Are manufacturers getting the benefits they want from investing in manufacturing software such as MES / MOM? What about AI, is that adding value in the operation? While there is plenty of talk about failed projects in both MES and AI, this research will show you what’s truly happening across the industry today: companies are gaining business benefits of MOS and AI, and often quickly.
This survey-based eBook of over 400 manufacturing industry professionals from a variety of industries and sizes of companies shows where industry is on manufacturing operations software (MOS) as well as AI maturity. Anyone interested in software for manufacturing can learn not only what peers are doing, but what best practices set aside Top Performers.
Please enjoy an overview of our findings below.* For the full research, please visit our sponsors below:
Table of Contents
- AI and MOS Both Growing
- Manufacturing Operations Under Pressure
- Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS)
- MOS is Table Stakes
- MOS Delivers Business Value
- Time to Value
- Top Performers Show a Way
- The Evolution of MOS
- The AI Boom Adds Urgency
- AI Obstacles
- MOS as AI Foundation
- MSO Perceived Well, but not Universally Supported
- Best Practices in MOS Success
- Center of Excellence
- CoE Drives Benefits
- MOS Standardization and Deployment Options Vary
- Ensuring MOS Fits
- MOS Deployment
- MOS Obstacles
- Realistic AI Expectations
- AI Expands Benefits
- AI’s Supporting Role
- Conclusion: Adopt MOS and AI for Success
- Recommendations
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Manufacturing Operations Under Pressure
Capital and Margins
Why do manufacturers put so much emphasis on improving key performance indicators (KPIs) in production? Because the frontline operation is where most companies tie up so much capital. Capital is in facilities, equipment, tooling, and materials; throughput from these assets is the foundation of operating margins. Thus, plants, factories, and fabs tend to be where margin is gained or lost.
Current Pressures
Many factors are converging to squeeze manufacturers in 2026 and beyond. As Deloitte’s 2026 Manufacturing Industry Outlook sub-head indicates, “Renewed strategic focus and targeted technology investments could be essential to maintaining a competitive edge in 2026.”1 They point to 2025’s industry contraction, rising material costs, and declines in employment and construction spending. Trade uncertainties, such as tariffs, are not vanishing, so companies must evolve.
Time-Critical Action
Addressing these issues effectively requires appropriate decisions and action. In frontline production, minutes or seconds matter, and operations are interconnected. Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS) has been around almost as long as software itself, supporting confident decisions and action by frontline operations staff in production.
Research Objectives
Knowing all of that, we created a research program to study these questions:
- Why are companies investing in manufacturing operations software (MOS)?
- What is the business value of MOS? Do plantwide applications address these pressures?
- How common are the benefits, and how long do they take to achieve?
- How is AI affecting all of this? Are companies using it in manufacturing operations?
- What are the best practices in MOS and AI for manufacturing operations?
MOS Delivers Business Value
Top Benefits
Manufacturers commonly implement MOS to improve core operating KPIs, and its use is growing because it delivers value. The most common MOS benefit outcomes (all reported by over half of respondents) were, in order:
- Quality
- Visibility across sites
- Reduced operating costs
- Regulatory compliance and traceability
- Performance view latency
Wide Range of Value
The benefits of MOS are broad. In addition to those top benefits, over one-third of respondents realized benefits in cycle time, asset performance, employee decision-making and competency, supply chain, enforcing standard operating procedures (SOPs) across sites, and engineering change. A broad suite can deliver a range of benefits.
Meeting Investment Goals
Most manufacturers are achieving the benefits they hope for in deploying MOS. The top 7 reasons for investing (shown at the top of the graphic on page 4) are also the top 7 areas where manufacturers report gaining benefits.
- Quality is both the most common goal and delivered benefit for MOS for 66% of respondents.
- Operating costs are the #2 driver of investment, and 56% of respondents achieved that benefit, ranking third.
- 46% achieved improved asset performance from MOS (ranking seventh), though it was the #3 driver – this requires a multidisciplinary effort between production and maintenance.
- While 51% set a goal of improving visibility across sites, 60% achieved it.
The AI Boom Adds Urgency
AI Delivers Benefits
While AI has been used in manufacturing for decades, LLMs and agents have exploded onto the scene in recent years. AI is already doing a wide array of things in manufacturing operations that can improve outcomes. We asked how it supports better decisions, and the top ways include suggesting actions, summarizing information, predicting outcomes, and improving search and data gathering.
AI Leverages Vast Datasets
Predicting outcomes is typically a Machine Learning (ML) approach to AI, and some operations have used it for decades. The other top benefits listed are excellent uses of Agentic and LLM-based AI. Since an operation typically has far more data than even an expert human can easily process, manufacturers have tended to aggregate it to draw conclusions. AI is at the other end of that spectrum, doing its best work when there is a large volume of rich, detailed data to analyze and correlate.
Human-in-the-Loop
Few are allowing AI to act autonomously. Only 12% of respondents report having autonomous AI make decisions. Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) is when AI supports or recommends actions to people who validate and make the decision. Even the best AI solutions are not 100% accurate, and since their ue is reasonably new, they must gain trust in industrial environments.
Support and Recommend
Most companies are using AI to support people (54%) or to recommend decisions to a human (43%). This ensures that AI does not act on its own, particularly in safety-critical environments. In some instances, manufacturers need a deterministic response, which LLMs and the agents based on them do not inherently provide. In these instances, rules, algorithms, and HITL will remain the operating model.
Conclusion: Adopt MOS and AI for Success
MOS Maturing
The market for MOS appears to be growing fast and for good reason: It delivers strong benefits. This research clearly shows that manufacturers have matured in that they are using MOS, and wisely. Most who use MOS have gained benefits, and it is perceived well.
MOS Feeds AI
As we have illustrated, MOS can provide what AI most needs to succeed and scale. We recommend manufacturers use MOS as a foundation for AI data models to provide more complete, timely, in-context data from which to predict, search, reason, and support employees.
AI Supports MOS
As a previous diagram showed (Preferred Strategy For Adopting Operations-Related AI Software, page 13), over a third of Top Performers would prefer to acquire AI as part of their MOS, and another quarter want it integrated with their primary MOS. Enterprise-level AI is also a valid approach that might help pull from all available sources. Standalone AI is not as desirable. We suspect that’s because integrating and structuring data to ensure a current data model for AI is onerous.
Gaining Value
Manufacturing companies are under constant pressure to improve operational performance. Fortunately, both MOS and AI are proving to deliver the value needed. Gaining benefits within the first year shows strong ROI. Ideally, MOS benefits compound over time, so those who start early have an advantage. Today’s MOS and AI can accelerate that value and keep a manufacturer competitive.
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the ebook and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsors.
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