CAD-IT and Factorise: composable MES for UK manufacturers who don’t need an enterprise price tag

October 1, 2026

Why UK manufacturers don’t have to choose between “too rigid” and “too custom” anymore

Ask most mid-market manufacturers in the UK what their MES options look like, and you’ll hear the same two answers. Option one: a legacy enterprise system built for sites ten times their size, with a project timeline to match. Option two: nothing, held together by spreadsheets, whiteboards, and whoever remembers to update the shared drive.

Neither is actually a choice. The first is too expensive and too slow to justify for a single or dual-site operation. The second isn’t a system at all, it’s a workaround that breaks the moment someone goes on holiday.

That gap is exactly why Factorise exists, and it’s why we’ve partnered with CAD-IT in the UK.

Two different jobs, done by the people built for them

CAD-IT has spent years helping manufacturers connect the shop floor to the systems around it, through their work on Siemens Insights Hub and NodeLinx. They know what it actually takes to get machine data, sensor data, and historian data flowing reliably, and they know the UK manufacturing landscape from the inside: the people, the processes, the quirks of a plant that’s been running the same way for twenty years.

Factorise builds the platform. Composable, modular, built on Mendix. Six suites, 40+ apps, start with one problem and add capability as you go, instead of signing up for a multi-year programme before you’ve proven anything works.

Put those two together and an SME manufacturer gets something that used to only exist for the Kemiras of the world: a real MES, connected to their actual OT and IT landscape, without the enterprise price tag or the enterprise timeline.

What that looks like in practice

A plant manager doesn’t need to understand composability or low-code to feel the difference. They need:

• Production and quality data that comes from the machines, not from someone walking the floor with a clipboard.
• A system that works with what’s already there, rather than asking them to rip out their ERP or historian.
• The ability to start small (one line, one problem) and expand only once it’s clearly paying off.

CAD-IT handles the integration and the boots-on-the-ground delivery. Factorise handles the platform underneath. Neither of us is trying to be the other.

Why this matters for mid-market manufacturers specifically

This is the part of the market that enterprise MES vendors quietly don’t build for, and that connected-worker point solutions don’t fully cover either. Mid-market manufacturers need production execution, quality, and performance visibility in one place, not five different apps that don’t talk to each other, and not a six-figure implementation before line one goes live.

That’s the thinking behind composable MES, and it’s the thinking CAD-IT and Factorise share. Pick the capability that solves today’s problem. Prove it works. Expand from there.

Where to go from here

If you’re a UK manufacturer looking at your MES options and neither “do nothing” nor “go enterprise” feels right, that’s the conversation CAD-IT and Factorise are set up to have. Have a look at what the partnership covers on CAD-IT’s site, or get in touch and we’ll walk you through where it fits your floor.