Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems integrate information across an entire organization that automate core activities such as finance/accounting, human resources,
manufacturing, production and supply chain management… etc. to facilitate an integrated centralized system and rapid decision making– resulting in cost reduction, greater planning, and increased control. Many organizations are updating their current management information systems with ERP systems. This is not a trivial task. They have to identify the organization’s
objectives and satisfy a myriad of stakeholders. They have to understand what business processes they have, how they can be improved, and what particular systems would best suit
their needs. They have to understand how an ERP system is built; it involves the modification of an existing system with its own set of business rules. Deciding what to ask for and how to select the best option is a very complex operation and there is limited experience with this type of contracting in organizations. In this paper we discuss a particular experience with contracting
out an ERP system, provide some lessons learned, and offer suggestions in how the RFP and bid selection processes could have been improved.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE CONTRACTING PROCESS FOR AN ERP SYSTEMcsandit
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems integrate information across an entire
organization that automate core activities such as finance/accounting, human resources,
manufacturing, production and supply chain management… etc. to facilitate an integrated
centralized system and rapid decision making– resulting in cost reduction, greater planning,
and increased control. Many organizations are updating their current management information
systems with ERP systems. This is not a trivial task. They have to identify the organization’s
objectives and satisfy a myriad of stakeholders. They have to understand what business
processes they have, how they can be improved, and what particular systems would best suit
their needs. They have to understand how an ERP system is built; it involves the modification of
an existing system with its own set of business rules. Deciding what to ask for and how to select
the best option is a very complex operation and there is limited experience with this type of
contracting in organizations. In this paper we discuss a particular experience with contracting
out an ERP system, provide some lessons learned, and offer suggestions in how the RFP and bid
selection processes could have been improved.
Critical Success Factors for Implementing an ERP System within University Con...IJMIT JOURNAL
Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) plays an important role in efficiency and effectiveness of the organizational performance. As an IT application, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is considered one of the most important IT applications because it enables the organizations to connect and interact with its administrative units in order to manage data and organize internal procedures. Many institutions use ERP systems, most notably Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). However, many projects fail or exceed scheduling and budget constraints; the rate of failure in HEIs sector is higher than in other sectors. With HEIs’ recent movement to implement ERP systems and the lack of research studies examining successful implementation in HEIs, this paper provides a critical literature review with a special focus on Saudi Arabia. Further, it defines Critical Success Factors (CSFs) contributing to the success of ERP implementation in HEIs. This paper is part of a larger research effort aiming to provide guidelines and useful findings that help HEIs to manage the challenges for ERP systems and define CSFs that will help practitioners to implement them in the Saudi context.
Critical Success Factors (CSFS) of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System ...csandit
Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) plays an impo
rtant role in efficiency and effectiveness of the
organizational performance. As an IT application, E
nterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is
considered one of the most important IT application
s because it enables the organizations to connect a
nd
interact with its administrative units in order to
manage data and organize internal procedures. Many
institutions use ERP systems, most notably Higher E
ducation Institutions (HEIs). However, many project
s
fail or exceed scheduling and budget constraints; t
he rate of failure in HEIs sector is higher than in
other
sectors. With HEIs’ recent movement to implement ER
P systems and the lack of research studies examinin
g
successful implementation in HEIs, this paper provi
des a critical literature review with a special foc
us on
Saudi Arabia. Further, it defines Critical Success
Factors (CSFs) contributing to the success of ERP
implementation in HEIs. This paper is part of a lar
ger research effort aiming to provide guidelines an
d
useful findings that help HEIs to manage the challe
nges for ERP systems and define CSFs that will help
practitioners to implement them in the Saudi contex
t.
Enterprise Applications Modernization, Issues and OpportunitiesIJARIIT
The Enterprise application complexity of enterprises has assumed gigantic proportions in last 3-4 decades. In large enterprises, thousands of applications run on varied platforms. IT is not able to cater to the fast changing business needs as productivity is hindered by the soloed and duplicate applications. One of the key objectives of CIOs in 2015 onwards is to how to make future ready of the Enterprise applications so that they can meet the macro-economic business challenges of the modern day.
This paper examines the major business challenges and drivers for enterprise application modernization, key benefits of optimization and modernization.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE CONTRACTING PROCESS FOR AN ERP SYSTEMcsandit
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems integrate information across an entire
organization that automate core activities such as finance/accounting, human resources,
manufacturing, production and supply chain management… etc. to facilitate an integrated
centralized system and rapid decision making– resulting in cost reduction, greater planning,
and increased control. Many organizations are updating their current management information
systems with ERP systems. This is not a trivial task. They have to identify the organization’s
objectives and satisfy a myriad of stakeholders. They have to understand what business
processes they have, how they can be improved, and what particular systems would best suit
their needs. They have to understand how an ERP system is built; it involves the modification of
an existing system with its own set of business rules. Deciding what to ask for and how to select
the best option is a very complex operation and there is limited experience with this type of
contracting in organizations. In this paper we discuss a particular experience with contracting
out an ERP system, provide some lessons learned, and offer suggestions in how the RFP and bid
selection processes could have been improved.
Critical Success Factors for Implementing an ERP System within University Con...IJMIT JOURNAL
Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) plays an important role in efficiency and effectiveness of the organizational performance. As an IT application, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is considered one of the most important IT applications because it enables the organizations to connect and interact with its administrative units in order to manage data and organize internal procedures. Many institutions use ERP systems, most notably Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). However, many projects fail or exceed scheduling and budget constraints; the rate of failure in HEIs sector is higher than in other sectors. With HEIs’ recent movement to implement ERP systems and the lack of research studies examining successful implementation in HEIs, this paper provides a critical literature review with a special focus on Saudi Arabia. Further, it defines Critical Success Factors (CSFs) contributing to the success of ERP implementation in HEIs. This paper is part of a larger research effort aiming to provide guidelines and useful findings that help HEIs to manage the challenges for ERP systems and define CSFs that will help practitioners to implement them in the Saudi context.
Critical Success Factors (CSFS) of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System ...csandit
Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) plays an impo
rtant role in efficiency and effectiveness of the
organizational performance. As an IT application, E
nterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is
considered one of the most important IT application
s because it enables the organizations to connect a
nd
interact with its administrative units in order to
manage data and organize internal procedures. Many
institutions use ERP systems, most notably Higher E
ducation Institutions (HEIs). However, many project
s
fail or exceed scheduling and budget constraints; t
he rate of failure in HEIs sector is higher than in
other
sectors. With HEIs’ recent movement to implement ER
P systems and the lack of research studies examinin
g
successful implementation in HEIs, this paper provi
des a critical literature review with a special foc
us on
Saudi Arabia. Further, it defines Critical Success
Factors (CSFs) contributing to the success of ERP
implementation in HEIs. This paper is part of a lar
ger research effort aiming to provide guidelines an
d
useful findings that help HEIs to manage the challe
nges for ERP systems and define CSFs that will help
practitioners to implement them in the Saudi contex
t.
Enterprise Applications Modernization, Issues and OpportunitiesIJARIIT
The Enterprise application complexity of enterprises has assumed gigantic proportions in last 3-4 decades. In large enterprises, thousands of applications run on varied platforms. IT is not able to cater to the fast changing business needs as productivity is hindered by the soloed and duplicate applications. One of the key objectives of CIOs in 2015 onwards is to how to make future ready of the Enterprise applications so that they can meet the macro-economic business challenges of the modern day.
This paper examines the major business challenges and drivers for enterprise application modernization, key benefits of optimization and modernization.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR IMPLEMENTING AN ERP SYSTEM WITHIN UNIVERSITY CON...IJMIT JOURNAL
Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) plays an important role in efficiency and effectiveness of the
organizational performance. As an IT application, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is
considered one of the most important IT applications because it enables the organizations to connect and
interact with its administrative units in order to manage data and organize internal procedures. Many
institutions use ERP systems, most notably Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). However, many projects
fail or exceed scheduling and budget constraints; the rate of failure in HEIs sector is higher than in other
sectors. With HEIs’ recent movement to implement ERP systems and the lack of research studies examining
successful implementation in HEIs, this paper provides a critical literature review with a special focus on
Saudi Arabia. Further, it defines Critical Success Factors (CSFs) contributing to the success of ERP
implementation in HEIs. This paper is part of a larger research effort aiming to provide guidelines and
useful findings that help HEIs to manage the challenges for ERP systems and define CSFs that will help
practitioners to implement them in the Saudi context.
In this paper discussed about the role of e-HR in government/private organization. Electronic human resources are the part of electronic human management (e-HRM). E-HRM is the department of organization; electronic human resources are a function of HR that concerned with the use management and regulation of electronic information and processes within an organization. In this paper also discussed about the term of e-HRM (Electronic Human Resources Management) and e-HRIS (Human Resources Information System). The main goal of this paper is the important of e-HR (Electronic Human Resources) in the organization/industries. In this paper also discussed about the e-HR services, e-HR life cycle. E-HR is the latest technology in which use the technology and provide the good services of customer and employee. In this paper also discussed about the 5-stages of e-HR life cycle in need of improvement, e-HR implementation and also revenue cycle management.
There are three stages of Enterprise Resource planning System (ERP) Implementation; which are preimplementation,
mid- implementation and post-implementation. In pre-implementation stage the pervious
researchers found that it fail in Organizational and Technological factors. Therefore, this research studies
the Technological Factors availability and the Organizational Factor readiness at Greater Amman
Municipality (GAM) Case study. The statistical results showed that there are availability of the
Organizational factor (Organizational Objectives and Services, Organization culture, and Business
process) for success of ERP system, and indicate the technological infrastructure is available og GAM.
Relationship Between Organizational Factors, Technological Factors and Enterp...IJMIT JOURNAL
There are three stages of Enterprise Resource planning System (ERP) Implementation; which are preimplementation, mid- implementation and post-implementation. In pre-implementation stage the pervious
researchers found that it fail in Organizational and Technological factors. Therefore, this research studies
the Technological Factors availability and the Organizational Factor readiness at Greater Amman
Municipality (GAM) Case study. The statistical results showed that there are availability of the
Organizational factor (Organizational Objectives and Services, Organization culture, and Business
process) for success of ERP system, and indicate the technological infrastructure is available og GAM.
Using Machine Learning embedded in Organizational Responsibility Model, added to the ten characteristics of the CIO Master and the twelve competencies of the workforce can help lead the Digital Transformation of the traditional public organizations to the Exponential.
Challenges for Managing Complex Application Portfolios: A Case Study of South...IJMIT JOURNAL
This research explores the challenges in management and the root cause for complex application portfolios in the public sector. It takes Australian public sector organisations with the case of South Australia Police (SAPOL) for evaluation it being one of the significant and mission critical state government agencies. The exploratory research surfaces some of the key challenges using interview as primary data collection source, along with archive records, documentation, and direct observation as secondary sources. This paper reports on the information analysed surfacing eight key issues. It highlights that the organic growth of the technology portfolios, with mission criticality has resulted in many quick fixes which are not aligned with long term enterprise architectural stability. Integration of different mismatched technologies, along with the pressure from the business to always keep the lights on, does not provide the opportunity for the portfolios to be rationalised in an ongoing way. Other issues and the areas for further study are explored at the end.
Success Factors for Enterprise Systems in the Higher Education Sector: A Case...inventionjournals
Many large organisations have moved to Enterprise System solutions in recent years, including the higher education sector (HES). Whilst the benefits of Enterprise systems are well known, the sector has a social mission and characteristics that do not necessarily map to a commercially-focused corporate conceptualization, and assessing the suitability of any particular enterprise solution requires a qualified set of criteria to be applied. This paper looks at an “essential set” of critical success factors (CSFs) relevant to enterprise systems in the HES and applies them in a case study of a large Australian University. The CSFs found to be most relevant to successful ES deployment show differences from CSFs reported in other studies, mainly those in commercial sectors, suggesting a sector based approach be taken to evaluating ES success. We generalise our practical findings to theory, and propose further theory development and validation through confirmatory case studies and specific hypothesis testing.
IS/IT Capability and Strategic Information System Planning (SISP) SuccessIJMIT JOURNAL
Successful planning of Information Systems (SISP) is perhaps going to be more problematic in today’s world of rapid change and uncertainty. SISP is a cornerstone of the information system discipline and very little attention has been paid to its success based on the resource based view of the firm (RBV).This paper provides a model for IT capability and strategic information system planning success, by considering environmental and organizational factors that may influence this relationship in a contingency model. A review of existing IT capability and SISP literature is given to identify the opportunities in building successful SISP. A model is developed by hypothesizing IT capability as independent variable leads to SISP success as dependent variable; in which organizational & environmental influences are considered as moderating variables. The control variables are firm size, firm structure, and industry type. The study proposes a model to conceptualize the relationship between IT capabilities and SISP success and contingency factors moderating that relationship. This paper explains the ways of exploiting IT capabilities as specialized and integrated knowledge of the firm in IT area to create a more successful SISP. The researchers believe that the aim to build a model for SISP success based on RBV theory is important because this new perspective will be helpful for gaining a superior assessment and better underpinning of the SISP from a knowledge based perspective.
Integration impediment during ERP Developmentijtsrd
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems have increasingly been developed and integrated with other internal and external systems. This paper contributes to the field of enterprise systems integration by clarifying the concept of integration in the context of ERP systems. We investigated integration obstacles during ERP development in 5 large organizations through theme-based interviews. Besides considering integration as purely technical challenge, our findings reveal the other perspectives of integration. In total 31 environmental, technical, managerial, and organizational integration obstacles were identified from empirical data and further mapped with 13 ERP challenge categories derived from the literature. Our findings reveal that integration barriers are related to all 13 categories of ERP challenges. This indicates that integration should not be a separate project from ERP development. Identifying the integration obstacles is necessary for practitioners to develop counteractions to enterprise integration problems Jaychand Vishwakarma"Integration impediment during ERP Development" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-2 | Issue-3 , April 2018, URL: http://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd12735.pdf http://www.ijtsrd.com/computer-science/other/12735/integration-impediment-during-erp-development/jaychand-vishwakarma
An Investigation of Critical Failure Factors In Information Technology ProjectsIOSR Journals
Rate of failed projects in information technology system project remains high in comparison with other infrastructure or high technology projects. The objective of this paper is to determine and represent a broad range of potential failure factors during the implementation phase and cause of IS/IT Project defeat/failure. Challenges exist in order to achieve the projects goal successfully and to avoid the failure. In this research study, 12 articles were studied as significant contributions to analyze developing a list of critical failure factors of IT projects
Risk of Adopting Open Source ERP for Small Manufacturers: A Case StudyPlacide Poba Nzaou
Purpose - This study aims to explore the process of open source software (OSS) adoption in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and more specifically open source ERP as a “mission critical” OSS application in manufacturing. It also addresses the fundamental issue of ERP risk management that shapes this process.
Design/methodology/approach - The approach is done through an interpretive case study of a small Canadian manufacturer that has adopted an open source ERP system.
Findings - Interpreted in the light of diffusion of innovation theory and the IT risk management literature, results indicate that the small manufacturer successfully managed the adoption process in a rather intuitive manner, based on one guiding principle and nine practices.
Practical implications - This research confirms that open source is a credible alternative for SMEs that decide willingly or under external pressure to adopt an ERP system. Moreover, it suggests that a high level of formalization is not always necessary. For ERP vendors, this study shows that SMEs are more in search of flexibility in an ERP system than in the “best practices” embedded within these systems.
Originality/value - We argue that rich insights into the dynamics of the OSS-ERP adoption process can be obtained by framing this process within a risk management context.
KEYWORDS:
Open source software; ERP adoption; SME; Small business; IT risk management.
Influence Of Technology On Human Resource ManagementNavitha Pereira
Technology has transformed our lives and the way we communicate, how we learn, how we work and spend free time, in essence-it has more or less changed every aspect of human society one can think of. Undoubtedly it also affected organizations' employees and their workplaces in job design, conditions of work and other (numerous) ways. Today’s information technology has shown continuous development. Technology and HRM have a wide range of impact upon each other and therefore human resource professional should be eligible to adopt technologies that allow the re-engineering of the HR action, be prepared to maintain organizationally and work project changes caused by technology, and be able to maintain a proper managerial climate for innovative and knowledge-based organizations. HRM should be focused on the strategic objective and these strategic objectives are preparing information technology strategies to plan to fulfill the human resources strategies plan in the field of technology.
The implementation of IT governance is important to lead and evolve the information system in agreement with stakeholders. This requirement is seriously amplified at the time of digital area considering all the new technologies that has been lunched recently (Big DATA, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep learning...). Thus, without a good rudder, every company risks getting lost in a sea endless and unreachable goals.
This paper aims to provide decision-making system that allow professionals to choose IT governance framework suitable to desired criteria and their importance based on a multi-criteria analysis method (WSM), we did implement a case study based on our analysis in a Moroccan company. Moreover, we present better understanding of IT Governance aspects such as standards and best practices.
Our article goes into a global objective that aims to build an integrated generated meta-model for better approach of IT Governance.
An experience based evaluation process for erpacijjournal
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems integrate information across an entire organization that
automate core activities such as finance/accounting, human resources, manufacturing, production and
supply chain management… etc. to facilitate an integrated centralized system and rapid decision making–
resulting in cost reduction, greater planning, and increased control. Many organizations are updating their
current management information systems with ERP systems. This is not a trivial task. They have to identify
the organization’s objectives and satisfy a myriad of stakeholders. They have to understand what business
processes they have, how they can be improved, and what particular systems would best suit their needs.
They have to understand how an ERP system is built; it involves the modification of an existing system with
its own set of business rules. Deciding what to ask for and how to select the best option is a very complex
operation and there is limited experience with this type of contracting in organizations. In this paper we
discuss a particular experience with contracting out an ERP system, provide some lessons learned, and
offer suggestions in how the RFP and bid selection processes could have been improved.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS (CSFS) OF ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP) SYSTEM ...cscpconf
Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) plays an important role in efficiency and effectiveness of the
organizational performance. As an IT application, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is
considered one of the most important IT applications because it enables the organizations to connect and
interact with its administrative units in order to manage data and organize internal procedures. Many
institutions use ERP systems, most notably Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). However, many projects
fail or exceed scheduling and budget constraints; the rate of failure in HEIs sector is higher than in other
sectors. With HEIs’ recent movement to implement ERP systems and the lack of research studies examining
successful implementation in HEIs, this paper provides a critical literature review with a special focus on
Saudi Arabia. Further, it defines Critical Success Factors (CSFs) contributing to the success of ERP
implementation in HEIs. This paper is part of a larger research effort aiming to provide guidelines and
useful findings that help HEIs to manage the challenges for ERP systems and define CSFs that will help
practitioners to implement them in the Saudi context.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR IMPLEMENTING AN ERP SYSTEM WITHIN UNIVERSITY CON...IJMIT JOURNAL
Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) plays an important role in efficiency and effectiveness of the
organizational performance. As an IT application, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is
considered one of the most important IT applications because it enables the organizations to connect and
interact with its administrative units in order to manage data and organize internal procedures. Many
institutions use ERP systems, most notably Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). However, many projects
fail or exceed scheduling and budget constraints; the rate of failure in HEIs sector is higher than in other
sectors. With HEIs’ recent movement to implement ERP systems and the lack of research studies examining
successful implementation in HEIs, this paper provides a critical literature review with a special focus on
Saudi Arabia. Further, it defines Critical Success Factors (CSFs) contributing to the success of ERP
implementation in HEIs. This paper is part of a larger research effort aiming to provide guidelines and
useful findings that help HEIs to manage the challenges for ERP systems and define CSFs that will help
practitioners to implement them in the Saudi context.
In this paper discussed about the role of e-HR in government/private organization. Electronic human resources are the part of electronic human management (e-HRM). E-HRM is the department of organization; electronic human resources are a function of HR that concerned with the use management and regulation of electronic information and processes within an organization. In this paper also discussed about the term of e-HRM (Electronic Human Resources Management) and e-HRIS (Human Resources Information System). The main goal of this paper is the important of e-HR (Electronic Human Resources) in the organization/industries. In this paper also discussed about the e-HR services, e-HR life cycle. E-HR is the latest technology in which use the technology and provide the good services of customer and employee. In this paper also discussed about the 5-stages of e-HR life cycle in need of improvement, e-HR implementation and also revenue cycle management.
There are three stages of Enterprise Resource planning System (ERP) Implementation; which are preimplementation,
mid- implementation and post-implementation. In pre-implementation stage the pervious
researchers found that it fail in Organizational and Technological factors. Therefore, this research studies
the Technological Factors availability and the Organizational Factor readiness at Greater Amman
Municipality (GAM) Case study. The statistical results showed that there are availability of the
Organizational factor (Organizational Objectives and Services, Organization culture, and Business
process) for success of ERP system, and indicate the technological infrastructure is available og GAM.
Relationship Between Organizational Factors, Technological Factors and Enterp...IJMIT JOURNAL
There are three stages of Enterprise Resource planning System (ERP) Implementation; which are preimplementation, mid- implementation and post-implementation. In pre-implementation stage the pervious
researchers found that it fail in Organizational and Technological factors. Therefore, this research studies
the Technological Factors availability and the Organizational Factor readiness at Greater Amman
Municipality (GAM) Case study. The statistical results showed that there are availability of the
Organizational factor (Organizational Objectives and Services, Organization culture, and Business
process) for success of ERP system, and indicate the technological infrastructure is available og GAM.
Using Machine Learning embedded in Organizational Responsibility Model, added to the ten characteristics of the CIO Master and the twelve competencies of the workforce can help lead the Digital Transformation of the traditional public organizations to the Exponential.
Challenges for Managing Complex Application Portfolios: A Case Study of South...IJMIT JOURNAL
This research explores the challenges in management and the root cause for complex application portfolios in the public sector. It takes Australian public sector organisations with the case of South Australia Police (SAPOL) for evaluation it being one of the significant and mission critical state government agencies. The exploratory research surfaces some of the key challenges using interview as primary data collection source, along with archive records, documentation, and direct observation as secondary sources. This paper reports on the information analysed surfacing eight key issues. It highlights that the organic growth of the technology portfolios, with mission criticality has resulted in many quick fixes which are not aligned with long term enterprise architectural stability. Integration of different mismatched technologies, along with the pressure from the business to always keep the lights on, does not provide the opportunity for the portfolios to be rationalised in an ongoing way. Other issues and the areas for further study are explored at the end.
Success Factors for Enterprise Systems in the Higher Education Sector: A Case...inventionjournals
Many large organisations have moved to Enterprise System solutions in recent years, including the higher education sector (HES). Whilst the benefits of Enterprise systems are well known, the sector has a social mission and characteristics that do not necessarily map to a commercially-focused corporate conceptualization, and assessing the suitability of any particular enterprise solution requires a qualified set of criteria to be applied. This paper looks at an “essential set” of critical success factors (CSFs) relevant to enterprise systems in the HES and applies them in a case study of a large Australian University. The CSFs found to be most relevant to successful ES deployment show differences from CSFs reported in other studies, mainly those in commercial sectors, suggesting a sector based approach be taken to evaluating ES success. We generalise our practical findings to theory, and propose further theory development and validation through confirmatory case studies and specific hypothesis testing.
IS/IT Capability and Strategic Information System Planning (SISP) SuccessIJMIT JOURNAL
Successful planning of Information Systems (SISP) is perhaps going to be more problematic in today’s world of rapid change and uncertainty. SISP is a cornerstone of the information system discipline and very little attention has been paid to its success based on the resource based view of the firm (RBV).This paper provides a model for IT capability and strategic information system planning success, by considering environmental and organizational factors that may influence this relationship in a contingency model. A review of existing IT capability and SISP literature is given to identify the opportunities in building successful SISP. A model is developed by hypothesizing IT capability as independent variable leads to SISP success as dependent variable; in which organizational & environmental influences are considered as moderating variables. The control variables are firm size, firm structure, and industry type. The study proposes a model to conceptualize the relationship between IT capabilities and SISP success and contingency factors moderating that relationship. This paper explains the ways of exploiting IT capabilities as specialized and integrated knowledge of the firm in IT area to create a more successful SISP. The researchers believe that the aim to build a model for SISP success based on RBV theory is important because this new perspective will be helpful for gaining a superior assessment and better underpinning of the SISP from a knowledge based perspective.
Integration impediment during ERP Developmentijtsrd
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems have increasingly been developed and integrated with other internal and external systems. This paper contributes to the field of enterprise systems integration by clarifying the concept of integration in the context of ERP systems. We investigated integration obstacles during ERP development in 5 large organizations through theme-based interviews. Besides considering integration as purely technical challenge, our findings reveal the other perspectives of integration. In total 31 environmental, technical, managerial, and organizational integration obstacles were identified from empirical data and further mapped with 13 ERP challenge categories derived from the literature. Our findings reveal that integration barriers are related to all 13 categories of ERP challenges. This indicates that integration should not be a separate project from ERP development. Identifying the integration obstacles is necessary for practitioners to develop counteractions to enterprise integration problems Jaychand Vishwakarma"Integration impediment during ERP Development" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-2 | Issue-3 , April 2018, URL: http://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd12735.pdf http://www.ijtsrd.com/computer-science/other/12735/integration-impediment-during-erp-development/jaychand-vishwakarma
An Investigation of Critical Failure Factors In Information Technology ProjectsIOSR Journals
Rate of failed projects in information technology system project remains high in comparison with other infrastructure or high technology projects. The objective of this paper is to determine and represent a broad range of potential failure factors during the implementation phase and cause of IS/IT Project defeat/failure. Challenges exist in order to achieve the projects goal successfully and to avoid the failure. In this research study, 12 articles were studied as significant contributions to analyze developing a list of critical failure factors of IT projects
Risk of Adopting Open Source ERP for Small Manufacturers: A Case StudyPlacide Poba Nzaou
Purpose - This study aims to explore the process of open source software (OSS) adoption in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and more specifically open source ERP as a “mission critical” OSS application in manufacturing. It also addresses the fundamental issue of ERP risk management that shapes this process.
Design/methodology/approach - The approach is done through an interpretive case study of a small Canadian manufacturer that has adopted an open source ERP system.
Findings - Interpreted in the light of diffusion of innovation theory and the IT risk management literature, results indicate that the small manufacturer successfully managed the adoption process in a rather intuitive manner, based on one guiding principle and nine practices.
Practical implications - This research confirms that open source is a credible alternative for SMEs that decide willingly or under external pressure to adopt an ERP system. Moreover, it suggests that a high level of formalization is not always necessary. For ERP vendors, this study shows that SMEs are more in search of flexibility in an ERP system than in the “best practices” embedded within these systems.
Originality/value - We argue that rich insights into the dynamics of the OSS-ERP adoption process can be obtained by framing this process within a risk management context.
KEYWORDS:
Open source software; ERP adoption; SME; Small business; IT risk management.
Influence Of Technology On Human Resource ManagementNavitha Pereira
Technology has transformed our lives and the way we communicate, how we learn, how we work and spend free time, in essence-it has more or less changed every aspect of human society one can think of. Undoubtedly it also affected organizations' employees and their workplaces in job design, conditions of work and other (numerous) ways. Today’s information technology has shown continuous development. Technology and HRM have a wide range of impact upon each other and therefore human resource professional should be eligible to adopt technologies that allow the re-engineering of the HR action, be prepared to maintain organizationally and work project changes caused by technology, and be able to maintain a proper managerial climate for innovative and knowledge-based organizations. HRM should be focused on the strategic objective and these strategic objectives are preparing information technology strategies to plan to fulfill the human resources strategies plan in the field of technology.
The implementation of IT governance is important to lead and evolve the information system in agreement with stakeholders. This requirement is seriously amplified at the time of digital area considering all the new technologies that has been lunched recently (Big DATA, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep learning...). Thus, without a good rudder, every company risks getting lost in a sea endless and unreachable goals.
This paper aims to provide decision-making system that allow professionals to choose IT governance framework suitable to desired criteria and their importance based on a multi-criteria analysis method (WSM), we did implement a case study based on our analysis in a Moroccan company. Moreover, we present better understanding of IT Governance aspects such as standards and best practices.
Our article goes into a global objective that aims to build an integrated generated meta-model for better approach of IT Governance.
An experience based evaluation process for erpacijjournal
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems integrate information across an entire organization that
automate core activities such as finance/accounting, human resources, manufacturing, production and
supply chain management… etc. to facilitate an integrated centralized system and rapid decision making–
resulting in cost reduction, greater planning, and increased control. Many organizations are updating their
current management information systems with ERP systems. This is not a trivial task. They have to identify
the organization’s objectives and satisfy a myriad of stakeholders. They have to understand what business
processes they have, how they can be improved, and what particular systems would best suit their needs.
They have to understand how an ERP system is built; it involves the modification of an existing system with
its own set of business rules. Deciding what to ask for and how to select the best option is a very complex
operation and there is limited experience with this type of contracting in organizations. In this paper we
discuss a particular experience with contracting out an ERP system, provide some lessons learned, and
offer suggestions in how the RFP and bid selection processes could have been improved.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS (CSFS) OF ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP) SYSTEM ...cscpconf
Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) plays an important role in efficiency and effectiveness of the
organizational performance. As an IT application, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is
considered one of the most important IT applications because it enables the organizations to connect and
interact with its administrative units in order to manage data and organize internal procedures. Many
institutions use ERP systems, most notably Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). However, many projects
fail or exceed scheduling and budget constraints; the rate of failure in HEIs sector is higher than in other
sectors. With HEIs’ recent movement to implement ERP systems and the lack of research studies examining
successful implementation in HEIs, this paper provides a critical literature review with a special focus on
Saudi Arabia. Further, it defines Critical Success Factors (CSFs) contributing to the success of ERP
implementation in HEIs. This paper is part of a larger research effort aiming to provide guidelines and
useful findings that help HEIs to manage the challenges for ERP systems and define CSFs that will help
practitioners to implement them in the Saudi context.
Investigating the use of an Artificial Intelligence Model in an ERP Cloud-Bas...AI Publications
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are necessary to improve an enterprise's management performance. However, the perception of information technology (IT) professionals about the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning with ERP cloud service platforms is unknown. Few studies have examined how leaders can implement AI for strategic management, but no study has qualitatively explored AIs integration in the cloud ERP system. This qualitative phenomenological study explored IT professionals’ perceptions regarding the integration of AI and Supervised-machine (S-machine) learning into cloud service platforms in the enhancement of the cloud ERP system. Two research questions were developed for this study: 1) What are the perceptions of IT professionals regarding the use of an AI model to integrate SaaS and ERP? and 2) What are the perceptions of IT professionals regarding how AI can be integrated in order to enhance the security of using an ERP cloud-based system? Through a hermeneutical lens and a focus on integrating the Application Programming Interface (API), purposive sampling was used to interview five AI experts, three Machine Learning (ML) experts, five Cybersecurity experts, and two Cloud Service Providers provided their lived experiences with AI and S-machine learning. Five main themes emerged, including 1) use of an AI model to integrate SaaS and ERP helped perform work efficiently, 2) challenges for integrating AI into cloud service ERP and SaaS, 3) resources needed to fully implement an AI into cloud-service ERP or SaaS, 4) the best practices for developing and implementing an AI model for ERP and SaaS, and 5) how security of an ERP clouds-based system is optimized by integrating AI. The culmination of these findings has positive implications for individuals and organizations to improve management performance. While this study does not proposal a new theory, this study extends current literature on the application of theories related to technology integration.
Challenges encountered in the Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning ...IJAEMSJORNAL
The purpose of this paper is to present an integrative and detailed review of the critical factors of enterprise resource planning (ERP) that influence effectiveness of business process integration. Organizations' use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems has changed the way they provide information systems. The research applied quantitative research method to examine the current study which analyzing the integrative and detailed review of the critical factors of enterprise resource planning (ERP) that influence effectiveness of business process integration. The researcher distributed 180 questionnaires among several projects in Qatar, however it was able to gather only 168 questionnaires out of 180 questionnaires. The findings revealed that all independent variables are positively and significantly influence dependent variable, moreover it was found the highest value was between PMIS and ERP integration, on the other hand the lowest value was for between control environment and ERP integration.
A Study and Analysis of Various Existing Implementation Framework Related to ...EECJOURNAL
Despite the difficulties, risk and failures, higher education institutions are continuously implementing the ERP Systems to meet the demands of increased competition and customer expectation. So, it is important to understand and follow an implementation frameworks to reduce/avoid the implementation failures. This study focuses on the overview of different frameworks/models used in ERP implementation and raise an alarm to indicate that there is only limited research available in this area of higher education hence it should be given more focus.
Similar to AN ANALYSIS OF THE CONTRACTING PROCESS FOR AN ERP SYSTEM (20)
ANALYSIS OF LAND SURFACE DEFORMATION GRADIENT BY DINSAR cscpconf
The progressive development of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems diversify the exploitation of the generated images by these systems in different applications of geoscience. Detection and monitoring surface deformations, procreated by various phenomena had benefited from this evolution and had been realized by interferometry (InSAR) and differential interferometry (DInSAR) techniques. Nevertheless, spatial and temporal decorrelations of the interferometric couples used, limit strongly the precision of analysis results by these techniques. In this context, we propose, in this work, a methodological approach of surface deformation detection and analysis by differential interferograms to show the limits of this technique according to noise quality and level. The detectability model is generated from the deformation signatures, by simulating a linear fault merged to the images couples of ERS1 / ERS2 sensors acquired in a region of the Algerian south.
4D AUTOMATIC LIP-READING FOR SPEAKER'S FACE IDENTIFCATIONcscpconf
A novel based a trajectory-guided, concatenating approach for synthesizing high-quality image real sample renders video is proposed . The lips reading automated is seeking for modeled the closest real image sample sequence preserve in the library under the data video to the HMM predicted trajectory. The object trajectory is modeled obtained by projecting the face patterns into an KDA feature space is estimated. The approach for speaker's face identification by using synthesise the identity surface of a subject face from a small sample of patterns which sparsely each the view sphere. An KDA algorithm use to the Lip-reading image is discrimination, after that work consisted of in the low dimensional for the fundamental lip features vector is reduced by using the 2D-DCT.The mouth of the set area dimensionality is ordered by a normally reduction base on the PCA to obtain the Eigen lips approach, their proposed approach by[33]. The subjective performance results of the cost function under the automatic lips reading modeled , which wasn’t illustrate the superior performance of the
method.
MOVING FROM WATERFALL TO AGILE PROCESS IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CAPSTONE PROJE...cscpconf
Universities offer software engineering capstone course to simulate a real world-working environment in which students can work in a team for a fixed period to deliver a quality product. The objective of the paper is to report on our experience in moving from Waterfall process to Agile process in conducting the software engineering capstone project. We present the capstone course designs for both Waterfall driven and Agile driven methodologies that highlight the structure, deliverables and assessment plans.To evaluate the improvement, we conducted a survey for two different sections taught by two different instructors to evaluate students’ experience in moving from traditional Waterfall model to Agile like process. Twentyeight students filled the survey. The survey consisted of eight multiple-choice questions and an open-ended question to collect feedback from students. The survey results show that students were able to attain hands one experience, which simulate a real world-working environment. The results also show that the Agile approach helped students to have overall better design and avoid mistakes they have made in the initial design completed in of the first phase of the capstone project. In addition, they were able to decide on their team capabilities, training needs and thus learn the required technologies earlier which is reflected on the final product quality
PROMOTING STUDENT ENGAGEMENT USING SOCIAL MEDIA TECHNOLOGIEScscpconf
Using social media in education provides learners with an informal way for communication. Informal communication tends to remove barriers and hence promotes student engagement. This paper presents our experience in using three different social media technologies in teaching software project management course. We conducted different surveys at the end of every semester to evaluate students’ satisfaction and engagement. Results show that using social media enhances students’ engagement and satisfaction. However, familiarity with the tool is an important factor for student satisfaction.
A SURVEY ON QUESTION ANSWERING SYSTEMS: THE ADVANCES OF FUZZY LOGICcscpconf
In real world computing environment with using a computer to answer questions has been a human dream since the beginning of the digital era, Question-answering systems are referred to as intelligent systems, that can be used to provide responses for the questions being asked by the user based on certain facts or rules stored in the knowledge base it can generate answers of questions asked in natural , and the first main idea of fuzzy logic was to working on the problem of computer understanding of natural language, so this survey paper provides an overview on what Question-Answering is and its system architecture and the possible relationship and
different with fuzzy logic, as well as the previous related research with respect to approaches that were followed. At the end, the survey provides an analytical discussion of the proposed QA models, along or combined with fuzzy logic and their main contributions and limitations.
DYNAMIC PHONE WARPING – A METHOD TO MEASURE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN PRONUNCIATIONS cscpconf
Human beings generate different speech waveforms while speaking the same word at different times. Also, different human beings have different accents and generate significantly varying speech waveforms for the same word. There is a need to measure the distances between various words which facilitate preparation of pronunciation dictionaries. A new algorithm called Dynamic Phone Warping (DPW) is presented in this paper. It uses dynamic programming technique for global alignment and shortest distance measurements. The DPW algorithm can be used to enhance the pronunciation dictionaries of the well-known languages like English or to build pronunciation dictionaries to the less known sparse languages. The precision measurement experiments show 88.9% accuracy.
INTELLIGENT ELECTRONIC ASSESSMENT FOR SUBJECTIVE EXAMS cscpconf
In education, the use of electronic (E) examination systems is not a novel idea, as Eexamination systems have been used to conduct objective assessments for the last few years. This research deals with randomly designed E-examinations and proposes an E-assessment system that can be used for subjective questions. This system assesses answers to subjective questions by finding a matching ratio for the keywords in instructor and student answers. The matching ratio is achieved based on semantic and document similarity. The assessment system is composed of four modules: preprocessing, keyword expansion, matching, and grading. A survey and case study were used in the research design to validate the proposed system. The examination assessment system will help instructors to save time, costs, and resources, while increasing efficiency and improving the productivity of exam setting and assessments.
TWO DISCRETE BINARY VERSIONS OF AFRICAN BUFFALO OPTIMIZATION METAHEURISTICcscpconf
African Buffalo Optimization (ABO) is one of the most recent swarms intelligence based metaheuristics. ABO algorithm is inspired by the buffalo’s behavior and lifestyle. Unfortunately, the standard ABO algorithm is proposed only for continuous optimization problems. In this paper, the authors propose two discrete binary ABO algorithms to deal with binary optimization problems. In the first version (called SBABO) they use the sigmoid function and probability model to generate binary solutions. In the second version (called LBABO) they use some logical operator to operate the binary solutions. Computational results on two knapsack problems (KP and MKP) instances show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and their ability to achieve good and promising solutions.
DETECTION OF ALGORITHMICALLY GENERATED MALICIOUS DOMAINcscpconf
In recent years, many malware writers have relied on Dynamic Domain Name Services (DDNS) to maintain their Command and Control (C&C) network infrastructure to ensure a persistence presence on a compromised host. Amongst the various DDNS techniques, Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA) is often perceived as the most difficult to detect using traditional methods. This paper presents an approach for detecting DGA using frequency analysis of the character distribution and the weighted scores of the domain names. The approach’s feasibility is demonstrated using a range of legitimate domains and a number of malicious algorithmicallygenerated domain names. Findings from this study show that domain names made up of English characters “a-z” achieving a weighted score of < 45 are often associated with DGA. When a weighted score of < 45 is applied to the Alexa one million list of domain names, only 15% of the domain names were treated as non-human generated.
GLOBAL MUSIC ASSET ASSURANCE DIGITAL CURRENCY: A DRM SOLUTION FOR STREAMING C...cscpconf
The amount of piracy in the streaming digital content in general and the music industry in specific is posing a real challenge to digital content owners. This paper presents a DRM solution to monetizing, tracking and controlling online streaming content cross platforms for IP enabled devices. The paper benefits from the current advances in Blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Specifically, the paper presents a Global Music Asset Assurance (GoMAA) digital currency and presents the iMediaStreams Blockchain to enable the secure dissemination and tracking of the streamed content. The proposed solution provides the data owner the ability to control the flow of information even after it has been released by creating a secure, selfinstalled, cross platform reader located on the digital content file header. The proposed system provides the content owners’ options to manage their digital information (audio, video, speech, etc.), including the tracking of the most consumed segments, once it is release. The system benefits from token distribution between the content owner (Music Bands), the content distributer (Online Radio Stations) and the content consumer(Fans) on the system blockchain.
IMPORTANCE OF VERB SUFFIX MAPPING IN DISCOURSE TRANSLATION SYSTEMcscpconf
This paper discusses the importance of verb suffix mapping in Discourse translation system. In
discourse translation, the crucial step is Anaphora resolution and generation. In Anaphora
resolution, cohesion links like pronouns are identified between portions of text. These binders
make the text cohesive by referring to nouns appearing in the previous sentences or nouns
appearing in sentences after them. In Machine Translation systems, to convert the source
language sentences into meaningful target language sentences the verb suffixes should be
changed as per the cohesion links identified. This step of translation process is emphasized in
the present paper. Specifically, the discussion is on how the verbs change according to the
subjects and anaphors. To explain the concept, English is used as the source language (SL) and
an Indian language Telugu is used as Target language (TL)
EXACT SOLUTIONS OF A FAMILY OF HIGHER-DIMENSIONAL SPACE-TIME FRACTIONAL KDV-T...cscpconf
In this paper, based on the definition of conformable fractional derivative, the functional
variable method (FVM) is proposed to seek the exact traveling wave solutions of two higherdimensional
space-time fractional KdV-type equations in mathematical physics, namely the
(3+1)-dimensional space–time fractional Zakharov-Kuznetsov (ZK) equation and the (2+1)-
dimensional space–time fractional Generalized Zakharov-Kuznetsov-Benjamin-Bona-Mahony
(GZK-BBM) equation. Some new solutions are procured and depicted. These solutions, which
contain kink-shaped, singular kink, bell-shaped soliton, singular soliton and periodic wave
solutions, have many potential applications in mathematical physics and engineering. The
simplicity and reliability of the proposed method is verified.
AUTOMATED PENETRATION TESTING: AN OVERVIEWcscpconf
The using of information technology resources is rapidly increasing in organizations,
businesses, and even governments, that led to arise various attacks, and vulnerabilities in the
field. All resources make it a must to do frequently a penetration test (PT) for the environment
and see what can the attacker gain and what is the current environment's vulnerabilities. This
paper reviews some of the automated penetration testing techniques and presents its
enhancement over the traditional manual approaches. To the best of our knowledge, it is the
first research that takes into consideration the concept of penetration testing and the standards
in the area.This research tackles the comparison between the manual and automated
penetration testing, the main tools used in penetration testing. Additionally, compares between
some methodologies used to build an automated penetration testing platform.
CLASSIFICATION OF ALZHEIMER USING fMRI DATA AND BRAIN NETWORKcscpconf
Since the mid of 1990s, functional connectivity study using fMRI (fcMRI) has drawn increasing
attention of neuroscientists and computer scientists, since it opens a new window to explore
functional network of human brain with relatively high resolution. BOLD technique provides
almost accurate state of brain. Past researches prove that neuro diseases damage the brain
network interaction, protein- protein interaction and gene-gene interaction. A number of
neurological research paper also analyse the relationship among damaged part. By
computational method especially machine learning technique we can show such classifications.
In this paper we used OASIS fMRI dataset affected with Alzheimer’s disease and normal
patient’s dataset. After proper processing the fMRI data we use the processed data to form
classifier models using SVM (Support Vector Machine), KNN (K- nearest neighbour) & Naïve
Bayes. We also compare the accuracy of our proposed method with existing methods. In future,
we will other combinations of methods for better accuracy.
VALIDATION METHOD OF FUZZY ASSOCIATION RULES BASED ON FUZZY FORMAL CONCEPT AN...cscpconf
In order to treat and analyze real datasets, fuzzy association rules have been proposed. Several
algorithms have been introduced to extract these rules. However, these algorithms suffer from
the problems of utility, redundancy and large number of extracted fuzzy association rules. The
expert will then be confronted with this huge amount of fuzzy association rules. The task of
validation becomes fastidious. In order to solve these problems, we propose a new validation
method. Our method is based on three steps. (i) We extract a generic base of non redundant
fuzzy association rules by applying EFAR-PN algorithm based on fuzzy formal concept analysis.
(ii) we categorize extracted rules into groups and (iii) we evaluate the relevance of these rules
using structural equation model.
PROBABILITY BASED CLUSTER EXPANSION OVERSAMPLING TECHNIQUE FOR IMBALANCED DATAcscpconf
In many applications of data mining, class imbalance is noticed when examples in one class are
overrepresented. Traditional classifiers result in poor accuracy of the minority class due to the
class imbalance. Further, the presence of within class imbalance where classes are composed of
multiple sub-concepts with different number of examples also affect the performance of
classifier. In this paper, we propose an oversampling technique that handles between class and
within class imbalance simultaneously and also takes into consideration the generalization
ability in data space. The proposed method is based on two steps- performing Model Based
Clustering with respect to classes to identify the sub-concepts; and then computing the
separating hyperplane based on equal posterior probability between the classes. The proposed
method is tested on 10 publicly available data sets and the result shows that the proposed
method is statistically superior to other existing oversampling methods.
CHARACTER AND IMAGE RECOGNITION FOR DATA CATALOGING IN ECOLOGICAL RESEARCHcscpconf
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algorithm was developed by the author which incorporated two important computer vision
techniques to automate data cataloging for butterfly measurements. Optical Character
Recognition is used for character recognition and Contour Detection is used for imageprocessing.
Proper pre-processing is first done on the images to improve accuracy. Although
there are limitations to Tesseract’s detection of certain fonts, overall, it can successfully identify
words of basic fonts. Contour detection is an advanced technique that can be utilized to
measure an image. Shapes and mathematical calculations are crucial in determining the precise
location of the points on which to draw the body and forewing lines of the butterfly. Overall,
92% accuracy were achieved by the program for the set of butterflies measured.
SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS FOR SENTIMENT ANALYSIS AND EVENT DETECTION IN SMART CI...cscpconf
Smart cities utilize Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensors to enhance the quality of the city
services including energy, transportation, health, and much more. They generate massive
volumes of structured and unstructured data on a daily basis. Also, social networks, such as
Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, are becoming a new source of real-time information in smart
cities. Social network users are acting as social sensors. These datasets so large and complex
are difficult to manage with conventional data management tools and methods. To become
valuable, this massive amount of data, known as 'big data,' needs to be processed and
comprehended to hold the promise of supporting a broad range of urban and smart cities
functions, including among others transportation, water, and energy consumption, pollution
surveillance, and smart city governance. In this work, we investigate how social media analytics
help to analyze smart city data collected from various social media sources, such as Twitter and
Facebook, to detect various events taking place in a smart city and identify the importance of
events and concerns of citizens regarding some events. A case scenario analyses the opinions of
users concerning the traffic in three largest cities in the UAE
SOCIAL NETWORK HATE SPEECH DETECTION FOR AMHARIC LANGUAGEcscpconf
The anonymity of social networks makes it attractive for hate speech to mask their criminal
activities online posing a challenge to the world and in particular Ethiopia. With this everincreasing
volume of social media data, hate speech identification becomes a challenge in
aggravating conflict between citizens of nations. The high rate of production, has become
difficult to collect, store and analyze such big data using traditional detection methods. This
paper proposed the application of apache spark in hate speech detection to reduce the
challenges. Authors developed an apache spark based model to classify Amharic Facebook
posts and comments into hate and not hate. Authors employed Random forest and Naïve Bayes
for learning and Word2Vec and TF-IDF for feature selection. Tested by 10-fold crossvalidation,
the model based on word2vec embedding performed best with 79.83%accuracy. The
proposed method achieve a promising result with unique feature of spark for big data.
GENERAL REGRESSION NEURAL NETWORK BASED POS TAGGING FOR NEPALI TEXTcscpconf
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Network (GRNN). The corpus is divided into two parts viz. training and testing. The network is
trained and validated on both training and testing data. It is observed that 96.13% words are
correctly being tagged on training set whereas 74.38% words are tagged correctly on testing
data set using GRNN. The result is compared with the traditional Viterbi algorithm based on
Hidden Markov Model. Viterbi algorithm yields 97.2% and 40% classification accuracies on
training and testing data sets respectively. GRNN based POS Tagger is more consistent than the
traditional Viterbi decoding technique.
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A Strategic Approach: GenAI in EducationPeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Embracing GenAI - A Strategic ImperativePeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
2. Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT) 218
experience, we will suggest a process that we believe would have shortened the delivery time,
reduced costs, and provided a better final product. The goal of this paper is to help organizations,
particularly in the public sector, be aware of the pitfalls involved in an ERP implementation and
provide recommendations on how to avoid these risks.
King Abdulaziz University (KAU) was established in 1967 as a national university aimed at
spreading higher education in the western area of Saudi Arabia. It offers university education to
both female and male students [1]. The university has witnessed much improvement in quality
and quantity since it was first established, becoming one of the more distinguished universities in
terms of the number of students, the number of scientific and theoretical fields of study, and the
quality of its programs. It is also the only university in Saudi Arabia that offers certain
specializations such as Sea Sciences, Geology, Nuclear Engineering, Medical Engineering,
Meteorology, Aviation, and Mineralogy.
Early on, KAU adopted and developed many information systems to automate the administrative
work that allowed different departments to execute their transactions through the systems, e.g.,
Human Resource, Finance, Budget and Planning (Accounting), Purchasing, Contracts,
Warehouse, Projects, etc. But it became clear that recording day-to-day activities and monitoring
the work within the department wasn’t sufficient. These legacy systems were developed based on
third generation programming language COBOL/CICS and using a DB2 database residing on an
IBM mainframe (IBM-Z serious). Components were developed separately over several years with
minimal integration among the components and many recognized problems, such as incomplete
business functionalities, duplicated business process, data redundancy due to inconsistent and un-
normalized databases, no real automation due to the lack of integration, data inconsistency and
inaccuracy. The system was only used as data storage as little or no business logic was being
applied. There was a clear need to develop a fully automated, integrated system that facilitated the
flow of all business activities through all departments, from start to finish in one single system
with all the needed data shared.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integrate the internal and external management of
information across an entire organization, embracing Finance/Accounting, Human Resources and
Procurement, Contract Management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated
software application. The purpose of ERP is to facilitate the flow of information among all
business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and to manage the connections to
outside stakeholders [16].
With the development of a Saudi Arabian e-Government system [8, 9, 15], KAU bought into the
vision of being a “Paper-Less University” and was the among the first public sector organizations
in Saudi Arabia to implement an ERP system that would enable a fully automated system
internally (by integrating all departments in one system) and externally (by adopting capabilities
that ensure integration with other public sectors). The University decided to implement an ERP
system and created an E-management department reporting directly to the vice president for
administrative affairs. Amongst the authors of this paper is the head of the E-Management
department, who was the supervisor of KAU SAP implementation project.
2. RELATED EXPERIENCES
In reviewing the literature [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] there were several articles that discussed their lessons
learned from the implementation of their ERP system. Although there were none that we could
find that specifically addressed their experience with writing an RFP and selecting a bid, there
were lessons identified that certainly were relevant to the topic. One of the studies, Bondarouk
and Van Riemsdijk [2] suggested that a six-month investigation period was important to get ready
for the implementation. Dieringer [3] recommended that selection an ERP package requires a lot
3. 219 Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT)
of homework beyond a demonstration of its capabilities. They implied that a universal buy-in is
needed, starting with the top executives down to everyone in the organization.
There was a consistent theme throughout all the papers that a redesign of the business processes
were critical, i.e., the goal of an ERP is not to automate what the organization is already doing but
to improve its processes, which involves reengineering the processes and moving closer to the
processes offered by the particular ERP system being used. Lykkegaard and Gemela [5] make the
point that the organizations adapting an ERP system must be prepared for a transformational
change and not treat it as a regular IT project. An important goal here is to minimize the number
of customizations as it is the customizations that cause unanticipated costs, schedule delays, and a
higher likelihood of bugs. This involves lots of discussion and acceptance and training for the
stakeholders, The whole process of integrating the internal and external management of
information across an entire organization is meant to be a learning experience. There is continual
learning involved as the system evolves.
Figure 1 depicts the stakeholders of the RFP creation process and related intersections among
them. In our case the executive management team was the University President and all of his
deputies. Business process owners are the managers of the administrative departments such as the
University Human Resource Managers and the Financial Manager. The IT deanship at the
University represented the development and infrastructure stakeholders. The most complicated
area for settlement is noted in red, where all classes of stakeholders must agree on the specific
details. Decisions made in these ternary intersections must be based on consensus; simply voting
on issues would not be practical due to the fact that all stakeholders will be greatly affected by
decisions made. The role of executive management is to ensure alignment of project goals and
enforce a unified decision process. Business process owners are comprised of subject matter
experts (SME), data owners, and process owners. They are the responsible personnel who have
the authority to lead and direct the execution of transactions within their respective departments.
Development and infrastructure groups represent the e-management, implementation team, and
IT team.
Figure 1. RFP Stakeholders
Contracting for an ERP implementation is difficult because there is such a large number of
stakeholders, all of which need to learn over time, be heard, trained, negotiated with, and be in
constant communication with each other. Business process owners need to be able to agree with
and transition to reengineered processes. This involves a learning curve and a form of continual
4. Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT) 220
evolution to the Should-Be business processes. It is natural for some business owners to fear that
the evolved system will not support them in their activities. It also means change from what they
are currently doing.
The implementation of an ERP is not a typical development process with a standard set of
requirements, design, and code but a process of customizing the code from an existing system.
There is a general lack of knowledge and experience with this type of implementation process as
well as with understanding the bounds and limits of the available ERP systems.
Added complexities come from the fact that KAU is a public sector organization that must
communicate with the larger e-government organizations. This means that the standard
government-based policies and processes are different from the ERP standard activities for-profit
businesses and so the mapping to the customized set of practices can be more complex. It also
means that there is another external major stakeholder and system, the e-government system
YESSER, with which the KAU stakeholders and system need to interact.
3. THE RFP DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Once the decision had been made to implement an ERP system, the goal was to do it as quickly as
possible. In retrospect, it is clear that the development of the RFP and Bid selection were too
rushed. The whole process took about 9 months from start to announcing the winner. Of this,10
weeks was for the ERP readiness report and 6 weeks for the RFP preparation. Due to government
business rules that require the RFP to be in the newspaper for 60 days in order for the bidder to
respond to the RFP and reply with their proposal. It took us another 12 weeks to evaluate the
proposals and select the winning bid.
3.1. ERP Readiness Assessment
As a start, the e-management team conducted several meetings with all stakeholders to decide on
the appropriate approach for the road ahead. After reviewing the literature and what were
considered the industry best practices in ERP system implementation [13], the e-Management
team began to analyze the university’s requirements by conducting several internal workshops to
identify a list of business processes from all the relevant departments. It was decided to conduct
an ERP readiness assessment [7] to help characterize KAU’s maturity with respect to three
important factors, (1) Organization (people), (2) Business Process, and (3) IT infrastructure and
decide on the road to take. Three external experts were hired to conduct the readiness assessment
and provide support in writing the RFP. Two had experiences in implementing ERP systems and
the third was hired to assist with the IT infrastructure. The readiness analysis of KAU’s business
processes, included a comparison of the required functionality against the features offered by the
major ERP systems and an analysis the availability of skilled resources in the region. It came up
with four options. The first option (continue with current system) was ruled out due to the fact
that the current systems lack the necessary functionality to support the current business
intellectual properties and future expansion of the business needs. The second option (Custom
Built) was also not a viable option as the university core competency is to offer education and not
to build systems. The third option was to select an ERP package. The fourth option (Hybrid) was
to combine an ERP with internally developed systems was also rejected as it would not be able to
scale to the KAU’s future business growth. It was concluded that selecting an ERP package
(option 3) from a world-class vendor would be the most viable option for KAU. The analysis
strongly suggested that the ERP roll out be staggered over a period of time, starting with the
Finance and Accounting module and introducing other departments according to a roll-out
readiness map. It was felt that a multi-phased implementation as opposed to a “Big-Bang”
approach would minimize the risk of failure, allowing the organization to learn from its mistakes
and gradually build up the in-house talent pool and sponsorship that would provide a grass-roots
“Buy-In” for both the IT organization and the Business divisions.
5. 221 Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT)
Based upon the readiness report and the requirements gathered, the e- Management team
developed an RFP (Request for Proposal) which included the Scope of the Project and published
a Public Bid to select an implementer who would be capable of implementing an ERP system for
a public sector organization. In order to satisfy the business process owners and mitigate their
fears of moving to a new system, the RFP business process requirements were specified as ‘as-is’
requirements, duplicating what was currently being done.
3.2. ERP Goals
As stated earlier, ERP systems are not developed based upon a set of requirements but mapped
into a predefined collection of components that offer a limited set of variations on a set of
business processes. This mapping method requires a huge effort where the current business
processes have to be discussed (As-Is Business Processes), and evolved (Should-be Business
Processes) to improve the way the business processes satisfy the organization’s needs, and then
compared with business processes offered by the ERP. This approach should necessarily lead to a
form of Gap Analysis during bid evaluation. The real time and effort expended on the
implementation comes from the customization of those components to meet the needs of the
organization’s should-be business processes.
The ultimate goal in selecting an appropriate ERP system is to identify each particular business
process offered by a particular ERP system, understand the limitations of the ERP Standard
Processes with respect to the Should-Be business processes, and propose a solution that
minimizes the amount and cost of customization, i.e., that enables the organization to adapt their
Should-Be business processes with mostly minor changes. When we require changes to the
existing set of components, each upgrade of the current version of the ERP system, will require
these changes to be made again to the next version of the system to be consistent with the next
release of the ERP system.
Based upon the trade-offs between what might not make it to the should-be processes and the lack
of sufficient knowledge about the various ERP offerings, the decision was made to create an RFP
that was general in nature aimed at leaving open possible issues to be settled during
implementation. This was due mostly to the lack of time to reach a consensus on the should-be
processes. As it was not possible to predict all the possible implications of the integrated set of
business process, ` it was decided to leave that to the particular ERP that was chosen. In
retrospect, this was a major mistake. The too general nature of the RFP was evidenced by the fact
that the bids varied in price by an order of magnitude.
3.3. ERP Limitations
Due to the lack of team experience with respect to an ERP implementation, and the number of
limitations in the collection of ERP systems, many of these limitations were not well understood
by the KAU team. For example, the ERP systems are not developed based upon a set of
requirements but mapped into a preset collection of components that offer a limited set of
variations on a set of business processes. As stated above, the real time and effort comes from the
customization of those components to the needs of the organization’s business processes. In
retrospect, it was clear that a detailed gap analysis needed to be performed identifying the kinds
of changes that needed to be made to each of the proposed ERP systems and categorized by their
level of complexity.
Each ERP has limits in terms of what can be handled. Most limitations of ERP packages can be
categorized into functional and technical limitations. Functional limitations are mismatches
between the ERP standard process and the organization’s business process and the organizations
business process cannot be implemented without a prohibitive amount of effort.. An example of a
functional limitation is that some of the standard business processes of ERP systems cannot be
6. Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT) 222
automated through an approval workflow, e.g., a required approval by a manager. But the KAU
business processes require a full approval business process workflow, more than five levels of
approval. Also, some business rule validation has to be hardcoded into the existing set of ERP
components because it cannot be made a variation of any of the existing business rules. This is a
major drawback with respect to system upgrades as the hardcoded business rule have to be
handled with care otherwise they will be overridden by the upgrade.
Technical limitations are encoded restrictions in the ERP system design that are very difficult to
overcome. As an example of a technical limitation, SAP cannot handle name text fields larger
than 40 characters. This turned out to be a problem for KAU’s standard terminology for business
entities. This limit is actually hardcoded in SAP, i.e., it is not a parameter. Another example of a
technical limitation is that the lack of support to configure the financial fiscal year according to
your local calendar as in our case for the Hijri calendar, which is the official calendar of Saudi
Arabia.
As implied earlier, an important factor causing problems was that the KAU ERP was for a Saudi
government agency and must adhere to government rule restrictions, real or imagined, on their
business processes, i.e. going from As-Is to Should-Be involved complicated negotiations. For
example, during the negotiation about improving the current set of business processes with the
business process owner, there was resistance encountered. The Business process owner would
object to the change on the basis that he thought the current rules were required by the Ministry of
Finance and can't be changed. It was also a painful exercise to resolve conflict among business
owners with regards to some file names in shared screens with each owner insisting on keeping
their own familiar terminology. In ERP packages, field names are usually defined once and used
everywhere. KAU business process owners came from a COBOL legacy system world, where
every application has its own terminology and classification encodings. It was evident that letting
go of old processes and encodings was difficult for them. In this regard, the whole ERP project
was viewed as a threat rather than improvement.
Another serious issue was that the RFP did not specify the common browsers used by the
business process owners and the wining RFP did not support the use of that browser. The most
common browser at KAU was Google chrome and the winning bid only supported Internet
Explorer version 8 at the time of the project. This created serious concerns from the business
process owners. Unfortunately, the business process owners did not have an opportunity to review
the RFP, even though it is not clear they would have thought about specifying the browser.
3.4. The bid selection process
As stated earlier the bids varied in cost by an order of magnitude. The rules were to accept the bid
with the best fit solution at the lowest price. Unfortunately there was not enough information to
make that judgment. This was due to lack of details in the RFP and to the lack of experienced
ERP consultants at KAU when evaluating bids.. A session was held with business owners to ask
for their feedback and get a review with them about the general requirements. However, the main
goal was to spread the awareness among business owners that we were going for an ERP solution.
It was not meant to solicit detailed comments about the RFP from the business process owners.
The bid selection was viewed as a technical task. In retrospect this was a mistake not to solicit
feedback as the process could have been used to create a more collaborative atmosphere and an
educational experience for the business process owners.
As an attempt to better understand what bidders had to offer, they were asked to provide a live
demonstration of the ERP system they were proposing. Some of the demos were scheduled for
three full days. Bidders were given a scenario of a business process but it was not clear from the
demo what was needed to customize the ERP as we didn’t have a functional consultant to pin
7. 223 Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT)
point issues related to the products offered and whether they suited KAU business processes.
This limited our ability to make informed decisions about each vendor.
In retrospect, we should have done a mapping of each KAU business process for each bid to
understand and assess what standard capabilities the bid offered. This was done at a high level,
but not in sufficient details to make clear the customization and effort needed for that
customization. For example, we did it for Human Resources in general but not at a detailed level,
such as the hiring process.
4. USING LESSONS LEARNED TO PROPOSE A BETTER PROCESS
A lot of unanticipated cost, effort and time was expended because of the lack of an available
functional and technical ERP consultant at KAU (and possibly anywhere) for developing an RFP
to contract for an ERP system. Based upon what happened we would propose a different
approach to adopt an ERP for an enterprise organization like KAU and a different approach for
bid selections, too. In our discussions with successful implementers of ERP systems, it appears to
be quite common that the successful implementation was not the initial attempt at an
implementation. The highest level change would be to spend more time and money upfront, e.g.,
have a separate activity (e.g., a contract) for developing the RFP and evaluating the bids so there
would be a minimum of surprises during the implementation of the ERP. As others in the
literature have suggested [10, 11], we should have spent more time up front identifying what
needed to be done and to learn more about ERP implementation and more of its hidden pitfalls.
One approach for starting the process would have been to hire (or contract) a team that has the
right experience so that KAU personnel work with them directly to gain the experience needed
[12].
4.1. Identifying and specifying goals for the ERP
We now know that from the early start of the project, the goals were not clear to all stakeholders.
In fact, in some areas conflicting goals existed! While the e-management team knew to some
extent what was to come, other stakeholders did not. For example, business process owners
thought that it was just another application and the change of the actual processes would be
minimal. That was, however, not the case. Reactions differed when integration of the systems was
to take place. For instance, integration means a unified encoding system must be used; hence
specific locally exercised flexibility must be abandoned. Any false or wrong piece of data entered
will be flagged if not by the system itself then by the users of the other integrated modules of the
ERP. As the project progressed, the goals of each group of the stakeholders became clearer and
more conflicting. Thus, more resistance came to the surface.
If we were to do this again, we would include a couple of opening workshops, e.g., Joint
Application Design sessions [17], where we would discuss the goals, e.g., improving the business
processes so they could be more efficient, automated, and integrated with each other to provide a
seamless system, bounding the changes that could be made, etc. We could then discuss the
strategies for achieving these goals. All stakeholders would be required to participate in these
workshop and all concerns would be aired and a consensus drawn. A key factor is that there be an
executive sponsor, the project owner, who is high enough in the organization to be able to make
the necessary final decisions.
4.2. Business Process Development
Based upon the agreed goals, we would perform a thorough analysis of how well KAU business
processes are performing. Such an analysis would bring hard evidence to the discussion with
business process owners on the need to change various processes and which current processes are
not optimal. This discussion is needed to make it clear to the business process owners what
8. Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT) 224
processes should be changed in order to achieve the stated goals in order to yield an overall
improvement of the internal and external management of information across the entire
organization. Given the As-Is, what should be the To-Be. This requires a balancing of what would
be an improvement to the processes that would satisfy the goals and what would be acceptable to
the current business process owners. One approach that would help the business process owners
envision the potential improvements is to build prototype screens that show the new business
processes and allow the business process owners to play with them
We would evolve these changes via a series of workshops where we would discuss how to
improve the business processes, identify the hurdles in terms of discussions of the effect of
changes in the business processes, the implications of integrating the systems, etc. All
stakeholders would be required to participate in the workshops and all concerns would be aired
and consensuses drawn. Ultimately, the executive sponsor would arbitrate the final set of
decisions. It would be good for the workshops to occur over several days so that stakeholders
would have the chance to think over the implications of each day’s activities.
4.3. Improving Communication
A fundamental principle that should be emphasized during the entire process is to improve
communication among all stakeholders. At any stage of the project, they should be made aware of
the status of the project and all project related decisions. This information should even be
disseminated to them periodically. They should be allowed to comment and express concerns
enabling them to engage actively in the project. Having an electronic communication channel,
e.g., group forums, would encourage this kind of interaction. In addition, we suggest that regular
workshops and team meetings should be conducted, especially before deciding on major issues.
This will facilitate communication and demonstrate to stakeholders that they are an integral part
of the team.
4.4. Incorporating Continuous Learning
The results of these three activities would help create an organizational mindset that developing
an ERP is a continuous learning activity. That is, as an organization we are evolving the ERP,
learning from each decision we have made along the way. Because of the lack of internal
experience, acceptance of the idea that we are learning step by step is important. It was a mistake
to develop an RFP for the entire set of business processes without integrating a learning process
into it. For example, it would have been useful to start the implementation with a particular set of
business processes, e.g., human resources, and learn from them for implementing the next of
processes. What is learned from that particular task could be used to do a better job of
implementing the next set of business processes. It would allow the KAU team to build
experience in each of the tasks and be better able to play a significant role in the implementation.
4.5. Developing the RFP
At this point we should be ready to develop the RFP. As stated above, it might be appropriate to
build the system incrementally and select a first set of business processes for implementation.
Since the contracting for an ERP is not contracting for a development but a modification of an
existing system, it is clear that we would need to understand the differences between the specified
business processes and those available from the various ERP systems in order to select the system
that requires minimum modifications. It is the cost of modification that will be the major cost of
the system. To this end, we should perform a gap analysis between what the various ERPs offer
and what we need to satisfy our goals.
9. 225 Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT)
4.6. Gap Analysis and Bid Evaluation process
The bidding process required each bidder to demonstrate how their system would address various
types of high level business processes, e.g., human resources. But we did not provide specific and
detailed processes, such as the processes for hiring new employees of various types. As a
government agency, KAU has a large number of complex hiring processes for different employee
roles. It was not clear what kinds of configurations and customizations were needed.
Configuration is the process of setting up the ERP system by selecting standard functionalities
from a list of those supported by the system. Customization is the process of mapping ERP to
organization’s business process which might require code changes to create functionality that is
not available through configuration.
A better approach would have been to provide a representative set of specific processes for each
of the high level processes that would allow a more detailed Gap analysis.
One approach would be to build a table for evaluating the level of customization covering
sufficient detail in the processes to make clear what customization would be needed (see Table
1).
For example, if each row represents a particular detailed sample business process and each
column represents an evaluation of how that proposed ERP system would be rated in terms of a
specific business process being available as standard (0), customization (1). This would give us
significantly more information as to which proposed system would require the minimum amount
of effort to implement and reduce the amount of customizations. This step should be done in
advance of contracting the project.
Table 1. Bid Evaluation
Business Processes
Bidders
Bidder 1 Bidder 2 Bidder 3
New Hiring 0 0 0
Permanent 0 1 1
Contract 1 0 0
Academic Hiring 0 1 1
Administrative Hiring 1 0 0
Hiring by Transfer 1 0 1
Rehiring 1 1 1
Retirement 0 0 0
Recruitment 0 0 1
Conference Attendance 1 1 1
Training Attendance 1 0 0
Performance Evaluation 0 0 1
Academic Promotion 1 1 0
Administrative Promotion 0 0 1
Total 7 5 8
Thus, for this set of business processes, Bidder 2 would require the least effort. The results would
also provide feedback on those business processes which would be the most trouble to implement
and would give KAU the opportunity to see if those processes could be modified to minimize
enhancements and developments. Based upon our principle of good communication, we would
again run workshops with the relevant business process owners to see what adaptations could be
accepted.
10. Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT) 226
Moreover, similar to the gap analysis of business processes, it would be important to list all
reports, forms and printouts in another table to evaluate the capability of each proposal and how
their ERP system will address these requirements. It could be the case that the required format by
business owners doesn’t map to the standard reports/forms or does not exist; these kinds of
formats can be customized which should be part of the evaluation process of the bid.
4.7. Identifying Technical Issues
Aside from identifying the gaps in the implementation of the business processes, an examination
of the data migration and cleansing processes needs to be performed. Data migration and
cleansing are major activities in an ERP implementation project. It is important for a data
architect to be able to map the scattered existing data in different formats from the various
existing legacy systems to a common, centralized, consistent master data file in the ERP
implementation. Thus it is important to have a highly capable data architect as part of the KAU
team. This cleansing involves identifying and effectively using master data from the KAU data
resources such as legacy databases and archived HR files. The RFP needs to specify as part of the
project, the identification and collection of the missing data from the various sources. A fair
sample of current data should been made available to bidders flagging the amount of work needs
to be accomplished in the transition.
4.8. Selecting the Bidder
At this point, armed with the results of the gap analysis and the identification of the various
technical issues that need to be overcome, the bidder with the minimum number of
customizations and the best technical support can be selected. The organization, at this stage,
should be able to develop reasonable estimates of the cost and schedule and for evaluating the
bids with respect to these parameters.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Contracting for an ERP system is a complex and difficult task, especially without having any
previous ERP implementation experience. It involves (1) writing an RFP for a system that will be
developed based upon the configuration and customization of an existing system and (2) selecting
a bidder and proposed system based upon how closely their proposal minimizes the amount of
customization. The writing of the requirements for such a system needs to be a compromise
between what business processes already exist, what business process are available in the ERP
system, and what business process would improve the way an organization does its business.
There has been little discussed in the literature about the contracting process, which sets the stage
for the implementation. In the KAU case, it is clear that not enough time was spent up front in
marshaling all the stakeholders, focusing the RFP on the major issues, and evaluating the bidders
appropriately. In many ways, the authors believe these activities are the key factors for
implementing an ERP. Had they be done right, the actual implementation process would have
been cheaper and faster.
Based upon our experience, this paper suggests an approach which should improve an
organization’s control of the project and allow it to minimize the risk of surprises during the
implementation which should lead to a successful implementation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR), King Abdulaziz
University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The authors acknowledge and extend their gratitude towards
DSR for its technical and financial support.
11. 227 Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT)
REFERENCES
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AUTHORS
1
Adnan A. Al Bar
Adnan Albar is Assistant Professor of Information systems at the King Abdulaziz
University. He holds a PhD degree in Computer Science from George Washington
University. He served as chairman of the Information Systems department for two year
and then as the Vice Dean for Development of Student Affairs. He supervised the
implementation of SAP ERP project at the King AdulAziz University. He is a member
of the ACM and IEEE. His main research interests are enterprise information systems,
IT governance, and enterprise architecture.
12. Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT) 228
2
Victor R. Basili
Victor Basili is Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of
Maryland. He holds a PH.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas,
Austin and two honorary degrees. He served as founding director of the Fraunhofer
Center - Maryland and the Software Engineering Laboratory at NASA/GSFC. He
serves as co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Empirical Software Engineering, and is
an IEEE and ACM Fellow. He works on measuring, evaluating, and improving the
software development process and product. For more information, please see
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~basili/
3
Wajdi Al Jedaibi
Wajdi Al Jedaibi is a faculty member of the Computer Science department in the
Faculty of Computing & Information Technology at King Abdulaziz University. He
served as the KAU IT Manager and then Dean of Information Technology at KAU.
Wajdi was awarded the Ph.D in Information Technology – Software Engineering and
MSc. in Software Systems Engineering both from George Mason University. His
current research interests are: component-based software engineering, software
measurement, and Open Source ERP systems.
4
Abdul Jawad M. Chaudhry
Professional system analyst and ERP Consultant, he has participated in several ERP
implementation projects for both private and public (government) organizations, He
received a professional associate certificate for SAP Consultation and was awarded
appreciation certificates from leading organizations like: Saudi Arabian Airlines and
IBM.