Tag: Erp Vendors

7 Free and Indispensible ERP Sites you can’t implement without

When entering into an ERP selection and implementation, the more you understand what you are getting into, the better. We have collected a few key sites that give a great basis for understanding and are resources we turn to now and again. We have also conscientiously stayed away from vendor references. What we show below are references to help you before you start talking with vendors.

1. CIO.com ABC An Introduction to ERP – This is an detailed article on all facets of an ERP undertaking. Looking at the cost factors, the project aspects, and the realities of ERP.

2. The ePMbook – The FREE ePMbook by Simon Wallace is a great resource for project management concepts. Broken into two sections – the Day Job and the Night Job; the Day Job is an exhastive look at project management and the Night Job is a quick guide to concepts such as Program Management. Well worth a read.

3. Software Advice – This is a very detailed synopsis of various ERP, CRM, BI, and other enterprise solutions. The site goes into detail as to what the software is, who it is targeted at, and provides contact info for each of the vendors. Get free demos, information, and price quotes.

4. Bridgefield Group ERP/Supply chain Glossary – A detailed glossary of terms for ERP and the Supply Chain.

5. ERP @ IT Toolbox – A great collection of articles and information. There are also discussions and various white papers. Just be careful of all the vendor sponsored information.

6. ERP Graveyard – You can’t keep track of the players without a scorecard. This site sizes up the acquisitions and mergers of all the ERP companies. You will be surprised at the long list of players in the Graveyard Scorecard!

7. ERPandmore.com Books – If you are going to attempt an ERP roll-out, you will want to read even more in depth than even these brief articles.

What ERP info are you looking for?

ERPandmore.com has for the past couple years been your site for ERP, CRM, and PLM related information.  We try not to take a vendor slant at this information and have tried to focus in on process information. 

We now have Software Reviews  and are working on other useful things.  The key question though is what is it that you the readers want?  What type of questions do you have about ERP that we could answer?

Please comment on this post and help us to understand what would help you in better understanding your Enterprise Software applications.  Thank you.

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ERP Software Reviews now available

When selecting a software, one criteria is finding out what others think of the prospective system. This can include phone calls, site surveys and other data gathering. To make this easier, ERPandmore.com has opened up a new section for ERP Software Reviews. This new section isn’t only for ERP though, it includes CRM, Business Intelligence, and even Warehouse Management software.

We are in the early days though and not all potential software systems are there. That is why we need your assistance. If you have an ERP, CRM, BI, or WMS system and would like to share that knowledge with the world, please add it to the site and add your review! This is similar to Amazon.com or any other site, where you can rate the product. So please take a look and if you can contribute to this new site, please do so. Thank you!

What is your ERP’s Legacy?

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is key to integrating all areas of a business. It controls the financials, the inventory, the purchasing and the ordering. There are a lot of ERP software vendors. The market though has consolidated in the past few years since the Y2K upgrade fever and the downturn of the software market.

Now ERP is undergoing a resurgence and many companies are looking to either purchase new systems to replace a collection of disintegrated systems or to upgrade an older ERP system that just doesn’t cut it anymore. With the market consolidation, there have been a lot of mergers and acquisitions of software companies. These acquisitions often result in the name of the company being revised and the software being renamed to something “more modern” or catchier to the ear.

One such software is Infor’s Syteline. At one point it was Symix Software’s Syteline. Then it became Frontstep. Then it was acquired by Mapics. Then Mapics was purchased by Infor. Thus Syteline the product has had a lot of masters. The core functionailty has remained relatively unchanged through the transitions. It has gone through some serious upgrades though along the path, including a switch to the .NET programming platform.

Baan is another software solution that has been through the wringers. But where Syteline continued to upgrade, Baan laid dormant for a couple of years. Baan had some financial difficulties and then it was purchased by a British company Invensys. Invensys held on to it for a while and then Baan the software was ultimately purchased by Infor. Under the hood, it is still relatively the same code base, although a lot of new functionality has been added.

On other fronts, older legacy software is becoming upgraded. Take JD Edwards World Software. It has a lot of clients who were running on the old green screen software for a long time with minimal upgrades. A few patches. Then in the past few months, Oracle, the new parent to JD Edwards finally released a comprehensive upgrade.

A key point to understand is that while many systems seem to be modern, you need to look at the history behind the software, especially if you are about to purchase a new ERP system. Key answers to find out are the history of the package, the customer base of the software, and the industries it typically serves. Often people will buy software and find out it was meant for a different market. Find out too if the software has remained on a consistent upgrade path. Some software systems have been completely rewritten in modern languages while other systems have had a window dressing interface applied, while the underlying engine is still antique code. Dig deep and hopefully you will be sure that you are not buying the proverbial pig with lipstick.

What On Earth Is ERP? – ERP Demystified

What On Earth Is ERP? – ERP Demystified
Sandra Stammberger

You might ask what is ERP? ERP is an industry term used by a variety of companies. It functions for a broad set of operations that supports multi use modules of application software.

This helps companies and manufacturers manage product parts for purchasing, maintaining inventories, customer service, tracking orders and interacting with suppliers.

ERP replaces standard computer systems with its simple categorized software program. The ERP software links together the business modules so that the finance department can look into the order forms of the warehouses software and determine or see where has the shipment been shipped too.

The ERP software is a very flexible component meaning you can make due with just installing a few modules for that day and do the rest another time.

So what exactly can ERP do you might ask?

� One of the advantages of ERP is the systems automating the different steps needed when taking a customers order.

� Another benefit of the ERP system is when a representative of the customer care service enters the customers order and can see all the necessary information to complete the order or to see if there are any problems with the order it self.

� The ERP system will show him or her, the customers order history, credit rating, inventory levels, and even the trucks docking information from the logistics module.

� The ERP can be applied to other business processes such as employee benefits and financial reports. It can also via route the order forms of any customers shipment to any department for updates.

� To track any shipment all you have to do is log in to the ERP system and it will give you a detailed description of where the shipment has been, what department and if any changes have been made.

With its vast descriptive database the ERP system can give customers their orders faster with fewer errors. ERP applications are used majority of the time by large management inventory companies who need ERP solutions for organization.

One of the great things about the ERP system is it was designed to manage all or majority of manufacturing and distribution enterprises. One of the reasons for ERP systems is that I can provide consistent user interface with other modules.

The ERP integrates all facets of business which leads to better results for companies who large quantities of shipments, buyers and customer care services. It is a system that goes beyond traditional application modes. It has advanced management methods and advanced information technology.

Even though there are departments who have their own systems with the help of ERP it can combine all software and programs creating a single integrated program that can run off one database and have various departments easily share and communicate more efficiently with each other

Sandra Stammberger owns and operates http://www.erpjob.net Erp Jobs

An Introduction to ERP

Here is a basic introduction to ERP. There are some good points to this article, but if you really want to know more, you should invest in some good ERP books.

An Introduction to ERP
Premal Vala

Information technology has transformed the way we live live in and the way we do business. Since last decade, I.T. has made a drastic change in our life. As compared to earlier stage, when computer was used just as a typewriter, nowadays users have become more intelligent and IT literate. Now the user knows that a PC can do many more things rather then just typing a letter in a word processing software or making balance sheets in excel. They expect more things out of their PC. During this phase of industry, every one of us must have heard the word ERP in one or the other form. It may be in title of any IT magazine or may be a point of discussion in any IT Seminar or may be in an advertisement of big IT Company. Thus in any form, we all have been through this word. In this short article, Ill try to concisely explain the basic yet important concepts relevant to ERP.

What is ERP ?

ERP is one of the most widely implemented business software systems in a wide variety of industries and organizations. ERP is the acronym of Enterprise Resource Planning. ERP is just not only a software. ERP definition refers to both; ERP software and business strategies that implement ERP systems.

ERP implementation utilizes various ERP software applications to improve the performance of organizations for

1) resource planning,

2) management control and

3) operational control.

ERP software consists of multiple software modules that integrate activities across functional departments – from production planning, parts purchasing, inventory control and product distribution to order tracking. Most ERP software systems include application modules to support common business activities like finance, accounting and human resources.

ERP Systems

ERP is much more than just a computer software. An ERP System includes ERP Software, Business Processes, Users and Hardware that run the ERP software. An ERP system is more than the sum of its parts or components. Those components interact together to achieve a common goal – streamline and improve organizations business processes. Most important factor for ERP system is the users. Successful implementation of any ERP System more depends on intelligent users who are going to use them, because any standard ERP Software would consist hundreds of input information for any particular business activity. Thus good knowledge of each entity of system to the users is most important factor in ERP Software.

History of ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is the evolution of Manufacturing Requirements Planning (MRP) II in 1980s, which was mainly related to Manufacturing Industry and was designed to control manufacturing process and planning the required production with efficient output. Where as MRP is the evolution of Inventory Management & Control conceived in 1960s, which was mainly designed for management of Stocks in any particular industry. ERP has expanded from coordination of manufacturing processes to the integration of enterprise-wide backend processes like production planning and scheduling of delivery. In terms of technology, ERP has evolved from legacy implementation to more flexible tiered client-server architecture.

Benefits of ERP

ERP software attempts to integrate business processes across departments ionto a single enterprise-wide information system. The major benefits of ERP are improved coordination across functional departments and increased efficiencies of doing business. The implementations of ERP systems help to facilitate day-to-day management as well. ERP software systems are originally and ambitiously designed to support resource planning portion of strategic planning. In reality, resource planning has been the weakest link in ERP practice due to the complexity of strategic planning and lack of adequate integration of ERP with Decision Support Systems (DSS).

Famous ERP Software

No one from IT industry will be unknown from the word SAP. SAP is the most successful ERP Software. To name more here are some examples:

PeopleSoft www.peoplesoft.com

SysPro www.syspro.com

ORION Enterprise www.3i-infotech.com

Matrix www.matrixinfosystems.com

(In the past, we have implemented Matrix ERP solution for one of our clients)

ERP Failures

I couldnt conclude my brief guide to ERP without mentioning ERP failures. The failures of Crore rupees ERP projects are reported once in a while even after many years of ERP implementation.

There are four components of an ERP System –

1) ERP software,

2) Business Processes that ERP software supports,

3) Users of ERP systems, and

4) Hardware and Operating Systems that run ERP applications.

The failures in one or more of those four components can cause the failure of an ERP project. Discussions on each of the four topics will require new article, so I may come up with same in my next article.

Author:

By Premal Vala

Premal Vala is working as a Project Leader for Semaphore Infotech Pvt. Ltd, a renowned IT company based at Ahmedabad, India. You can contact on email:</span> pr****@se****************.com.

The top 20 ERP implementation tips

We ran across an interesting article on the things you should do during an ERP implementation. Worth a read:

The top 20 ERP implementation tips
By Jan Stafford, Site Editor
22 Jun 2005 | SearchOpenSource.com

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) software project can be daunting for first-timers or veterans handling a migration. Get started on the right foot with the top 20 ERP implementation tips from Linux users, consultants and vendors.

Planning

1. Know your goals for your ERP implementation. Choose the product that promises to meet those goals and put measurement tools and processes in place to gauge your success, advises Lance Williamson, engineer, Engenio Information Technologies, Inc., Wichita, Kan. In particular, he said, set goals for performance, response time and downtime.

2. Don’t do any project without a plan, particularly an ERP project which touches almost every part of your organization, said Bernard Golden, CEO, Navica Inc., a consulting firm in San Carlos, Calif. Create process with regular milestones and participation from affected organizations. And be sure to test, test, test, all the way through. “All of these things seem like ‘nice-to-haves’ rather than critical elements in a project, but can make the overall project much more successful,” Golden explained.

3. Involve users in your ERP project planning phase, said Andy Klee, president of Klee Associates, Inc., a consulting firm in Cedaredge, Colo. “The software is not going to do you much good if you don’t have employee buy-in,” he added.

4. Don’t do the planning and implementation alone if you don’t have the in-house skills to make it happen, said Jorg Janke, president of open source ERP vendor Compiere Inc. in Portland, Ore. “Determining which options and features to use requires experience,” he said. If the in-house team doesn’t have that experience, Janke advises, find a local ERP expert who is trustworthy and who collaborates well with your team.

Read the rest of the article here…

Using ERP to get everyone on the same page

There is an excellent article on ERP from IBM that discusses the issues of the value of ERP. Getting everyone communicating together is one of the largest benefits of implementing an ERP system.

Using ERP to get everyone on the same page
By Julie Fraser

How many different applications are in use across your organization? Most small and medium businesses have dozens if not hundreds of different systems. The result: critical information is not being shared among departments, and employees struggle to get visibility to what is correct or what has happened. The cost of manually tracking down information is considerable. When you consider that it also leads to missed opportunities, poor decisions, poor execution, and disjointed customer service, the cost is far higher than many companies realize.

Read entire article…