FactoryFour vs Sepasoft

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Our analysts compared FactoryFour vs Sepasoft based on data from our 400+ point analysis of MES Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Sepasoft Software Tool

Product Basics

FactoryFour is a cloud-based system designed to configure and analyze operations and scale production. It identifies bottlenecks across processes and balances resources throughout work centers for optimum resource utilization. It maintains a master schedule visible to project managers, operators and salespeople to simplify communication.

Real-time alerting helps users respond quickly to production issues and alerts key stakeholders through customized emails or SMSs. It ensures operators’ productivity with responsive, Kanban-style dashboards.
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Sepasoft helps its customers control, track and document raw materials’ transformation into finished goods in real time. It enables users to respond to production issues, identify and focus efforts on downtime and configure dashboards for everyone within the organization.

Its statistical process control module facilitates collaboration and quality data analysis across the enterprise. It offers sample scheduling, automatic signal evaluation, data collection and robust charting capabilities. It empowers producers to manage, distribute and view SOPs, MSDSs and other documents with its document management inclusion.
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$45 Monthly
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$2,750 One-Time
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Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
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On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
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Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Gain Visibility: Gain real-time visibility into production processes through visual dashboards. It helps to identify and resolve issues quickly to ensure smooth performance. 
  • Optimize Operations: Identify the root cause of problems, create alerts to resolve issues and analyze production bottlenecks to optimize operations. 
  • Enable Accurate Costing: Get an accurate picture of total costs, including labor utilization to make pricing, production and investment decisions. 
  • Obtain Marginal Costs: Price products and services precisely by gauging every component of production processes to derive marginal costs. 
  • Simplify Communication: Simplify communication across salespeople, project managers and operators with the aid of a master schedule. It facilitates collaboration and mitigates errors. 
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  • Schedule Production: Visualize production schedules including actual versus targeted, delayed production, machine status and more. Adjust schedule entries in real time to accommodate production progress, breaks and other factors that influence production. 
  • Handle Equipment Status: Capture the local and logistical equipment status to represent the context for production data. Configure status levels with custom values for different equipment and organize them in logical groupings based on asset utilization categories and downtime reasons. 
  • Detect Downtime: Employ downtime detection algorithms to accommodate equipment layouts to determine the root cause of downtime events. Track cycle times to determine bottlenecks in the product flow where the root cause isn’t prominent. 
  • Visualize Events: Visualize downtime events in real time. Record the beginning and end times of each event automatically to eliminate the risk of inaccurately timed data. Leverage a graphical timing chart to diagnose and optimize the product flow. 
  • Conduct Impromptu Analysis: Include data points for multiple dates ranges to view results on the fly. Summarize the data to narrow down inefficiencies and use this information to create dashboards and add-on displays to make production information visible. 
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  • Automation: Implement custom scheduling logic for order data and notify relevant stakeholders when the due date changes on production plans. 
  • Data Capture: Customize workflows to display standard operating procedures for the current task and prompt operators for quality data like key metrics or videos. 
  • Real-Time Alerts: Send customized email or SMS notifications to alert stakeholders about shop floor errors. 
  • Incident Handling: Enforce corrective action plans for anticipated or recurring production incidents to identify non-conformances quickly. 
  • Kanban-Style Dashboards: Create responsive kanban-style dashboards and customize task prioritization logic to ensure operators’ productivity and alignment with business priorities. 
  • Operator-Centric Interface: Boost operators’ efficiency and productivity with a unified interface for order information, work instructions, time-tracking and data capture. 
  • Work Instructions: Provide task-specific instructions and standard operating procedures and display the latest documentation to reduce errors. 
  • Traceability: Record production, quality and material events to simplify auditing and root cause analysis. Review order history with event logs throughout the application. 
  • Lean Principles: Customize task prioritization logic to align with business objectives and keep operators productive and prioritized. Operators can pull work orders from the top of prioritized backlogs. 
  • Resource Utilization: Leverage capacity planning to maximize resource utilization. Identify under-resourced work centers and move flexible resources to balance capacity and increase order throughput. 
  • Distribution: Maintain a master schedule visible to project managers, operators and salespeople to simplify communication. Update backlogs to inform operators about the latest priorities. 
  • Monitor Schedule Achievement: Monitor in-process order updates live from the floor, mitigating the need for daily progress updates. 
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  • Document Management: Manage, distribute and view standard operating procedures, material safety data sheets, quality documents, checklists and other production-related documents critical to safety, quality and efficiency using a document management module. 
  • Statistical Process Control: Ensure accurate data collection, improve quality analysis and execute automatic alerts for out-of-control conditions through statistical process control. Enables users to create and customize SPC control charts to visualize production information along with SPC data. 
  • Business Connector: Send and retrieve data in real-time to higher-level business systems like enterprise resource planning and advanced planning systems with the Business Connector. The visual sequence builder offers drag-and-drop functionality to create complex business logic, including control flow concepts like loops, conditionals and exception handling. 
  • Barcode Scanner: Facilitates material handling, operator login and lot tracking through barcode scanning capabilities. Empowers users to scan a badge to sign off on materials, master and batch production records and other tasks. It can be customized to read proprietary or industry-specific barcode content. 
  • Web Services: Consume data from and send data to remote and local web services via REST and SOAP protocols through a web services module. Enables users to obtain weather or mapping information or gather work order data from third-party applications. 
  • Instrument Interface: Leverage its instrument interface module to gather raw textual data via text files serial, OPC devices and more to parse out meaningful values that users can save to existing databases or pass on to other solutions. Includes file monitoring, parsing, serial communications and centralized instrument management. 
  • Recipe and Changeover: Manage, select, track and analyze recipes, track variances in values and generate reports. Create, import and export recipes, manage security and select recipe machines via a built-in visual recipe editor. Monitor recipe values and detect variances in real time to identify the root cause of production issues. 
  • Downtime Analysis: Determine reasons for production loss with advanced downtime detection algorithms. Retain and analyze unlimited past production data to identify downtime trends and target areas for improvement. 
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Product Ranking

#15

among all
MES Software

#22

among all
MES Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

54
54
27
47
73
72
55
56
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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

FactoryFour
Sepasoft
+ Add Product + Add Product
Mobile Product And Parts Tracking Production Definition And Monitoring Production Dispatch And Execution Quality Management Reports And Dashboards Resources Management 27 73 55 94 49 76 65 47 72 56 57 56 66 37 0 25 50 75 100
29%
0%
71%
43%
0%
57%
78%
0%
22%
67%
11%
22%
55%
0%
45%
55%
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45%
100%
0%
0%
57%
0%
43%
56%
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44%
56%
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44%
71%
0%
29%
57%
14%
29%
63%
0%
37%
33%
0%
67%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

8%
8%
84%
33%
17%
50%

User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 12 reviews
Great User Sentiment 23 reviews
98%
of users recommend this product

FactoryFour has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 98% when considering 12 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

84%
of users recommend this product

Sepasoft has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 84% when considering 23 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

4.9 (12)
n/a
n/a
4.2 (23)

Awards

FactoryFour stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Improved Visibility: Users appreciate the real-time insights into their shop floor operations, enabling them to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement.
Enhanced Traceability: The platform's ability to track materials, production processes, and quality metrics provides valuable data for audits and continuous improvement initiatives.
Increased Efficiency: FactoryFour streamlines workflows, automates tasks, and reduces manual data entry, leading to increased productivity and reduced operational costs.
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Easy to Use: Users praise Sepasoft's intuitive design and user-friendly interface, making it easy to navigate and implement without extensive training.
Flexible and Scalable: Sepasoft's solutions can adapt to various manufacturing processes and easily scale as operations grow, accommodating both small and large-scale deployments.
Excellent Customer Support: Users consistently highlight Sepasoft's responsive and knowledgeable customer support team, providing timely assistance and guidance when needed.
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Difficult to Use: Some users have reported that FactoryFour is not user-friendly and requires extensive training to use effectively. This can be a major drawback for companies that need a system that is easy to learn and use.
Limited Customization: FactoryFour is not as customizable as some other MES solutions. This can be a problem for companies with unique manufacturing processes that require a tailored system.
Integration Challenges: Integrating FactoryFour with existing systems can be challenging. This can lead to data silos and make it difficult to get a complete picture of the manufacturing process.
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Complex Configuration: Users have reported that configuring Sepasoft can be quite challenging, especially for those new to the platform or without extensive programming knowledge. This complexity can lead to longer implementation times and increased reliance on external consultants.
Limited Reporting Capabilities: Some users have expressed dissatisfaction with the out-of-the-box reporting functionality offered by Sepasoft. They find it difficult to create custom reports or extract specific data points without significant customization effort.
Occasional Performance Issues: While generally considered stable, some users have reported experiencing occasional performance issues with Sepasoft, particularly when dealing with large datasets or complex automation tasks. These issues can manifest as slow response times or system lag, impacting operational efficiency.
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Is your manufacturing execution system stuck in the dark ages? If so, FactoryFour might be the beacon of light you've been searching for. Over the past year, users have consistently praised FactoryFour for its intuitive interface, which stands in stark contrast to the clunky, cumbersome interfaces of many competitors. One user even compared switching to FactoryFour to "trading in a rusty wrench for a state-of-the-art toolbox." This ease of use has been particularly valuable for smaller businesses with limited IT resources, allowing them to quickly implement and utilize the software without extensive training or support. However, some users have expressed concerns about FactoryFour's limited customization options. While the software's out-of-the-box functionality is robust, tailoring it to meet very specific or unique manufacturing processes can be challenging. This lack of flexibility could be a dealbreaker for larger enterprises with complex, highly customized workflows. Ultimately, FactoryFour seems best suited for small to mid-sized businesses seeking a user-friendly, streamlined solution to manage their manufacturing operations. Its intuitive design and affordability make it a compelling choice for those looking to dip their toes into the world of MES without getting bogged down by complexity.

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User reviews from the past year suggest that Sepasoft is a strong contender in the manufacturing execution system (MES) market, but it's not without its caveats. Users praise Sepasoft for its robust data acquisition and contextualization capabilities, enabling real-time production monitoring and identification of improvement opportunities. For example, one manufacturer highlighted Sepasoft's ability to track machine output in real-time, allowing them to quickly identify and address production bottlenecks. This granular level of insight is often cited as a key differentiator compared to competitors like Rockwell Automation's FactoryTalk ProductionCentre, which some users find less intuitive and flexible. However, Sepasoft's strength in customization can also be a double-edged sword. Some users have reported a steeper learning curve compared to more plug-and-play solutions. Additionally, while Sepasoft offers strong integration capabilities with platforms like Ignition by Inductive Automation, some users have noted challenges with integrating Sepasoft with legacy systems. Overall, Sepasoft appears best suited for manufacturers who require a highly customizable and scalable MES solution and are willing to invest the time and resources for implementation and training. Smaller manufacturers with simpler needs might find more streamlined solutions a better fit.

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