How Enterprise Resource Planning ERP Is Being Transformed Through Time
Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP was originally implemented by ERP consultants and service providers for the re-alignment of manufacturing processes. Nowadays though, ERP systems encompass the ERP integration of backend processes throughout the organization. And as far as the technological features are concerned, ERP comparison ranges from legacy implementation to tiered client-server architecture, the latter being perceived as being more flexible. ERP is presently subdivided into proprietary ERP and open source ERP. ERP has its roots in the 1960s, when it started out as implementation of Inventory Management and Control systems. By the 1970s, the ERP system in vogue was the Materials Requirement Planning systems, responsible for organizing production processes. In the 1980s, Materials Requirement Planning evolved into MRP II which covered the manufacturing processes of product planning up to product distribution. By the 1990s, it was already termed as Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP. To carry out ERP properly, the ERP systems should be able to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the internal business processes of the client organization. An ERP software system at that time was deemed responsible for providing support for human resources, accounting, finance and marketing through application modules. When one talks about ERP systems, that encompasses software, hardware, users and business processes. The elements of an ERP system are believed to be the basic elements of MIS or Management Information Systems. The parts of an ERP system aim to re-align and enhance the business processes of any organization. In practice, ERP has been used to support organizational coordination for the different departments of an organization. For ERP to be effective, it has to be operated in tandem with the different enterprise applications used by the organization and requires long-term monitoring by management. An ERP system is usually used by employees at all levels within an organization who are categorized as either employees responsible for strategic planning implementation; employees controlling managerial functions or employees dealing with operational control.
Different operating systems are currently used to support the ERP system being implemented. Some common operating systems that are employed are Windows, Linux, and UNIX as well as mainframe operating systems. But any ERP application has to have the features of open standards, scalability, stability, and security to be able to function. When ERP systems are properly implemented, ERP comparison should show if the ERP system the client selected can lessen operational costs; foster daily management, particularly for creating backbone data warehouses and assist in strategic planning. It is believed that ERP in practice has a weak link when it comes to the resource planning function because strategic planning is quite complicated and there is not enough ERP integration with Decision Support Systems. The main factors that would dictate how expensive ERP implementation becomes would be the complexity and size of the ERP projects to be developed and to be implemented. The effectiveness of ERP implementation, on the other hand, would be influenced by project planning, architectural design, data requirements, phasing in of the project, data conversion, and organization commitments. |
