scholarly journals INPUT DATA COLLECTION FOR THE FIT-GAP ANALYSIS METHOD: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Author(s):  
Ieva Ancveire

Development of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems has become an independent industry for the improvement of information systems. It can be stated that ERP systems are designed to support the operation of a company. The fundamental objective of the system is to create a business value that aims at reducing the time and costs of the business while increasing the profit of the company. Although the adaptation and deployment of the ERP system, in general, are complex and protracted processes that require a lot of resources, the obtained results sometimes differ from the expected results of users. Mostly for that reason, there are incomplete internal enterprise business processes and software requirements analysis and development. Therefore, there is a need to determine the compliance of the main enterprise requirements and business processes with the ERP system. To choose the most appropriate ERP system, it is necessary to identify all possible methods of input data for the fit-gap analysis method. Thus, the main aim of the present study is to identify possible input data for the fit-gap analysis method, which can be used for the selection of the most appropriate ERP system.

2007 ◽  
Vol 129 (03) ◽  
pp. 36-38
Author(s):  
Jean Thilmany

This article focuses on developments in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The way companies acquire ERP services in the future will likely change radically, too. Midsize companies can expect to say goodbye to the large-scale systems and their steep training curves by letting someone else house the system and worry about maintenance. ERP systems link manufacturing with business processes like new orders, purchasing, credit, accounting, supply chain management, and planning. Vendors are looking to catch the attention of potential clients and get them back on board and away from the workaround. Businesse s looking for the capabilities that ERP can give them minus its headaches will more often turn to outside services. In an outsourcing scenario, a company uses some or all the modules in an ERP system over a secure network link to the service's computer center. Although ERP systems have been perceived as clunky and expensive of late, the industry is far from moribund. In fact, the applications are becoming nimbler and have the potential to become even more practical in the years ahead.


Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are implemented in companies to improve their business processes. An ERP system entails extensive functional and technological aspects during its implementation. Teaching ERP systems for computer science students implies addressing these two aspects: ERP functionality and technological features. It is a challenge for teachers to design practical experimentation that students can perform in the teaching environment, due to the prerequisite of a deep understanding of the business processes, business user requirements, and the technological complexity of ERP systems. In order to improve student skills in ERP systems, we encourage active learning among students. In this chapter, we present a methodology using open and closed practicals to learn about both technical and functional aspects of ERP systems. Using these practicals allows us to prepare and organize this teaching/ learning process.


2011 ◽  
pp. 758-765
Author(s):  
Leopoldo E. Colmenares ◽  
Jim O. Otieno

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an integrated set of programs that provides support for core organizational activities, such as manufacturing and logistics, finance and accounting, sales and marketing, and human resources. An ERP system helps the different parts of an organization share data and knowledge, reduce costs, and improve management of business processes. In spite of their benefits, many ERP systems fail (Stratman & Roth, 1999). Implementing an ERP system is a major undertaking. About 90% of ERP implementations are late or over budget (Martin, 1998), and the success rate of ERP systems implementation is only about 33% (Zhang et al., 2003).


Author(s):  
Cesar Alexandre de Souza ◽  
Ronaldo Zwicker

The 90’s witnessed an impressive growth of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in the market of corporate IT solutions. For instance, O´Leary (2000) reports that a single ERP system (SAP´s R/3) is used by more than 60% of the multinational firms. Among the explanations for this phenomenon are the competitive pressures suffered by the companies that have forced them to seek alternatives for cost reduction, differentiation of products and services and integration of their business processes. The ERP systems evolved exploiting the need for quick deployment of integrated systems to meet these new business requirements, while companies were (and still are) under pressure to outsource all the activities that are not embraced by their core business.


Author(s):  
Leopoldo E. Colmenares ◽  
Jim O. Otieno

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an integrated set of programs that provides support for core organizational activities, such as manufacturing and logistics, finance and accounting, sales and marketing, and human resources. An ERP system helps the different parts of an organization share data and knowledge, reduce costs, and improve management of business processes. In spite of their benefits, many ERP systems fail (Stratman & Roth, 1999). Implementing an ERP system is a major undertaking. About 90% of ERP implementations are late or over budget (Martin, 1998), and the success rate of ERP systems implementation is only about 33% (Zhang et al., 2003).


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (12) ◽  
pp. 40-42
Author(s):  
Jean Thilmany

This article discusses features of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that aim to help small engineering firms in managing their businesses. With the proliferation of ERP systems and vendors in the past decade, the big vendors as well as a series of small and niche players are now marketing their offerings for the small-to-midsize company and for specialized companies. Small companies often find that ERP systems give them better control of inventory and production scheduling. The engineer-to-order operation has unique needs that can be met by a specialized ERP system. Jobscope, a company in Greenville, South Carolina, makes ERP software especially for small-to-midsize engineer-to-order companies. In order to serve engineer-to-order type of engineering companies, the Jobscope system stores business information on a per project rather than a company-wide basis. It is because engineer-to-order companies batch and track jobs on a project basis. The experts agree that bringing in an ERP system might seem daunting to the smaller engineering operation. However, they also agree on another thing: it can help small companies manage the complexities of growing business.


Author(s):  
Biswadip Ghosh ◽  
Tom Yoon ◽  
Janos Fustos

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, such as SAP, feature a rich set of integrated business applications. However, to maximize the long term benefits from ERP implementations, organizations need to careful manage the post-implementation phase and focus on supporting end users to achieve better fit between their business processes and the ERP system features. This study develops a research model based on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and finds support for a positive and complementary relationship between continuous training resources, functional fit capability and business process success. An increase in continuous training resources increases the functional fit capability for the organization and is seen to improve business process success. The results support the need to focus on continuous end user training throughout the post implementation phase as a key contributor to ERP systems success for any organization.


For small and medium-sized companies the fit between their business processes and their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a critical success factor. The functions and features for essential tasks must be geared to the demands and skills of the individual users. This paper reports on the usefulness of several methods for eliciting user input which served as a basis for requirements for a personalized ERP system. It describes the yield of heuristic evaluations, both by experts and by developers, and a focus group with six users representing the main user types. The focus group consisted of an identification of the most important functions, task demonstrations, and a mini design workshop. As a demonstration of the results of the various user-focused methods, some noteworthy findings on the personalization of ERP systems are presented.


Author(s):  
Joseph Bradley

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are off-theshelf software systems that claim to meet the information needs of organizations. These systems are usually adopted to replace hard-to-maintain legacy systems developed by IS departments or older off-the-shelf packages that often provided only piecemeal solutions to the organization’s information needs. ERP systems evolved in the 1990s from material requirements planning (MRP) systems developed in the 1970s and manufacturing resources planning (MRPII) systems developed in the 1980s. ERP systems serve the entire organization, not just material or manufacturing planning. One advantage of ERP is that it integrates all the information for the entire organization into a single database. Implementation of ERP systems has proven expensive and time consuming. Failed and abandoned projects have been well publicized in the business press. ERP systems are “expensive and difficult to implement, often imposing their own logic on a company’s strategy and existing culture” (Pozzebon, 2000, p. 105). Most firms utilize a single software vendor for the complete ERP system throughout their organizations. The integrated nature of ERP software favors this single-vendor approach. An alternative strategy adopted by some firms is the best-of-breed approach, where the adopting organization picks and chooses ERP functional modules from the vendor whose software best supports its business processes. Organizations adopting best of breed believe that this approach will create a better fit with existing or required business processes, reduce or eliminate the need to customize a single-vendor solution, and reduce user resistance. Jones and Young (2006) found that 18% of companies used this approach to select ERP software packages. This article examines what the best-of-breed strategy is, when it is used, what advantage adopting companies seek, examples of best-of-breed implementations, and differences in implementation methods.


Author(s):  
Jorge Marx Gómez ◽  
Daniel Lübke

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an emerging architectural style for developing and structuring business applications, especially enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. SOA applications are composed of small, independent, and network-accessible software components, named services. The service composition is normally based on the enterprise’s business processes. However, current composition standards like BPEL have no ability to interact with users. Therefore, we propose a mechanism for including user interaction descriptions into the composition and extending the composition platform for generating user interfaces. In our case study, a federated ERP (FERP) system, this mechanism has been implemented in a prototype based on yet another workflow language (YAWL) dynamically generating Web pages for accessing the ERP system. Because every aspect including the user interfaces can be manipulated through the service composition, such systems are highly flexible yet maintainable.


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