The emphasis in manufacturing today is to make what's ordered, and ship what's made. To realize that goal, the journey from customer contact to shop floor execution - via a fully integrated back office - must be made seamless. Plant-floor information systems give business information the granularity needed for execution, and in turn keep the business informed of the fruits of its labor. Manufacturing execution systems, supervisory control, data historians, and information portals are the means by which today's plant floors get fully wired into the information age.