• erpandmore.com

ERP Overview

This ERP Overview covers What is ERP, Brief history of ERP, Why is it necessary, Market Leaders and the future of ERP. What is ERP? Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP is an industry term for integrated, multi-module application software packages that are designed to serve and support multiple business functions. An ERP system can include software for manufacturing, order entry, accounts receivable and payable, general ledger, purchasing, warehousing, transportation and human resources. Evolving out of the manufacturing industry, ERP implies the use of packaged software rather than proprietary software written by or for one customer. ERP modules may be able to interface with an organizations own software with varying degrees of effort, and, depending on the software, ERP modules may be alterable via the vendors proprietary tools as well as proprietary or standard programming languages.

Brief History of ERP The focus of manufacturing systems in the 1960s was on Inventory control. Most of the software packages then (usually customized) were designed to handle inventory based on traditional inventory concepts. In the 1970s the focus shifted to MRP (Material Requirement Planning) systems that translated the Master Schedule built for the end items into time-phased net requirements for the sub-assemblies, components and raw materials planning and procurement.

In the 1980s the concept of MRP-II (Manufacturing Resources Planning) evolved which was an extension of MRP to shop floor and Distribution management activities. In the early 1990s, MRP-II was further extended to cover areas like Engineering, Finance, Human Resources, Projects Management etc i.e. the complete gamut of activities within any business enterprise. Hence, the term ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) was coined.

Why is it Necessary? By becoming the integrated information solution across the entire organization, ERP systems allow companies to better understand their business. With ERP software, companies can standardize business processes and more easily enact best practices. By creating more efficient processes, companies can concentrate their efforts on serving their customers and maximizing profit.

Market Leaders The top five ERP vendors, SAP, Oracle Corporation, Peoplesoft, Inc. (now Oracle Corp.), JD Edwards & Company, and Baan International, account for 64 percent of total ERP market revenue. These vendors continue to play a major role in shaping the landscape of new target markets, with expanded product functionality, and higher penetration rates. SAP dominates the $6.7 billion ERP applications market in Europe with 39% market share. Oracle and PeopleSoft come second and third respectively, followed by SAGE Group and Microsoft Business Solutions.

The Future of ERP Industry analysts expect that every major manufacturing company will buy the software, which ranges in cost — with maintenance and training — from hundreds of thousands of dollars for a small company to millions for a large company. AMR Research of Boston says consolidation among the major players will continue and intensify. ERP vendors are expected to put more effort into e-commerce, CRM and SCM initiatives, with leaders redirecting between 50% and 75% of their R&D budget to these projects.

According to Gartner research group, the rapid evolution of ERP has already lead to a new corporate must-have, ERP II, which is supposed to help businesses gain more competitive edge in the future. The major difference is that ERP II involves collaborative commerce, which enables business partners from multiple companies to exchange information posted on eCommerce exchanges.

In the next tutorial we will talk about popular ERP Products and the Modules and Application related to them.

For more visualization of this article along with the screen shots and more visit with step by step instructions, http://www.exforsys.com/content/category/17/260/342/

Exforsys is a community of developers specializing in C, C++, C#, Java, J2EE, .NET, PeopleSoft, SAP, Siebel, Oracle Apps., Data warehousing, Oracle/SQL Server/DB2 and Testing. Please visit http://www.exforsys.com for more tutorials and for Interview questions http://www.geekinterview.com is an open database.

The Return of Sales and Operations Planning

In many manufacturing organizations, a lack of nimbleness and automation in existing sales and operations planning (S&OP) processes has stunted managementâ€™s ability to drive change. Companies looking to maximize the value of their supply chain and operational investments must automate cross-organizational performance planning processes to enable operational performance management.

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: The Return of Sales and Operations Planning

AMR Research: IT Executives Expect Double-Digit Increase on ERP in 2006

We knew it all along:

IT Executives Expect Double-Digit Increase on ERP in 2006

AMR Research: IT Executives Expect Double-Digit Increase on ERP in 2006

ERP Implementation: Success Factors

By Andrew Karasev

As seeing large number of implementations in our case these are Microsoft Business Solutions Products: Great Plains, MS CRM, Navision we would like to give you our opinion on what should you consider to do to secure implementation success. These principles should work as for large corporation as well as for midsize and even small business. We will not be talking about old-wisdom, which you know from the college classes or business school about management and staff involvement into the decision making, brainstorming, etc. we’ll be ERP specific

* In-house Technical Expertise. Well, complication of computer networking and its security, plus the fact that SQL is now standard for the database platform (Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, etc.), plus internet connection line and its support make it inevitable to have IT expertise in the company this might be the whole department or just coming or part time networking consultant. Our experience indicates that the lack of internal or always available onsite specialist decreases the chances of success dramatically. And the explanation should be simple to this fact. Nowadays ERP system requires minor or major customization, integration and reporting and all these steps in turn require patient coding and testing in the test environment or on the sample dataset/database

* Dedicated ERP Administrator. This is true that users could be trained and would know how to use the system. However typical ERP has its own life and somebody should assign new users, setup security roles for them, modify reports and makes custom reports available for the users, setup printers, try first to resolve the issue by looking at the techknowledge database, and so on. ERP Administrator doesnâ€™t have to be IT guru she/he needs to be trained on how to administer the program and how to deal with technical support. Image for a moment that if you take out manager from the company even if all the employees have excellent training and used to work for the company numerous years you will still expect performance degradation. The same should be said about ERP system

* Expect Certain Number of Issues. IT industry is not yet mature and it is probably sad, but the reality, that even very experienced consultant, developer, programmer makes errors or your software environment has something that make the custom piece malfunction. When you see the consultant being persistent in resolving your issues please be patient and try to help him or just don not make him nervous.

* Trust Your Consultant. When you decide on somebody to implement the system, you need from this moment on to trust him and let him have high security access to the ERP hosting server. Complex security makes consultant suffer from getting connected, installing the patches or custom pieces. So many times we were spinning our wheels in trying to test new custom business logic, when, say Windows or MS SQL Server security was restricting us to do the actions we needed

* Do Not Overnegotiate. This is from the sales cycle. When you purchase the system you should purchase the software and implementation from the same company otherwise your partner will place you on the second priority list. We saw numerous examples, when client purchases Microsoft CRM licenses from nation-wide distributor, and then is trying to find somebody to implement the system. Also if you are cutting software prices you may see your consulting company rescheduling the work for you in favor of somebody else.

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Business Solutions and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Causes of ERP Failures

by Bruce Zhang

ERP is the acronym of Enterprise Resource Planning. Multi-module ERP software integrates business activities across various functional departments, from product planning, parts purchasing, inventory control, product distribution, to order tracking. ERP has transformed the way multi-billion dollar corporations conduct their businesses. Successful implementation of ERP systems could save tens of millions of dollars and increase employee satisfactions, customer satisfactions and sustain competitive advantages in every-changing marketplace. Corporate executives are often perplexed by the stories that how reputable corporations (Hershey Foods) have failed miserably and lost ten of millions of dollars in their ERP endures.

The failures of ERP projects are preventable if we can identify the common causes of the failures regardless the companies and industries that implement them.

: Image by Behrooz Nobakht via Flickr

An ERP system is the combination of ERP software, the business processes that the ERP transforms, the users of the ERP system, and the computer systems that run the ERP applications. The failures of a ERP project is often the result of the failures in one or more of those four components. The failures in computer systems (hardware and operating systems) are much easier to identify and to fix, so we’ll examine the failures in software implementation, business process and user acceptance.

ERP Failures -Software Implementation

Module-based ERP software is the core of ERP systems. Most ERP projects involve significant amount of customizations. Packaged ERP software modules have built-in functionality that work in a standard and simplified enterprise environment. However, every organization is unique in data requirements and business processes. It is the customizations that transform packaged ERP software into ERP software that meets organizations’ individual business processes and operations. Long and expensive customization efforts often result the pass of release deadline and budget overrun. Customizations may make the software more fragile and harder to maintain when it finally goes to production. Major changes may be required in the later stage of the implementation as a result of incomplete requirements and power struggles within organizations

The integration of ERP systems (http://www.sysoptima.com/erp/erp_integration.php) with the IT infrastructures also challenges ERP project teams. The use of appropriate implementation methodologies can often make or break a ERP project. (http://www.sysoptima.com/erp/implementation_methodologies.php)

ERP Failures – Failure of Accommodating Evolution of Business Processes

According to Anthony, R. A, business processes fall into three levels – strategic planning, management control and operational control. Organizations continuously realign their business processes of all levels in response to the ever-changing market environment. Many ERP systems aren’t flexible enough to accommodate evolution of business processes. Many ERP system need a major overhaul in every a couple of years.

ERP Failures – Failure of User Acceptance

The users of ERP systems are employees of the organizations at all levels. ERP projects usually modify the company’s business processes which create extra workload for employees who use them initially. They may not think that the workflow embedded in the software are better than the ones they currently use. Ongoing end-user involvement and training may ease the difficult in organization’s adaptation of new systems and new business processes.

Bruce Zhang has over 10 years experiences in developing and implementing ecommerce and ebusiness systems in various industries. He operates a website www.sysoptima.com that automatically aggregates the news and new articles in e-business (ERP, CRM, Supply Chain Management and Knowledge Management) from over 50 sources daily (www.sysoptima.com/newsbot/) to help corporate executives, professionals and consultants to keep up with the latest development in enterprise software market. The website offers a knowledge base for understanding business software from a systems perspective.

Another Related ERP Failures post

Causes of ERP Failures

Emerging to RFID Enterprise Solution

by Gireesh A
Emerging to RFID Enterprise Solution

About RFID

Radio frequency identification or RFID, is a generic term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify people or objects. There are several methods of identification, but the most common is to store a serial number that identifies a person or object, and perhaps other information, on a microchip that is attached to an antenna (the chip and the antenna together are called an RFID transponder or an RFID tag. Visit http://www.bigsquid.org for more information on this). The antenna enables the chip to transmit the identification information to a reader. The reader converts the radio waves reflected back from the RFID tag into digital information that can then be passed on to the computers that can make use of it.

Objective
The objective of any RFID system is to carry data in suitable transponders, generally known as tags, and to retrieve data, by machine-readable means, at a suitable time and place to satisfy particular application needs. Data within a tag may provide identification for an item in manufacture, goods in transit, a location, and identity of a vehicle, an animal or individual. By including additional data the prospect is provided for supporting applications through item specific information or instructions immediately available on reading the tag.

The system requires, in addition to tags, a means of reading or interrogating the tags and some means of communicating the data to a host computer or information management system. A system will also include a facility for entering or programming data into the tags. Quite often an antenna is distinguished as if it were a separate part of an RFID system. While its importance justifies the attention it must be seen as a feature that is present in both readers and tags, essential for the communication between the two. To understand and appreciate the capabilities of RFID systems it is necessary to consider their constituent parts. It is also necessary to consider the data flow requirements that influence the choice of systems and the practicalities of communicating across the air interface. By considering the system components and their function within the data flow chain it is possible to grasp most of the important issues that influence the effective application of RFID. However, it is useful to begin by briefly considering the manner in which wireless communication is achieved, as the techniques involved have an important bearing upon the design of the system components.

Components of RFID

RFID Reader :
The Reader is a radio frequency device used to read data from the microchip contained in the RFID tag. RFID readers use a variety of methods to communicate with tags. The most common method for reading passive tags at close range is called inductive coupling. Simply put, the coiled antenna of the reader creates a magnetic field with the coiled antenna of the tag. The tag draws energy from this field and uses it to send back waves to the reader, which is turned into digital information – the tag’s electronic product code.

A Reader comprises of a transmitter, receiver, control module and communication functions, sometimes called a transceiver in radio terms for it to link to a controlling PC. Readers should have an attached antenna, which is used to transmit and receive the radio frequency signal. Each reader is accompanied with PC compatible software that allows the user to read and program tags. Win 2K, XP, ME are some of the operating systems compatible with our Readers.

RFID Tag :
An RFID tag or transponder is a wireless system composed of an electronic chip (semi-conductor device) with a memory where data can be stored. The memory can be permanent or volatile. They are classified within two frequency ranges, namely 125 KHz (low frequency) and 13.56 MHz (high frequency).

The RFID Business Case:
RFID in the Receiving Business Process: RFID readers are placed in the receiving area to monitor pallet and case RFID tags. The RFID readers verify the pallet license plate, count the units on the pallet, identify the vendor, and confirm the purchase order receipt without human intervention in the business transaction.
RFID in the Conversion Business Process: RFID readers can be placed along the flow path of a manufacturing process. Work-in-process, or WIP, can be enabled by RFID tags for tracking and monitoring the conversion of raw materials and intermediates into finished goods and stock-keeping units. This material information is integrated with the ERP production order transaction process to track manufacturing steps and issue production transactions.
RFID in the Customer Order Picking Business Process: Forklift drivers will use RFID readers to select case and pallet materials to pick order and assemble the shipment. Elimination of staging and verification processes can yield savings. This material information is integrated with the ERP warehouse and order management process to update the customer order pick list.
RFID in the Shipping Business Process: Forklift drivers and warehouse bays will use RFID readers to track case and pallet materials onto trucks. This material information is integrated with the ERP warehouse and order management process to update the customer order shipment.
The RFID value proposition propagates if the RFID infrastructure is leveraged by other enterprises in the downstream value chain.

OUR PRODUCT : BIGSquid

BIGSquid RFID is all you need to get started with RFID. BIGSquid RFID is an ideal tool for any startup labs and research teams. BIGSquid RFID comes with one RFID READER, BIGSquid RFID middleware developer license and TAGS to get you started in speed to create your own RFID solution. (More info http://www.bigsquid.org )

BIGSquid RFID Tag

BIGSquid RFID Tag is an Industrial and Logistics RFID Transponder. BIGSquid RFID Tag’s unique design gives it, infinite life and makes it nearly indestructible as opposed to conventional Tags. (More info http://www.bigsquid.org )

BIGSquid RFID Reader

BIGSquid is an industrial grade RFID Reader and an intelligent device. BIGSquid Navigator has built-in features, which allows easy integration in large layouts as opposed to normal readers. Navigator is remotely programmable and controllable and can transmit the RFID TAG information to long distances directly without using any additional interfaces or hardware. (More info http://www.bigsquid.org )

BIGSquid Reader Controller Modules

BIGSquid Reader controller modules are an essential companion when you deploy multiple RFID readers in geographically separated locations. The reader controller modules allow you to control readers remotely using multiple digital I/O from other processes or machines. (More info http://www.bigsquid.org )

RS232 to Ethernet converter

The rs232 to Ethernet converter is a first-generation Serial Device Server that externally connects any existing serial device to an Ethernet (TCP/IP) network. The rs232 to Ethernet converter features a compact and stylish design. (More info http://www.bigsquid.org )

BIGSquid RFID Middleware Server

The Server part of the BIGSquid RFID collects the tag information and updates in the database. The server will be running in the backend as a Service. Whenever there is a read at any particular reader it will be validated and will be stored in database against particular inventory.

The server will read the tag value precisely and will not miss any valid data. The validation part first checks whether the data that has been captured is valid or not and then it will check for the object or inventory that tag value represents and stores the tag value against that inventory or object.

Please visit http://www.bigsquid.org to get more information on related topics. Contact us http://www.bigsquid.org/Contactus.html

Satheesh G Nair. CEO BIGSquid

Factory Logic Expands Lean Production Management Capabilities

Factory Logic today announced an upgraded release, 5.4, of its Factory Logic Lean Operations Suite. Factory Logic said its integrated lean software is designed to support demand-driven production scheduling and pull-based supply synchronization.

The provider said the suite uses lean methods originally pioneered in the Toyota Production System (TPS) to encourage just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing, which reduces lead times, improves efficiency and drives down costs throughout the supply chain.Read more about Factory Logic Expands Lean Production Management Capabilities

Software as a Service

From ManagingAutomation.com:

One of the most frustrating aspects of today’s IT-dependent manufacturing environment is the challenge of deploying and maintaining enterprise applications ranging from enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM) to customer relationship management (CRM) software. A significant proportion of new application deployments fail to achieve their original objectives, and even successful deployments can often cost far more to maintain than expected.

Depending on the complexity of the deployment, enterprise applications can take months or even years to implement, and they can consume the majority of the IT staff’s time just to keep them up and running. And, most major upgrades typically require additional investments in new servers, storage and other IT infrastructure upgrades.

Manufacturers trying to keep pace with escalating competition can no longer afford the extended lag-time of lengthy application deployment cycles. They can also ill-afford the ongoing infrastructure and staff costs to simply maintain their existing applications.

These frustrations have made the manufacturing industry ripe for a new approach to applications called Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Read More about software as a Service