Available at www.sciencedirect.

com

INFORMATION PROCESSING IN AGRICULTURE 6 (2019) 326–334

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/inpa

Controlling and regulation of integrated aquaponic

production systems – An approach for a
management execution system (MES)

Olaf Witzel a, Stefan Wilm b, Divas Karimanzira c,*, Daniela Baganz d

a
Automation & Software Günther Tausch GmbH, Bassower Str. 2, 17034 Neubrandenburg, Germany
b
Gesellschaft für Informationsverarbeitung, Fertigungssteuerung und Qualitätssicherung, IFQ GmbH Wismar, Alter Holzhafen 17a,
23966 Wismar, Germany
c
Department of Surface and Maritime Systems, Fraunhofer I0SB-AST, Ilmenau, Am Vogelherd 50, 98689 Ilmenau, Germany
d
Department of Biology and Ecology of Fishes, Leibniz–Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: Manufacturing execution systems (MESs) play a significant role in the manufacturing para-
Available online 1 April 2019 digm. MES is there to link between the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and the
plant equipment control or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) applica-
Keywords: tions. In this paper the MES of the INAPRO aquaponics system which was developed to sup-
Aquaponics port and advise the aquaponics managers in operating the complex aquaponic farms, will
Manufacturing execution system be presented. One important feature of the INAPRO aquaponics system is to minimize fresh
Predictive analytics water < 3%, energy and nutrient supplies. This can only be achieved by appropriate design
of the fish and crop mixture, considering the fish to crop ratio, when to sow the crops etc.
and to monitor the system to see whether it performing as designed or not. Therefore, the
MES has a view to show the designed system with all the material flow (water, energy and
nutrients) balances and also how the system will be performing for a given predictive hori-
zon. Knowing the future developments of the system, the operator can taking corrective
measures to make sure that the system is behaving as required. An example of water bal-
ance of a system with 40 m3 fish tanks coupled with a hydroponic NFT system with
1,000 m2 which can produce five tons of Tilapia and 75 tons of tomato yearly is given.
Ó 2019 China Agricultural University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of
KeAi. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Manufacturing execution sys-

tems (MES) are not standard [1,2]. Without higher level
Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and monitoring tech- automation commercial aquaponics operators have suffered
nology have been incorporated in most Aquaponics systems, huge financial losses from technical errors [3]. Tools used in
but higher levels of automation like Supervisory Control and MES such as Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) could
be used to rule out technical issues with careful planning
and design [4,5]. Manufacturing execution systems began to
* Corresponding author.
be applied in the mid-1990 s [6]. The MES approach offers a
E-mail address: divas.karimanzira@iosb-ast.fraunhofer.de
way of manufacturing process optimization as a whole in
(D. Karimanzira).
Peer review under responsibility of China Agricultural University. real-time [7]. Combining MES with other automation systems
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inpa.2019.03.007
2214-3173 Ó 2019 China Agricultural University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 Information Processing in Agriculture
(ERP, SCADA), a production system such as an aquaponics sys-
tem is expected to have high competitiveness, due to func-
tional integration which makes all the aquaponics
components able to work well together. The standard known
as ISA-95 specifies the sub-systems of a MES and defines
the boundaries between ERP systems, MES, and other
automation systems [8,9]. Guidelines for MES design are
given in [10]. With the development of computing power
available in ever smaller units becoming low energy systems
with high heat resistance and growing in reliability and
operation stability these systems gained more and more
importance in very diverse application fields during the last
years [11,12]. Current Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) sys-
tems usually include modules for human resource, material
management, accounting, and other functions which sup-
port operations in business. Today, as the optimization of
activities associated with production is becoming an issue,
a synergy between ERP and MES becomes a serious concern
of the manufacturing decision makers [13]. To be able to
achieve the intended objectives of the INAPRO aquaponics
system, which include (1) an innovative and sustainable
aquaponic system solution. (2) a modular solution - scalable
and adaptable to local conditions and (3) an optimized reuse
of water resources, a minimization of waste effluents as well
as the recovery of nutrients from waste water together with
a minimization of energy demands, of infrastructure
requirements and operating costs, a management system
with MES is required as depicted in Fig. 1.
With such an MES for the INAPRO facilities, the SCADA
based system will be user friendly, stable and more flexible.
In this case, besides the management of low level controllers
and extended regulation and control abilities using SCADA
the management execution system (MES) will include organi-
zational, financial and overall management approaches and
will lead to an optimized water, energy, nutrients and cost
management concept applied for INAPRO systems [14]. Dur-
ing the MES development process end-user demands and
requirements were continuously be questioned, identified
and considered in design and development of the new system
to find an appropriate and practical solution.
Fig. 1 – General structure of the INAPRO management system.
6 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 3 2 6 –3 3 4 327
This paper is organized as follows. Firstly, a brief view of
the requirement on the MES is presented. Secondly, the MES
functionalities are given and discussed and finally, technical
aspects of SCADA, ERP and MES integration are treated.
2. Manufacturing execution system of the
INAPRO aquaponics system
The aim of the MES system in the INAPRO project is to create
a connection between human resource, material manage-
ment, accounting, crop production and fish production on a
higher level by formulating the following goals among others
to be achieved as in [7,9]:
(1) Use better workflow controls to optimize the entire
supply chain and reduce operating costs by a high level
of integration and the prevention of isolated solutions.
(2) Improve data quality for assessing processes and
products.
(3) Increase visibility and transparency throughout the
entire production process. Requirements such as high
usability, ease of use and others ensures an active sup-
port for the operating personnel. The MES ensures the
optimized aquaponic system INAPRO which will have
significant improvements on the management level
compared to conventional systems. INAPRO consist of
extensible modules and is therefore highly flexible
and adaptable. So it is applicable both in rural as well
as in urban areas and under different geographical con-
ditions. The model based integration of the MES will
provide a highly effective system solution in regard to
water and energy saving, water reuse, environmental
impact and financial costs.
2.1. Structure of the MES for INAPRO aquaponics system
The MES consists of a collection of hardware/software com-
ponents that enable the aquaponics managers to control the
overall fish and crop production. The system collects data
328 Information Processing in Agriculture
and converts it into information that can be used in real-time,
providing information on factors such as efficiency, waste
and energy usage. This empowers management and staff to
make more accurate analysis and informed decisions. There-
fore, the basis of the MES system is the connection between
planning system and production system and thus the con-
nection to target-actual comparisons and earnings preview.
As shown in Fig. 2, The MES has direct interfaces to the
SCADA/PLC system, the database, the model-base and the
Human Machine Interface (HMI).
2.2. Functionality of the MES for INAPRO aquaponics
system
The following functionality are included in the MES:
(1) Management of product definitions. This include stor-
age, exchange with other systems of data such as rules
for product production, parameters, process set points
and feed data all focused on answering the question
of how to produce the fish and the crops in the
aquaponics.
(2) Management of the aquaponics resources. This include
recording, registration and booking, analysis of avail-
able resources information, with the goal of to prepar-
ing and executing production orders with the
available and appropriate resources.
(3) Scheduling production processes for fish and plants.
This functionality determines the operational schedule
(feeding, harvesting, periodical movement of fish from
one tank to another, etc.) to be used for production as
a collection of working orders to meet the production
requirements, received from simulation models, mak-
ing optimal use of available local resources.
Fig. 2 – Position of MES in the aquaponics control pyramid.
6 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 3 2 6 –3 3 4
(4) Aquaponics production performance analysis. This
functionality generate very useful secondary data and
information out of the raw real-time collected data
about the current status of production process, such
Work In Progress (WIP) overviews e.g. moving har-
vestable fish to the resting tank or feeding etc., and
the fish and crop growth performance of the past per-
iod and the overall equipment effectiveness such as
mechanical and biological filtering or any other perfor-
mance indicators.
(5) Production tracking and tracing. Recording and retrie-
val of relevant information in order to be able to follow
the complete history of production lots, orders or
equipment (particularly important in health related
productions, e.g. in aquaponics vegetables and fish).
(6) Pulling the data from all sources including SCADA sys-
tem, GrowWatch [14], Weather etc. into the common
database.
(7) Perform checks on aquaponics equipment and
resources and inform other systems equipment status
and about the progress of production processes.
(8) Reporting functionality. This is mainly visualization of
the information from the MES.
To be able to fulfill all these task, the MES is connected to a
database which can handle several different entities, such as
time series (Historical and forecasts), real-time data from the
SCADA system and static data such as system parameters
operation rules etc. The non-real-time part of the database
can be used to accommodate data such as results from the
simulation models, and other commercial data required by
the MES. The real-time part can be used for handling static
and dynamic data from the SCADA system for example. The
third part which is the Historical DB can be used to save
 Information Processing in Agriculture
calculated results and to permanently save data from simula-
tion models and the SCADA system.
Furthermore, the MES requires several models such as
models for volumes and flows, waste production, fish growth
and gastric evacuation, plant growth and harvesting, green-
house climate, plant evaporation model econometric models
etc. to perform predictive analytics.
2.2.1. Reporting and visualization
The MES requires visualization capabilities. The main user
interface of the system is shown in Fig. 3. Important system
data and tasks for the production planning are listed or news
are displayed. The current economic success and key perfor-
mance indicators, budget comparisons and the next tasks
are displayed. From this main window more windows can
be opened such as views to business management, monitor-
ing, planning and simulation.
2.2.2. Production planning and scheduling
As part of the MES development the fish production planning
and plant production planning is developed. Day-related
parameters are passed to the MES with the corresponding
docking frame. In connection with the actual data, it can thus
be visualized (see Fig. 3) as a useful target-actual comparison.
Fig. 3 – Main HMI window.
6 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 3 2 6 –3 3 4 329
The user of the MES can then predict the extent to which cur-
rent data corresponds to the plan. If deviations are encoun-
tered, the user can run the simulation and optimization
models described in [15,16] with the real-time sensor data
to search for a better operational strategy for the control vari-
ables e.g. temperature, humidity, light, food type under con-
sideration of objectives such as minimal cost or constraints
such as a sensor failure.
The HMI of the MES gives the operator the ability to view
the aquaponics plant in real time. Added to that the ability
to have alarm management that can warn the operator of
problems. The MES logs and print all the alarms in real time
to the database, which can help the management to improve
the production and efficiency. Therefore the HMI’s main func-
tionality is to visualize functions of the MES such as monitor-
ing, supervision, and control user definable processes.
As an example of how the fish planning is conducted, HMI
windows of the MES is provided as shown in Figs. 4 and 5. The
window provides the information about the aquaculture sta-
tus such as the number of pools, the species and breeding
technology. Depending on the type of fish assemblages char-
acteristic curves for gain, feed consumption and final weights
can be recalled and used for planning. By means of these
characteristics, information and secondary information can
330 Information Processing in Agriculture 6 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 3 2 6 –3 3 4

Fig. 4 – Window to monitor fish production (Part 1).

Fig. 5 – Window to monitor fish production (Part 2).

be calculated such as the fish growth, food consumption and
waste production by the fish. This data will be made available
to the business module of the MES system and can be used to
forecast the sales revenue. A similar approach is also avail-
able for crop production - in this case tomatoes (Figs. 6 and
7). The growth models are the basis for prediction [15,17].
2.2.3. Design and performance analysis
Another functionality of the MES is for a special feature of the
INAPRO project, i.e. optimal combination of fish and plant pro-
duction. Here the nutrient production by the fish can be mon-
itored to see whether, or not they suffice the nutrient
requirements of the crops. This can also be used for design
 Information Processing in Agriculture 6 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 3 2 6 –3 3 4 331

Fig. 6 – Monitoring crop production (Part 1).

Fig. 7 – Monitoring crop production (Part 2).

purposes using models to find the best fish to plant ratio and crop growth, nutrient dynamics described in [15,17] the crop
optimal crop planting time. Given the type of hydroponic sys- quantities required to consume the nutrient load discharged
tem, fish species, fish density, fish production schedule, feed- by the RAS can be calculated. Hereby the planting date of
ing behavior and crop species and using the models of fish and the crops can be varied to find the best planting date solution.
332 Information Processing in Agriculture
Fig. 8 – RAS water and nutrient output and their utilization by the crops.
2.2.4. Econometric optimization
Another feature of the MES is the overall econometric opti-
mization of the aquaponics system during day to day opera-
tion. At the top level, RAS bioeconometric Eq. (1) and
Greenhouse hydroponics econometric models Eq. (2) can be
used to maximize revenue.
For the RAS,
max ðPQ  Q  Cf  Ce  Cs Þ
R;D;E;W;S
where PQ PQ PQ is the price of Fish ($/gram), Q is the quantity of
fish harvested (grams/liter), Cf Cf is total feed cost ($/liter), Ce
is total electricity cost ($/liter), and Cs is total fingerling cost
($/liter), and R the ration size, D the dietary composition, E
the electricity supply rate, S the stocking density, W the fresh
water supply are the control variables.
For the Greenhouse hydroponic system,
max ðVmcos ðtÞ  Vcos ðtÞÞ
u yearly is given in Fig. 8a, b and c. To obtain the figures,
where
Vcos ðtÞ ¼ Vfcos ðtÞHheat ðtÞ þ Vecos ðtÞEee ðtÞ þ Vwcos ðtÞWsw ðtÞ
þ Vsfcos ðtÞFsf ðtÞ þ Vccos ðtÞCO2 ðtÞ
and Vmcos(t) are the earning at time t, Hheat(t) is the fuel con-
sumption of the heating system at time t, Eee(t) is the electri-
cal energy consumed by the heating system at time t, Wsw(t) is
the supplied water at time t, Fsf (t) are the supplied fertilizers
at time t and Vfcos(t), Vecos(t), Vwcos(t), Vsfcos(t) and Vccos(t) are the
fuel, electricity, water, fertilizer and CO2 costs, respectively. U
is a vector of the greenhouse control parameters, such as
water injection, heating, co2 injection, ventilation etc.
6 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 3 2 6 –3 3 4
Eq. (1) and Eq. (2) are subject to the fish and crop growth
and nutrient dynamics in the aquaponic system.
One important feature of the INAPRO aquaponics system
is to minimize fresh water <3%, energy and nutrient sup-
plies. This can only be achieved by appropriate design of
the fish and crop mixture, considering the fish to crop ratio,
when to sow the crops etc. and to monitor the system to
ð1Þ see whether it performing as designed or not. Therefore,
the MES has a view to show the designed system with all
the material flow (water, energy and nutrients) balances
and also how the system will be performing for a given pre-
dictive horizon. Knowing the future developments of the
system, the operator can taking corrective measures to
make sure that the system is behaving as required. An
example of water balance of a system with 40 m3 fish tanks
coupled with a hydroponic NFT system with 1,000 m2 which
can produce five tons of Tilapia and 75 tons of tomato
ð2Þ
the MES runs the models described already in our previous
papers [16,17]. It can be seen from Fig. 8a that the recircu-
lation aquaculture system (RAS) offers more than the min-
ð3Þ imum required water for the crop during summer. However,
during the winter period, about 530 m3/yr. are discharged in
order to prevent Tilapia intoxication by the nutrients such
as nitrates, because the plants are in early stadium to take
all nutrients produced by the RAS, i.e. the water from the
RAS is not used by the crops between 01.10 and 01/04. In
summer periods, the RAS produces lower Nitrates than
the crop uptake. Therefore, about 171 kgN/yr. are added as
fertilizer. It can be concluded in this scenario that if the
 Information Processing in Agriculture
water is not discharged to the sewage, the RAS can supply
up to 56% of the required nitrates of the crops. However,
with the discharge of water in winter, only a share of it,
i.e. 26% is really covered.
3. MES software implementation details
The framework realized in Microsoft’s C#.NET programming
language and NET Framework is based on a three-tier
client-server architecture in which the user interface, busi-
ness process i.e., business rules and data storage and data
access are developed and maintained as independent
modules (see Fig. 9) [18,19].
The presentation layer is developed using WF and is
mainly used for getting user data and passing it to Business
Logic Layer for further processing. The Value Object receives
data from the Business Logic Layer to represent it in the
appropriate form that the user can interpret. It contains get-
ters and setters which are used to pass data from one class
to another.
The intermediate layer i.e., the Business Logic layer has
the functions such as production planning, production
monitoring for Presentation layer and it is also there to
accelerate the information exchange between the Presenta-
tion and data layer. It provides the logic and data access
for business processes as stated in the Functionality
sections.
The Data layer includes the database, which is imple-
mented in the MySQL Framework. The database manage-
ment system (DBMS) has two parts with the
functionalities, dbConnection and DAO. The dbConnection
used to establish and close connections and do activities
such as Select, Update and Delete query to the database.
In the Database Access Layer (DAO) the query is built based
on parameters received from the Business Logic Layer and
passes it for execution to the dbConnection class and the
results are returned back from the dbConnection class to
Business Logic Layer.
Fig. 9 – Applied software system architecture.
6 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 3 2 6 –3 3 4 333
4. Conclusions
In this paper, the structure, the functionalities of Manufac-
turing Execution System developed in the INAPRO Project
were presented. It is a collection of hardware/software com-
ponents that enables the management to control fish and
crop production activities from order launch to finished
products. It also links all the processes, data, personal in
the aquaponics enterprise and is used to monitor and con-
trol the whole production of the fish and plants. The MES
records and evaluates all technical and economic parame-
ters in a single standardized system in order to provide a
precise daily overview to the user of the production of both
fish and tomatoes. While maintaining current and accurate
data the MES guides, initiates responds to and reports on
plant activities as they occur. MES provides mission-critical
information about production activities to decision support
processes. The MES is intended to provide plant-wide insight
into the production process, informing about the state of
production, production performance, water and energy con-
sumption, and emergence and allocation of production costs
to aquaculture and greenhouse products. The MES will
improve better resources planning and allocation, allows
supervising the process execution, thus it is possible to
promptly identify and react to abnormal events. Product
tracking which is so important in health related products
such as fish and crops, as the core functionality of a MES
system has the main objective to accompany and supervise
the production process. Based on requests from the produc-
tion manager or upper Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP)
system, the feedback information from low level Supervisory
Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, and inputs
from the user/operator it has to be in the position not only
to know the current state of production and state of all prod-
ucts, but also to recognize abnormal, deviant or critical
states in the production process. In order to make it practi-
cal for the end-user, the MES has an intuitive user interface
that makes the whole system easily understandable. A fur-
ther development of the aquaponics management system
to an IoT-based system is already published in [20].
Conflict of interest
Olaf Witzel declares that he has no conflict of interest. Stefan
Wilm declares that he has no conflict of interest Divas Kari-
manzira declares that he has no conflict of interest. Daniela
Baganz declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the European Union’s
Seventh Framework Programme FP7-ENV-2013-WATER-
INNO-DEMO under Grant agreement N° 619137. We thank
our colleagues from the INAPRO Consortium who provided
insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research. We
also thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their
valuable comments which are helpful to greatly improve the
quality of this manuscript.
334 Information Processing in Agriculture 6 ( 2 0 1 9 ) 3 2 6 –3 3 4

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