Two team members gone in two months
This week, my team went through another change — my MES engineer decided to leave and join another company, even after I tried my best to counter offer. I fully respect her choice, but of course, it’s not easy for me. This means in just two months, I’ve lost two MES support staff, and one of those roles is still unfilled. Now, there’s another opening to fill.
Not the best timing: POC is starting soon
The timing is honestly quite tough. We’re about to start our POC month with the selected MES low-code platform vendor. This is the phase that will tell us if this solution can really work for us — or if we’ll have to rethink our entire MES strategy. It’s a lot to juggle, and right now we’re going in with fewer hands on deck than I’d hoped for.
At the same time, existing MES having issues
Our current MES has also started to show some performance issues. Without enough support staff, naturally most things end up back with me. As MES Manager, I do feel it’s my responsibility to make sure production isn’t disrupted. But trying to balance daily issues with driving our future MES direction is really challenging.
My temporary workaround for now
- I borrowed an existing IT support colleague to join my team for now, mainly to help with day-to-day technical issues.
- I also promoted our very capable MES operator to MES technician, so he now officially reports to me and leads the rest of the MES operators across all shifts, helping cover the missing headcount.
- Meanwhile, I’m actively looking for potential new hires to rebuild the team.
Hoping things will settle down soon
It’s still a bit worrying. I won’t hide that I feel stressed thinking about how to keep everything moving, make sure quality doesn’t slip, and hope this POC can still run smoothly under these circumstances. But I continue to pray and believe somehow things will settle down in time.
I wanted to share this not to complain, but to remind myself (and maybe you too) that MES is never just about software or systems — it’s about people. And sometimes, leading MES means dealing with very human realities like people growing, moving on, or unexpected gaps in the team.
So for now, I’ll just keep doing my best, take it step by step, and trust that eventually we’ll get through this phase.
