ERP Software Inspections and Audits

The role of software inspections, product reviews, walk-troughs, and audits in ERP software is analyzed in this chapter. Software inspections are a disciplined engineering practice for detecting and correcting defects in software artifacts with the aim of correcting them. Walkthroughs involve software peer review mechanism in which a programmer leads peers through a software product, in a process in which participants ask questions and make comments about possible errors, violation of development standards, and other problems. This chapter also discusses ERP systems audit and control risks and seeks to help understand key risks and control issues surrounding ERP systems.

Implementation Evaluation Metrics for ERP Solution

Most institution of higher learning are implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) in automating various activities. The architecture of most of the ERP is based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) where each module can be called as service. In most of the contracts signed between the vendor and the university, payment is tied to the level of implementation. The question is how to then measure the level of implementation. This chapter proposes a metric that could be used. The metric was derived based on an acceptance test on each of functionality of module as per terms of reference. The result of a test was rated as a fail; the result was then coded such that a fail was assigned a zero (0), pass one (1), and query a half (½), from which a metric was derived which measures the level implementation.

Evaluating the Usability Maturity of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

The enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a complex and comprehensive software that integrates various enterprise functions and resources. Although ERP systems have been depicted as a solution in many organizations, there are many negative reports on ERP success, benefits, and effect on user performance. Previous research noted that there is a lack of knowledge and awareness of ERP systems and their overall value to ERP organizations. ERP systems have been widely studied during the past decade; yet they often fail to deliver the intended benefits originally expected. One notable reason for their failures is the lack of understanding in user requirements. There are many studies conducted to propose software quality models with their quality characteristics. However, there is currently no dedicated software quality model that can describe usability maturity and involve new features of ERP systems. This chapter proposes a framework for evaluating the usability maturity as a quality attribute of ERP systems.

ERP Software Maintenance

This chapter will explain ERP software maintenance and the effort required to locate and fix errors in the ERP software. Software maintenance is defined as the totality of activities required to provide cost-effective support to a software system. The purpose of software maintenance is to modify and update software application after delivery to correct faults and to improve performance. The chapter will highlight activities performed during the pre-delivery stage, including planning for post-delivery operations, supportability, and logistics determination, and also activities performed during the post-delivery stage, including software modification, training, and operating a help desk. The chapter will discuss the types of maintenance and highlight the ERP process support activities and the ERP system maintainability framework. The chapter will explain the maintenance of ERP software and will also discuss the ISO/IEC 9126 and IEEE Standard 1219-1998 for software maintenance. Issues in ERP software maintenance are also presented and discussed.

Understanding Enterprise Resource Planning Reliability for Operational Excellence

The quest for sustainable competitive advantage and the urge to adapt to a challenging business environment has made firms around the globe to adopt enterprise resource planning systems so as optimally leverage on the enterprise-wide resources and be more responsive to customer demands. Globally organizations seeking to enhance their competitiveness have utilized Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to enhance their operational efficiency. The ERP philosophy advocates for the incorporation of personnel, finance, manufacturing, distribution, sales, and marketing modules into a single integrated system and a central database, allowing an organization to efficiently and effectively utilize its resources. The planning and better management of organizational resources, improved business performance, and better integration of business operations can be facilitated by an ERP system to offer an avenue of excellence for a business. Despite the potential benefits an ERP system offers an organization, few studies have explored the ERP reliability in the context of competition driven business imperatives.

Security Framework for Enterprise Resource Planning

This chapter deals with the security and its structure for the ERP that can be utilized to address all applicable security perspectives inside an association and to guarantee that it shapes a fundamental piece of an ERP framework. The security system is mapped onto the ERP model to give the association an unmistakable comprehension of which security issues must be tended to inside which ERP part. It is clear given the over that security must frame a necessary piece of an ERP framework and that it will be hard to include it once the ERP framework is as of now actualized. In the event that security is included after usage, the ERP framework will experience issues clinging to IT and corporate administration necessities. An ERP framework is additionally an essential piece of the association and can't be dealt with as an autonomous framework without taking the association's approaches and techniques into thought. This chapter furnishes an association with a structure to guarantee that all angles encompassing IT and corporate security are incorporated with an ERP framework.

Quality and Effectiveness of ERP Software

Over time, the adoption of ERP systems has been wide across many small, medium, and large organizations. An ERP system is supposed to inform the strategic decision making of the organization; therefore, the information drawn from the ERP system is as important as the data stored in it. Poor data quality affects the quality information in it. Data mining is used to discover trends and patterns of an organization. This chapter looks into the way of integrating these data mining into an ERP system. This is conceptualized in three crucial views namely the outer, inner, and the knowledge discovery view. The outer view comprises of the collection of various entry points, the inner view contains the data repository, and the knowledge discovery view offers the data mining component. Since the focus is data mining, the two strategies of supervised and unsupervised are discussed. The chapter then concludes by presenting the probable problems within which each of these two strategies (classification and clustering) can be put into place within the mining process of an ERP system.

Enterprise Resource Planning System Implementation in Higher Education Institutions

The world over, higher education institutions have resorted to the use of ERP system to automate operations on a standardized platform in line with their strategic plans. This is because ERP system supports a “do-it-all” approach to organizational management in addition to education managers' quest to improve quality of service to their students and the need to meet regional as well as global standards. In most institutions, operational areas such as student admission, finance, procurement, examination management, staffing, and alumni management can now be done through the ERP system. This chapter examines the issues associated with implementation of ERP system in higher education institutions. After studying this chapter, you should be able to: appreciate the various strategies for ERP system implementation, identify the factors leading to successful implementation of ERP system in higher education institutions, distinguish between the different models for successful ERP system implementation, and understand the metrics for measuring success rate of ERP system implementation.

Evaluating the Learnability of ERP Software in Universities

The technological innovation depends on learnability of the software used in terms of user interface design, program complexity of products that match the end user requirements, program complexity deals with commands used in the given ERP software, and training needs so that the ERP user can learn all required features and commands. Learnability signifies how quickly and comfortably a new user can begin efficient and error-free interaction. The main purpose of this chapter is to evaluate software learnability and performance of ERP software. Primary data was collected using survey through the use of questionnaires. Purposive sampling was used to collect data. The collected data focused on the software complexity, user interfaces analysis, ERP performance, challenges, efficiency, and training needs of ERP. Data analysis was done by inferential and descriptive statistics. The results indicated that there exists a positive and statistically significant relationship between the variables used.

Evaluation of Employee Readiness for ERP Systems

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are increasingly being adopted by many organizations. The cost, time, and effort of the organization need to be reflected in the uptake and use of the system by employees of the organizations in question. ERP system implementation readiness is positively associated with the ERP implementation success. It is therefore important to measure the success of such software in adopting firms which largely influenced by the readiness of the firm for ERPs. Many studies focus on other aspects of readiness leaving out the major players who are employees. This chapter discusses an effort towards extending CREM evaluation model for employee readiness with the aim of highlighting the role of their readiness in the overall success of ERP implementation. Research findings of this study help decision makers of organizations to attain a comprehensive picture about required actions to be accomplished for achieving readiness for implementing an ERP system.