Gaining competitive advantage is the main driver of innovation in nature as much as it is in technology. And the manufacturing ecosystem is no different. ​ In manufacturing, this manifests in the deployment of production automation systems on the shop floor, and enterprise planning systems on the top floor. ​ But yet, there's a grey area in between that has, for the most part, remained underutilised or wrongly implemented altogether. ​ This is where a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) would live. ​ To understand how manufacturers can gain a competitive advantage by leveraging a Modern MES Architecture for data-driven manufacturing, I invited Kevin Jones for a podcast conversation. ​ Kevin is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Ectobox, Inc., a Manufacturing Intelligence Solutions company and Industry 4.0 systems integrator based in Pittsburgh, PA. ​ Below is the outline of our conversation  ✅ Drivers for Data-Driven Manufacturing ✅ Introducing MES for Manufacturing ✅ Functions of Manufacturing Execution Systems ✅ Selecting and Implementing an MES System ✅ Modern Manufacturing Execution System Architecture ✅ Problems with Current Manufacturing Data Systems ✅ Unified Namespace for Manufacturing Execution System ✅ Brownfield Integration into Unified Namespace Architecture ✅ The Future of MES in Manufacturing ​