How well is ISA-95 Adopted?

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May 27

What is ISA-95?

ISA-95 (officially ANSI/ISA-95) is an international standard for integrating enterprise and control systems across all types of manufacturing – batch, continuous, and discrete. Released by the International Society of Automation around 2000,, it provides a common language and framework that links the “top floor” (business systems like ERP) with the “shop floor” (industrial control and MES systems). In essence, ISA-95 defines models and terminology to ensure everyone and every system in a manufacturing enterprise can communicate effectively. Imagine a busy car factory: robots and operators on the floor, managers in between scheduling and tracking, and executives in the offices setting targets. ISA-95 acts like the translator or bridge so that all these levels – from sensors to CEOs – share a consistent information structure and understand each other.

At its core, ISA-95 aims to normalize how information flows between enterprise applications and plant-floor operations, reducing costly custom integrations. It builds on the concept of hierarchical levels (often visualized as the “automation pyramid”) from process control models like ISA-88. By clearly defining the scope and function of each level (Level 4 for business planning, Level 3 for manufacturing operations management, etc.), ISA-95 helps companies answer crucial questions: Which system should do what? What information needs to pass between, say, an ERP and an MES, and in what form? In short, ISA-95 is the standardized playbook for IT/OT convergence – the playbook that makes sure your ERP’s production schedule and your plant’s machines speak the same dialect.

The 8 Parts of ISA-95

The ISA-95 standard totals 1,036 pages and is divided into eight parts (plus some technical reports) that collectively span everything from high-level models to detailed messaging implementations. Each part focuses on a different aspect of enterprise-control integration.

Part 1: Models and Terminology (90 pages)
Establishes the standard terminology and foundational object models for enterprise-control integration. Part 1 introduces the hierarchy of manufacturing functions and the key information that needs to be exchanged between enterprise (Level 4) and control (Level 3) systems. It defines models like the equipment hierarchy and basic production object definitions, essentially setting the vocabulary for ISA-95.
Part 2: Object Model Attributes (362 pages)
Defines the attributes for each object identified in Part 1.In other words, if Part 1 names the important information objects (like “Material”, “Equipment”, “Person”, “Order”), Part 2 specifies what details each of those objects should contain. These object definitions and their attributes can be used to structure databases or interfaces. Part 2 is quite extensive (hundreds of pages of tables) because it enumerates all the data fields and parameters needed for consistent information exchange between systems.
Part 3: Activity Models of Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) (94 pages)
Focuses on the workflow and activities at the Manufacturing Operations (Level 3) layer. It breaks down manufacturing operations into generic activity models – often grouped into production operations, maintenance, quality, and inventory management. Think of Part 3 as mapping out what actually happens on the plant floor (the workflows and processes) in a standard way. This helps in comparing and integrating different sites or MES solutions by providing a common model of activities and workflows.
Part 4: Object Models and Attributes for MOM Integration (148 pages)
Extends parts 1, 2, and 3 by defining object models and attributes specifically for the Manufacturing Operations Management activities. Essentially, Part 4 takes the activity models from Part 3 and says: “For these production, quality, maintenance, inventory processes, here are the standard data objects and their structures that we need to exchange.” Part 4 provides the data structure foundation to tie together different MES functions. (If Part 3 is the process diagrams, Part 4 is the data model to implement those processes in software.)
Part 5: Business-to-Manufacturing Transactions (180 pages)
Describes the actual messages and transactions that should occur between enterprise systems and manufacturing systems. This part builds on the objects from Parts 1/2/4 and defines standard transactions (e.g. “Send Production Order”, “Request Production Schedule”, “Update Inventory”) for exchanging information between Level 4 and Level 3. It’s about the verbs of integration – the actions and requests that flow between ERP, MES, and other systems. Part 5 is crucial for enabling automated workflows, ensuring that everyone uses the same message formats for common tasks.
Part 6: Messaging Service Model (66 pages)
Defines a technology-independent messaging architecture for ISA-95 transactions. Part 6 gets into how to implement the Part 5 transactions in a standardized way, without tying it to a specific technology. It describes services and message exchange patterns that support the business-to-manufacturing transactions across systems (and even between different MES or Level 3 systems). You can think of Part 6 as a template for building an interface layer – ensuring that when one system says “I have a production order for you,” the other system hears it correctly and knows how to respond, regardless of the underlying messaging middleware.
Part 7: Alias Service Model (56 paghes)
Defines a global namespace and aliasing method to map between different local naming conventions In practice, different systems might call the same thing by different names (for example, what the ERP calls “Material A123” a machine PLC might know as “Ingredient_X”). Part 7 introduces services to associate and translate these aliases. It creates a common naming convention or dictionary so that when data is exchanged, System A’s “Reactor_5” is understood to be the same as System B’s “Tank#5”, for instance. This is key for interoperability, letting each system keep its local names while still communicating through a shared reference.
Part 8: Information Exchange Profiles (40 pages)
The newest part (published in 2020) which describes best-practice implementation profiles for exchanging ISA-95 information. Essentially, Part 8 outlines how to map the models and messages from Parts 5, 6, 7 onto specific technologies or integration patterns. It provides standardized “profiles” or guidelines for connecting software in a consistent way. The idea is that if your software follows an ISA-95 Part 8 profile (using the messaging model of Part 6 and the alias namespace of Part 7), it should “plug and play” more easily with other ISA-95-compliant software.. This part helps companies accelerate integration by following pre-defined templates for things like using B2MML (Business To Manufacturing Markup Language), OPC UA information models, or other common integration methods in line with ISA-95.

In general, each part of ISA-95 builds on the previous ones – from abstract models and definitions in Parts 1–4, to transactions and technical implementation in 5–8. Together, they create a complete blueprint for enterprise-control integration. Companies don’t always implement all parts, but the parts provide a menu of standards depending on how deep an integration you need.

How Industry Adopts ISA-95 (Adoption Levels)

In March of 2025, I conducted a LinkedIn Survey to identify how companies (both manufacturers and solution providers) use ISA-95. In total there were 290 responses. After removing votes that don’t belong (e.g. students or people in industries like banking), there were 269 votes. The exciting part is there were 41 countries represented across more than 20 industries!

Three Tiers of Adoption

ISA-95 adoption follows a natural progression—like learning a new language. You start with vocabulary (terminology), move to sentence structure (models), and eventually hold fluent conversations (automated exchanges). The survey data shows a clear trend: 92.9% of manufacturers and solution providers use ISA-95 in some way. That’s not just adoption—it’s industrial common sense. But how it’s used varies widely, and that tells an important story. Only 7.1% of respondents said they don’t use ISA-95 at all. In nearly every industry, region, and role, it’s not a question of if you use ISA-95—but how far you’ve gone with it.

35.9% use ISA-95 for Terminology & Concepts only—treating it as a shared framework to align teams and systems.
30.6% use it for Resource & Information Models—designing how data and assets are structured.
26.4% use it for Full Data Exchange—implementing automated interoperability between systems.

Even using just the concepts provides value. But when companies go further, ISA-95 becomes an engine for real-time integration and agility.

MES Professionals: Right in the Middle of the Pack

You’d think people with “MES” in their job titles would be ISA-95 overachievers. But they aren’t outliers—they’re right in sync with the broader industry. Their adoption splits almost identically: about a third use concepts only, another third use models, and a quarter reach full exchange. Only a tiny fraction don’t use it at all.

That tells us two things:

MES work practically assumes some ISA-95 knowledge.
The overall standard of adoption across manufacturing is already high.

Having “MES” in your title doesn’t mean you’re pushing ISA-95 further—it means you’re part of a crowd that’s already walking that path.

Consultants Go Deeper, Manufacturers Go Broader

Consultants, integrators, and software vendors are driving most of the heavy lifting. They represent roughly 44% of the responses for both modeling and full exchange—far beyond their share of total respondents. That’s logical: they work across varied systems and need scalable, standardized frameworks.

Manufacturers, especially in sectors like industrial manufacturing, are more likely to use ISA-95 for internal alignment only—57.7% of them reported usage limited to terminology and concepts (highest of any industry). These companies often face legacy constraints and adopt slowly, using ISA-95 more as a reference than a technical blueprint.

Regional and Role-Based Differences

EMEA shows a stronger tilt toward terminology-only usage (41.1% of EMEA respondents), suggesting broader early-stage adoption. It might reflect greater awareness—especially since ISA-95, as IEC 62264, is well-known in Europe.
Engineers are near-universal adopters. A whopping 96% use ISA-95 in some way. Around 41% of engineers use it only conceptually, but a solid 27% implement full integrations. They’re the ones making it real.
Digital Transformation leaders focus more on the modeling layer—about 39.1% use ISA-95 to design and align their digital architectures. They’re less involved in wiring up interfaces but play a key role in planning how systems should connect.

Moving Forward

ISA-95 has quietly become the de facto blueprint for connecting the myriad pieces of the manufacturing puzzle. What started in the late ‘90s as an effort to bridge a gap has grown into a common language spoken by virtually everyone in the industry, from plant engineers in Detroit to digital transformation managers in Dubai. Its strength lies in its clarity and universality: whether you’re just borrowing its terminology to get everyone on the same page, or rigorously implementing its models to automate your workflows, ISA-95 provides value at each step of the journey.

In today’s drive toward Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0, standards like ISA-95 are more important than ever. They are the enablers of interoperability – the reason your new analytics platform can pull meaningful, structured data from your production line, or why your ERP can schedule jobs on a factory floor without a flurry of custom code. As the survey shows, nearly everyone is using ISA-95 in some form, which creates a network effect: the more people use the standard, the easier it becomes for the next integration project to plug in and build on prior work. In a way, ISA-95 is like a well-established highway system for data: you can merge on slowly (use it just for concepts), or you can drive full-speed (full integration), but either way it guides you to your destination with fewer wrong turns.

For those just getting acquainted with ISA-95, it helps to remember that you don’t have to do it all at once. Many firms start small – adopt the language, map your operations with ISA-95 models – and gradually increase adoption as needs and capabilities grow. The key is to start speaking the language; once you do, you’ll find an entire community (and vendor ecosystem) speaking it too, ready to connect. And if you’re an industry veteran who’s been using ISA-95 for years, the data confirms you’re in good company and on a solid path that others are following.