Glossary · MES and ISA-95
Production definition
Also known as: Product definition, Product definition information
German: Produktionsdefinition
In ISA-95 / IEC 62264, production definition, called product definition information in the standard, is the information shared between business and manufacturing systems about how to make a product, such as the required materials, equipment, personnel and process segments. It is the production-specific form of operations definition.
- MES
- Standards
In one sentence
In ISA-95, production definition is the information on how to make a product: materials, equipment, personnel and process segments.
Example
The product definition for a sensor housing lists the material, the molding and assembly segments and the equipment classes each segment needs.
How it applies
- Engineering: Product definitions connect business-level bills of materials and routings with manufacturing-level recipes and work instructions.
- Batch industries: In ISA-88 environments, master recipes carry much of this information; see Recipe procedure.
- Change control: Product definitions change with product versions, so they need versioning and approval.
- Documentation: Work instructions and SOPs must match the valid product definition. The documentation team benefits from reading the definition structure, because process segments often map one-to-one to instruction chapters. When a product definition changes, the documentation team should be part of the change notification so that affected instructions are revised in step.
Production definition vs. production schedule
The production definition describes how a product is made in general. The Production schedule requests a specific quantity at a specific time.