Method of and system for controlling a manufacturing process

A method of controlling manufacturing processes in a plant via a manufacturing execution system (MES system), which comprises the steps of:

• providing the MES system with product definition information including production-related information entities containing information on how to manufacture a product, and resource-related information entities containing information about resources to be used for manufacturing the product, wherein for manufacturing a plurality of products whose manufacturing processes share most of a process workflow and most of the resources, the step of providing the MES system with product definition information includes the further steps of:
• providing the MES system with a single production-related information entity;
• storing in the single production-related information entity, for a non-shared resource, a label defining the non-shared resource as a generic resource;
• linking the generic resource into an actual resource by creating a link to a resource-related information entity at a creation of a production order for a specific product;
• the step of providing the MES system with the single production-related information entity further includes the steps of:
• including in the single production-related information entity, for process stages in which non-shared resources are involved and which are to be performed according to parameters specific for each of the plurality of products, parameter information about parameters to be used for different products;
• and
• at a creation of the production order for the specific product, reading from the single production-related information entity and including into the production order only the parameters specific for the specific product;
• executing the production order by operating the plant with the resources and the parameters.