-supported operations depends on solving connectivity problems first. The research quantifies a critical bottleneck: companies are investing in advanced capabilities while fundamental data flows remain broken.

Integration tops both wish lists and obstacle reports

The survey reveals a telling contradiction. Forty-four percent of manufacturers rank integration as their top MES buying requirement. That same challenge leads the list of modernization barriers, with 33% identifying MES as their single biggest data integration problem.

The practical result is that most manufacturers operate MES installations that deliver partial value. Production tracking may function at individual plants, but data fails to flow cleanly into quality management, supply chain forecasting, or workforce productivity systems. IDC Associate Research Director Lorenzo Veronesi, who contributed analysis to the report, noted that disconnected systems and underutilized data leave significant value unrealized.

Anthony Murphy, Rockwell's vice president of product management, described the evolution in operational terms: MES has shifted from a production tracking tool to a system that should generate insights across quality management, worker productivity, and supply chain forecasting. Connectivity, he emphasized, is what enables AI to function at scale.

AI ambitions outpace data infrastructure

Manufacturers expect 42% of processes to be AI-supported within the next year, rising to 54% by 2030. This timeline sits uncomfortably alongside the finding that 43% of organizations are not effectively using collected data. AI systems require clean, connected data to produce reliable outputs—the integration gap documented here doubles as an AI readiness gap.

Cybersecurity moves up the procurement checklist

Security pressures are reshaping how manufacturers evaluate MES platforms. Forty-six percent reported a cyber incident in the past year. That exposure has elevated security and compliance to the second-highest MES buying requirement, cited by 43% of respondents. For procurement and IT teams, security posture now ranks near the top of evaluation criteria rather than serving as a final checkbox.

What multi-site scaling looks like in practice

Kumi North America, a Tier 1 automotive supplier specializing in injection-molded interior plastics and assemblies, offers a concrete example of MES expansion. The company began using Rockwell's Plex platform in 2008 and has since deployed it across facilities in the United States and Canada, recently adding Plex MES Automation and Orchestration capabilities. Paul Andrews, the company's assistant vice president of systems, described pre-Plex operations as difficult to synchronize, with some locations running no software at all.

The findings were first reported by MarketScale, which conducted the research in partnership with Rockwell Automation and IDC.