Supporting Enterprise Systems Across the Business Curriculum

This chapter discusses how enterprise systems supported by the Microsoft Dynamics™ Academic Alliance can be used by higher educational institutions in their business courses. The content is designed to be useful for both business educators and administrators as they plan and implement technology into their curricula. The chapter discusses the history and development of the Microsoft Dynamics Academic Alliance, a pro?le of its members, and key issues and challenges related to enterprise solutions use in the classroom.

Teaching ERP with Microsoft Business Solutions - Great Plains

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have become indispensable software systems for many corporations worldwide. As more and more companies implement ERP to sup-port daily business transactions, the need for ERP trained employees are increasing as well. Industry demand has prompted many universities to consider incorporating ERP into their curricula. Information systems curriculum in many universities have started offering courses that include ERP education; however, most universities have faced multi-faceted challenges related to lab setup, training, software support, and curriculum design. In this chapter, a guideline for development and teaching an ERP based course with MS Great Plains™ is provided. Teaching approach is discussed and an ERP based business curriculum is proposed. Effectiveness of the curriculum design in the classroom is analyzed based on a single semester trial of the course in two classrooms.

Teaching Operations Management with Enterprise Software

Enterprise systems technology is used to enhance the teaching of operations management through development and operation of a virtual manufacturing enterprise. An ongoing, real-time simulation is conducted in which operations management issues in the ?ctitious factory must be addressed on a daily basis. The virtual manufacturing enterprise is integrated into an operations management course to facilitate understanding of the dynamic and interrelated nature of operations planning and control in a complex manufacturing environment. Enterprise software supports the primary learning objective of understanding how operations management decisions affect customer service, capacity, inventory, and costs.

Teaching Human Resources Management Using SAP

Information technology has become a critical component for human resource (HR) profes-sionals. Human resource information systems (HRIS) have helped many HR departments automate routine processes, eliminate unnecessary work, and play a strategic role in driv-ing employee performance. Many IT ?rms are now forming alliances with universities to popularize their products. This chapter ?rst investigates the utility and the choice of vari-ous HRIS options available to an organization. Next, it evaluates the utility of universities forming alliances with enterprise resource planning (ERP) ?rms to enrich their business curricula. Finally, the experiences of a college of business at a large university in Midwestern United States with the implementation of IT in the Human resource management (HRM) curriculum are examined.

Teaching an Enterprise Project as a Capstone Courseof the CIS/BIT Program

This chapter introduces a concept of the capstone course of the CIS/BIT program at the Western Michigan University. The course is composed of lectures and ?ve projects, which are related to each other. The lectures provide knowledge that supports every project. The end-product of this course is prototyped software of an Enterprise Performance Manage-ment System, which is demonstrated by each team as an integrated software package. The course is divided in three following parts: Part I: Enterprise System De?nition (Classic Knowledge and Skills), Part II: Business Process Integration (Trend-oriented approach), Part III: Enterprise System Development (ERP Prototype-Demo Software). The author hopes that the presented capstone’s course concept facilitates the understanding of the business process-driven CIS/BIT program.

The Status of SAP-Related Education

This chapter focuses on the most popular enterprise system — SAP — and summarizes the outcomes of a global survey on the status quo of SAP-related education. Based on feedback of 305 lecturers and more than 700 students, it reports on the main factors of Enterprise Sys-tems education including, critical success factors, alternative hosting models, and students’ perceptions. The results show among others an overall increasing interest in advanced SAP solutions and international collaboration, and a high satisfaction with the concept of using application hosting centers. Integrating enterprise systems solutions in the curriculum of not only universities but all types of institutes of higher learning has been a major challenge for nearly ten years. Enterprise systems education is surprisingly well documented in a number of papers on information systems education. However, most publications in this area report on the individual experiences of an institution or an academic.

Putting Enterprise Systems in a Larger ICT Context - A Pedagogical Framework

Many business schools are attempting to integrate their curricula with enterprise software, particularly enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Although the introduction of ERP into the undergraduate academic curriculum offers students a potentially deeper under-standing of business processes, it cannot by itself provide for students a connection between the adoption of robust information systems and a paradigm shift in the way that business organizations operate in a global, information-centric environment. Connecting a new global economy with enterprise systems requires a course much broader than ERP that places enterprise systems in a much larger information-communication technology (ICT) context. This chapter presents a teaching model that provides that context, emphasizing the critical role of systems components and relationships, the central function of information in problem solving, and business perspectives of information from infrastructure to applications.

Using SAP for ERP Applications and Design

In order to become globally competitive in today’s dynamic business environment, organi-zations have to come closer to customers and deliver value added services and products in the shortest possible time. The primary business process through which this is achieved is the sales and distribution process. However, the sales and distribution process is just one part of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This chapter will focus on the sales and distribution (SD) process of SAP’s ERP system. This chapter will assist in learning about the basic functions that make up this process and how it affects the other modules in the ERP system. This chapter will also look at the Purchasing process and the materials requirements planning (MRP) process and how all the three processes are linked together to form one complete business process.

Using SA for SAM Applications and Design

In order to maintain a competitive position in today’s marketplace, companies must demand a greater level of enterprise ef?ciency. In today’s rapidly changing market, experts argue that it is no longer about becoming a powerhouse but simply about remaining competitive. That is why automating and linking the supply chain has become so imperative. Supply chain management systems link all of the company’s customers, suppliers, factories, warehouses, distributors, carriers, and trading partners. These systems integrate all the key business processes across the supply chain of a company. This chapter explains the objectives of sup-ply chain management and how SAP’s supply chain management system helps companies ful?ll these objectives.

Teaching ERP Concepts in a Capstone Course

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a system that integrates all the different functionalities within an enterprise and which is used to manage the basic commercial func-tions in a business. Capstone courses are used to integrate materials from different disci-plines. This paper describes the use of business processes and ERP systems as a mechanism to provide the integration in the capstone course. The various modules taught in the class are described and issues with the modules are raised and discussed.