Martin Brandel

MES Consultant at SYMESTIC. Over 30 years in industrial automation. Dipl.-Ing. Communications Engineering.

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I have been connecting machines to higher-level systems since 1991:
Back then with Simatic S5, warehouse management and material flow control. Today with OPC UA, IoT gateways and cloud MES. The technology has changed, but the core problem remains the same: How do you reliably extract data from a machine that was never designed to provide it?

I started as an automation technician at an engineering firm:
For four years, I programmed and commissioned warehouse management systems, material flow controllers and plant control systems. I also built plant-wide visualization systems with COROS. That was the period when I learned what it means to make software work under real production conditions, not in a lab.

At Hermos AG, I managed large-scale projects in Eastern Europe and China:
Conveyor systems, process engineering, paint lines. Programming, commissioning, on-site coordination. When you commission a paint line in a factory that is still under construction, you quickly learn that automation does not work from behind a desk.

I joined SYMESTIC in 2000:
First, I built and led the automation engineering department for eleven years. During that time, we developed the software standard for process engineering plants in the beverage and wood industries, carried out retrofit projects from Simatic S5 to S7 and TIA, and laid the foundations for the machine connectivity that powers the SYMESTIC Cloud MES platform today.

Since 2019, I have been working as MES Consultant and Project Manager:
I guide manufacturing companies from the initial inquiry through to go-live. That means: analyzing the machine park, defining the connectivity strategy, setting up data collection, configuring KPIs, and training operators. Most customers have a mixed machine park: modern controllers alongside equipment from the 1990s. That is exactly my strength. I know both worlds because I have worked in both.

What drives me:
Many companies believe their legacy machines cannot deliver data. That is almost never true. With the right gateway and the right approach, any machine can be connected, without PLC intervention, without production downtime. The moment a customer sees real machine data on their dashboard for the first time and realizes what they did not know for years, that is why I do this job.

Career

Since 2019: symestic GmbH, MES Consultant & Project Manager. Consulting and implementation of MES and automation projects. End-to-end project management from inquiry to go-live.

2008-2018: symestic GmbH (formerly ODEVIS GmbH), Head of Automation Engineering. Built and led the department. Designed machine connectivity for MES systems. Retrofit projects Simatic S5 to S7/TIA.

2000-2007: ODEVIS GmbH, Head of Automation Engineering. Founded the department. Software standard for process engineering plants in the beverage and wood industries. Simatic S7, Siemens Panel. CE certifications.

1995-2000: Hermos AG, Automation Engineer. Programming and commissioning of conveyor and process engineering systems. Large-scale projects (paint lines) in Eastern Europe and China.

1991-1995: Ing. Buero Juergen Albert, Automation Engineering. Programming and commissioning of warehouse management, material flow control and plant control systems with Simatic S5. Plant-wide visualization systems with COROS.

Areas of Expertise

Machine data collection (MDE), production data acquisition (BDE), machine connectivity, PLC programming (Simatic S5, S7, TIA Portal), retrofit, OPC UA, IoT gateway integration, brownfield connectivity, process control systems, material flow control, industrial automation, MES project management, process engineering, CE compliance.

On the SYMESTIC Blog

I write about machine data collection and production data acquisition: how legacy equipment is connected to an MES without PLC intervention, which data can be captured automatically and where manual input still makes sense. From the perspective of someone who has been delivering these projects for over two decades.

Contact

Email: martin.brandel@symestic.com