We implement two MES platforms.
TrakSYS from Parsec and AquiWeb from Astrée. Which one you should run comes down to two things: how complicated your organisation is, and how much of the solution has to be built rather than switched on. Our margin is the same either way, so the recommendation costs us nothing to give straight. What you are actually buying from us is the architecture, the integration work, and getting operators to use the thing.
TrakSYS
The platform we reach for when the process refuses to fit a standard module, and when there are enough sites, systems and stakeholders that governing the rollout becomes a job of its own. Parsec has been building it since 1987. It runs our longest engagement: 25+ sites at Corticeira Amorim on one template.
What TrakSYS doesAquiWeb
Nine packaged modules — OEE, quality, traceability, maintenance, scheduling, documentation, guided work, stock, energy. You switch on the ones you need and configure them. Astrée has built it since 2011 and reports it on more than 400 sites. There is far less to construct, and correspondingly less you can bend.
What AquiWeb doesWhere the difference actually shows up.
Two rows in the table below decide most cases: how the solution gets built, and how complicated the organisation around it is. Everything else is context that shifts a borderline call.
| Selection dimension | TrakSYS by Parsec | AquiWeb by Astrée |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Parsec Automation, United States. Building TrakSYS since 1987. | Astrée Software, France. Founded 2011, part of the 4CAD Group since February 2024. |
| How it gets built | A configured core plus real development where the process needs it. Code-free configuration tools with scripting underneath when a requirement genuinely calls for it. | Nine packaged modules, switched on and configured. Little to construct, and the shape of the modules sets the shape of the solution. |
| Organisational scope | Many sites, countries and business units on a single governed template, rolled out in waves. | One site, or a handful with similar processes. |
| Where it is strongest | Complex, heavily integrated operations where several functions argue over the same data. | Getting a plant off paper and onto measured OEE quickly, with quality and traceability behind it. |
| Architecture | Microsoft .NET, HTML and JavaScript. On-premises, cloud or hybrid, with containerised services. | 100% web. Nothing installed on the client; on-premises or AWS-hosted. |
| Integration | ERP, SCADA, LIMS, WMS, CMMS and historians, over OPC UA, MQTT with Sparkplug B, REST and SQL. | ERP, plus shop-floor collection over OPC UA, Ethernet I/O, IIoT modules and AS-i bus. |
| Regulated industries | Built with regulated manufacturing in mind: audit trails, electronic signatures and version control for 21 CFR Part 11, EU Annex 11 and ISO 13485 programmes, with ISA-88 recipe and SOP management. | Quality, traceability and document control modules with per-step operator validation. Astrée does not claim an equivalent regulated-industry toolset. |
| Who maintains it after go-live | Usually a small internal MES team, or us on retainer. Deep configurability means someone has to own it. | Often the plant's own continuous-improvement lead, with vendor support behind them. |
| Vendor-reported reach | Parsec reports TrakSYS in thousands of factories across more than 100 countries. | Astrée reports AquiWeb on 400+ industrial sites, used daily by more than 21,000 people across 18 countries. |
Reach and capability figures are the vendors' own, and describe the products rather than anything we have delivered.
If you have to defend the choice to a board, our MES Buyer's Guide & Vendor Selection Framework is a scoring model written from the buyer's side of the table.
Twelve questions, five screens.
These are the questions we work through in a Discovery call, in roughly the order we ask them. Nothing is stored unless you ask us to send you the summary at the end.