The document discusses the history and evolution of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems from the 1960s to present. It begins with a brief overview of how ERP systems emerged from earlier systems like inventory control packages in the 1960s, material requirements planning in the 1970s, manufacturing resource planning in the 1980s, and became popular standalone systems in the 1990s. The document then examines key aspects of ERP systems including their definition, benefits to organizations, and issues during implementation.
What is an ERP system? This guide explains what an ERP system is and how it works for your business.
Two primary concerns of any business are efficiency and profitability. This is basically what an ERP system is designed to optimize.
An ERP system allows you to perform the necessary money-making processes of your business as efficiently as possible.
To achieve a level of efficiency and profitability, a business aims to maximize itâs bottom line while keeping overhead costs low.
An ERP system provides a business with management software that fosters productivity.
The term âERPâ stands for Enterprise Resource Planning.
Basically, an ERP system is a shared database that reflects the moving parts of a company. This provides a much broader, top-down perspective of your business.
Installing an ERP system will grant you a much fuller picture of what is actually going on, in any given period of time.
Some processes in which you can gain some business insights include: sales, human resources, inventory, purchasing, finances, online ordering and many more buckets.
The main objective of an ERP system is to improve how your business resources are spent, and that means money and time. By taking a wide-view, and analyzing every aspect of your business, you will be able to decide if you are properly deploying your resources in a way that will drive maximum profitability.
What is an ERP system? This guide explains what an ERP system is and how it works for your business.
Two primary concerns of any business are efficiency and profitability. This is basically what an ERP system is designed to optimize.
An ERP system allows you to perform the necessary money-making processes of your business as efficiently as possible.
To achieve a level of efficiency and profitability, a business aims to maximize itâs bottom line while keeping overhead costs low.
An ERP system provides a business with management software that fosters productivity.
The term âERPâ stands for Enterprise Resource Planning.
Basically, an ERP system is a shared database that reflects the moving parts of a company. This provides a much broader, top-down perspective of your business.
Installing an ERP system will grant you a much fuller picture of what is actually going on, in any given period of time.
Some processes in which you can gain some business insights include: sales, human resources, inventory, purchasing, finances, online ordering and many more buckets.
The main objective of an ERP system is to improve how your business resources are spent, and that means money and time. By taking a wide-view, and analyzing every aspect of your business, you will be able to decide if you are properly deploying your resources in a way that will drive maximum profitability.
If youâre looking to implement an ERP solution for your enterprise, itâs important that you know the various points of impact in advance. For more details about ERP Solutions visit: http://www.skylinecollege.com/
In this presentation, we will analyze the strength and weakness of ERP systems. Implementation cost, investment required, hidden costs and benefits of implementing ERP will also be covered in this presentation. We will discuss advantages and disadvantages of ERP and analyse the reason behind the failure of ERP in some specific projects.
To know more about Welingkar Schoolâs Distance Learning Program and courses offered, visit: http://www.welingkaronline.org/distance-learning/online-mba.html
If youâre looking to implement an ERP solution for your enterprise, itâs important that you know the various points of impact in advance. For more details about ERP Solutions visit: http://www.skylinecollege.com/
In this presentation, we will analyze the strength and weakness of ERP systems. Implementation cost, investment required, hidden costs and benefits of implementing ERP will also be covered in this presentation. We will discuss advantages and disadvantages of ERP and analyse the reason behind the failure of ERP in some specific projects.
To know more about Welingkar Schoolâs Distance Learning Program and courses offered, visit: http://www.welingkaronline.org/distance-learning/online-mba.html
ERP for garments(Application of software in Textile)Sadia Textile
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integrate internal and external management of information across an entire organizationâembracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc
ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application. ERP facilitates information flow between all business functions inside the organization, and manages connections to outside stakeholders.
Enterprise resource planning, Evolution, Importance, Advantage for BusinessPraveen Venugopal
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ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP)
(ERP) is a process by which a company (often a manufacturer) manages and integrates the important parts of its business. An ERP management information system integrates areas such as planning, purchasing, inventory, sales, marketing, finance, human resources, etc.Â
ERP on School Management System..
This project made in jsp-servlet with MVC Pattern..
If anybody wants Source code of this project then send me mai on amitgandhi005@gmail.com.. Its Free..
If any doubts regarding this Documentation and presentation then also u can send me email....
I, BIPIN BHARDWAJ, Hereby declare that this MUP report is the record of authentic work carried out and has not been submitted to any other University or Institute for the award of any degree / diploma etc.
A detailed presentation related to ERP Systems in Oracle. It is very popular for any firm/organization to work in their platform and solve the business work and provide solution. Software development processes helps to built software using Agile models.
A complete guide of Oracle ERP System. It is the most advanced system of current market scenario. A brief written content with the help of researchers, scientists and engineers. Oracle is targeting the current ERP market and increasing their productivity and providing a better solution for Organizations to improve there business.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
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The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties â USA
Expansion of bot farms â how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks â Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
IoT and OT Threat Landscape Report 2023Prayukth K V
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Sectrio's IoT and OT threat landscape report 2023 gives you a comprehensive view of the emerging threats, risks, hacker groups, APTs and other cyber risks to IoT and OT-based deployments and infrastructure.
The detailed report does a deep dive into IoT and OT security aspects such as:
* How the evolving OT cyber threat environment impacts sectors such as manufacturing, defense, maritime, utilities and energy and pharmaceutical manufacturing
* Where are cyber threat emerging from and how are they impacting the threat environment?
* Regional cyber threat environment analysis across Europe, APAC, Middle East, Americas and Africa
* How are hackers using Artificial Intelligence to develop new malware, conduct scans and automate cyberattacks
* The Chinese cyber conveyor belt and its implications for you
* Security gaps that hackers and APT groups are exploiting
* How are CISOs responding to cyber threats
* What are APT actors targeting and how are they collaborating to achieve common goals
* How are hackers monetizing the stolen data
* Extensive information on APT actors from Russia, Iran, China, Pakistan and North Korea
Sectrio brought out the first global IoT and OT security report in 2018 and has been bringing out such reports every year. Unlike other cybersecurity vendors who do not have access to global cyber threat intelligence harvested from their own sources, Sectrio's threat intelligence is gathered from its own threat intelligence farm that is currently up and running in over 80 countries (excluding dark honeypots that are mobile and present in level A hotspots). Do not miss out on this report.
The full report can be downloaded from https://sectrio.com/iot-security-reports/2023-ot-iot-threat-landscape-report/
How do you market products and services that are based on new tech? How do you drive adoption, scale and customer experience? How can you reach audiences in tough markets while keeping the cost per lead low? How do you market IoT, Blockchain and AI based products? Find out in this deck. I have used real life use cases and examples here.
State of the internet of things (IoT) market 2016 editionPrayukth K V
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2015 was the year IoT gained legitimacy.
Businesses budged off a âstart small think bigâ mindset.
In 2016, theyâre building IoT into future strategies and
business models. Companies across all industries now
have IoT squarely on their radar. The worldwide Internet
of Things market spend will grow from $591.7 billion
in 2014 to $1.3 trillion in 2019 with a compound annual
growth rate of 17%. The installed base of IoT endpoints
will grow from 9.7 billion in 2014 to more than 25.6 billion
in 2019, hitting 30 billion in 20201.
Architecture for India's Smart Cities projectPrayukth K V
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India is working towards having 100 smart cities in the near future. The thrust is on leveraging smart solutions and strategies that enable cities to use technology, information and data to improve infrastructure, deliver better civic amenities, services and governance to citizens. This Smart Cities Architecture can serve as primer for this effort.
The Fintech 100 includes leading 50 fintech
companies across the globe, and the most intriguing
50 âemerging starsâ â exciting new fintechs with bold,
disruptive and potentially game-changing ideas â
expanding on the success of last yearâs list. Presented here strictly for academic purposes...
Drones and the Internet of Things: realising the potential of airborne comput...Prayukth K V
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This paper focuses on services and applications provided to mobile users using airborne computing infrastructure. Concepts such as drones-as-a-service and flyin,fly-out
infrastructure, and note data management and system
design issues that arise in these scenarios are discussed. Issues of Big Data arising from such applications, optimising the configuration of airborne and ground infrastructure to provide the best QoS and QoE, situation-awareness, scalability, reliability, scheduling for efficiency, interaction with users and drones using physical annotations are outlined.
Evolving a wearables marketing strategy in 2015Prayukth K V
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How marketers can work towards integrating wearables such as Apple Smartwatch, Googles Glass and personal healthcare devices into their marketing gameplan
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
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Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projectsâ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, youâre in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part âEssentials of Automationâ series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Hereâs what youâll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
Weâll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Donât miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
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Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Â
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as âpredictable inferenceâ.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
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In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
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Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
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Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
Â
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
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Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder â active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
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đĽ Speed, accuracy, and scaling â discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Miningâ˘:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing â with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs â GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
đ¨âđŤ Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
đŠâđŤ Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Â
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
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Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overviewâ
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
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Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Â
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
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A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Â
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But thereâs more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, youâll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the âApproveâ button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
Butâif the âRejectâ button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Unsubscribed: Combat Subscription Fatigue With a Membership Mentality by Head...
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Evolution of erp systems
1. The Evolution of ERP Systems: A Historical Perspective 1
Chapter I
The Evolution of ERP
Systems: A Historical
Perspective
Mohammad A. Rashid
Massey UniversityâAlbany, New Zealand
Liaquat Hossain
Syracuse University, USA
Jon David Patrick
University of Sydney, Australia
ERP systems are now ubiquitous in large businesses and the current move by
vendors is to repackage them for small to medium enterprises (SMEs). This
migration has many consequences that have to be addressed through understanding the history and evolution of ERP systems and their current architectures. The
advantages and disadvantages of the ERP systems will impact their penetration
in this new market. The market position and general strategy of the major systems
providers in preparation for this push are described. The chapter concludes that
the growth and success of ERP adoption and development in the new millennium
will depend on the legacy ERP systemâs capability of extending to Customer
Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and other
extended modules, and integration with the Internet-enabled applications.
INTRODUCTION
The unprecedented growth of information and communication technologies (ICT) driven by microelectronics, computer hardware and software
systems has influenced all facets of computing applications across organizaCopyright Š 2002, Idea Group Publishing.
2. 2 Rashid, Hossain & Patrick
tions. Simultaneously the business environment is becoming increasingly
complex with functional units requiring more and more inter-functional data
flow for decision making, timely and efficient procurement of product parts,
management of inventory, accounting, human resources and distribution of
goods and services. In this context, management of organizations needs
efficient information systems to improve competitiveness by cost reduction
and better logistics. It is universally recognized by large and small-tomedium-size enterprises (SME) that the capability of providing the right
information at the right time brings tremendous rewards to organizations in
a global competitive world of complex business practices.
Starting in the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s new software
systems known in the industry as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems
have surfaced in the market targeting mainly large complex business organizations. These complex, expensive, powerful, proprietary systems are offthe-shelf solutions requiring consultants to tailor and implement them based
on the companyâs requirements. In many cases they force companies to
reengineer their business processes to accommodate the logic of the software
modules for streamlining data flow throughout the organization. These
software solutions, unlike the old, traditional in-house-designed companyspecific systems, are integrated multi-module commercial packages suitable
for tailoring and adding âadd-onsâ as and when required.
The phenomenal growth of computing power and the Internet is bringing
ever more challenges for the ERP vendors and the customers to redesign ERP
products, breaking the barrier of proprietorship and customization, and
embracing the collaborative business over the intranet, extranet and the
Internet in a seamless manner. The vendors already promise many âadd-onâ
modules, some of which are already in the market as a sign of acceptance of
these challenges by the ERP vendors. It is a never-ending process of
reengineering and development bringing new products and solutions to the
ERP market. ERP vendors and customers have recognized the need for
packages that follow open architecture, provide interchangeable modules and
allow easy customization and user interfacing.
ERP SYSTEMS DEFINED
Enterprise resource planning systems or enterprise systems are software
systems for business management, encompassing modules supporting functional areas such as planning, manufacturing, sales, marketing, distribution,
accounting, financial, human resource management, project management,
inventory management, service and maintenance, transportation and e-busi-
3. The Evolution of ERP Systems: A Historical Perspective 3
ness. The architecture of the software facilitates transparent integration of
modules, providing flow of information between all functions within the enterprise in a consistently visible manner. Corporate computing with ERPs allows
companies to implement a single integrated system by replacing or re-engineering
their mostly incompatible legacy information systems. American Production and
Inventory Control Society (2001) has defined ERP systems as âa method for the
effective planning and controlling of all the resources needed to take, make, ship
and account for customer orders in a manufacturing, distribution or service
company.â We quote several definitions from the published literature to further
explain the concept: âERP (enterprise resource planning systems) comprises of
a commercial software package that promises the seamless integration of all the
information flowing through the companyâfinancial, accounting, human resources, supply chain and customer informationâ (Davenport, 1998). âERP
systems are configurable information systems packages that integrate information and information-based processes within and across functional areas in an
organizationâ (Kumar & Van Hillsgersberg, 2000). âOne database, one application and a unified interface across the entire enterpriseâ (Tadjer, 1998). âERP
systems are computer-based systems designed to process an organizationâs
transactions and facilitate integrated and real-time planning, production, and
customer responseâ (OâLeary, 2001). The concept of the ERP system can be
illustrated, following Davenport (1998), with the diagram in Figure 1.
EVOLUTION OF ERP SYSTEMS
The evolution of ERP systems closely followed the spectacular developments in the field of computer hardware and software systems. During the
Figure 1: ERP systems concept
Front-Office
C
U
S
T
O
M
E
R
S
Corporate Reporting
Back-Office
Financial
Applications
Sales &
Distribution
Service
Applications
Central
Database
Manufacturing
Applications
Inventory
Management
Human Resources
Management
S
U
P
P
L
I
E
R
S
4. 4 Rashid, Hossain & Patrick
1960s most organizations designed, developed and implemented centralized
computing systems, mostly automating their inventory control systems using
inventory control packages (IC). These were legacy systems based on programming languages such as COBOL, ALGOL and FORTRAN. Material
requirements planning (MRP) systems were developed in the 1970s which
involved mainly planning the product or parts requirements according to the
master production schedule. Following this route new software systems
called manufacturing resources planning (MRP II) were introduced in the
1980s with an emphasis on optimizing manufacturing processes by synchronizing the materials with production requirements. MRP II included areas
such as shop floor and distribution management, project management,
finance, human resource and engineering. ERP systems first appeared in the
late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s with the power of enterprise-wide
inter-functional coordination and integration. Based on the technological
foundations of MRP and MRP II, ERP systems integrate business processes
including manufacturing, distribution, accounting, financial, human resource
management, project management, inventory management, service and maintenance, and transportation, providing accessibility, visibility and consistency across the enterprise.
During the 1990s ERP vendors added more modules and functions as
âadd-onsâ to the core modules giving birth to the âextended ERPs.â These
ERP extensions include advanced planning and scheduling (APS), e-business
solutions such as customer relationship management (CRM) and supply
chain management (SCM). Figure 2 summarizes the historical events related
with ERP.
Figure 2: ERP evolution
2000s
Extended ERP
1990s
1980s
Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP)
Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP II)
1970s
Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
1960s
Inventory Control Packages
5. The Evolution of ERP Systems: A Historical Perspective 5
ERP SYSTEMS AND ORGANIZATIONS
It is generally a misleading perception that implementing an ERP system
will improve organizationsâ functionalities overnight. The high expectation
of achieving all-round cost savings and service improvements is very much
dependent on how good the chosen ERP system fits to the organizational
functionalities and how well the tailoring and configuration process of the
system matched with the business culture, strategy and structure of the
organization. Overall an ERP system is expected to improve both backbone
and front-end functions simultaneously. Organizations choose and deploy
ERP systems for many tangible and intangible benefits and strategic reasons.
In many cases the calculation of return on investment (ROI) is weighted
against the many intangible and strategic benefits. The benefits that an
industry standard ERP system may bring to organizations are shown in Table 1.
To reap the benefits of ERP systems, however, organizations need to overcome certain problems and disadvantages, which are listed in Table 2.
It was estimated that the spending on ERP systems in 1998 was about
US$17 billion following annual growth rates ranging from 30% to 50%.
Companies also spend a multiple of licensing costs on services related to
implementation and maintenance of the software. The worldwide license and
maintenance revenue for ERP systems was US$21.5 billion in 2000, which
represented a growth of 13.1% from the 1999 market value of $US19 billion
(Broatch, 2001). The continued growth of the ERP systems market is
Table 1: Advantages of ERP systems
What benefit
Reliable information access
Avoid data and operations redundancy
Delivery and cycle time reduction
Cost reduction
Easy adaptability
Improved scalability
Improved maintenance
Global outreach
E-Commerce, e-business
How
Common DBMS, consistent and accurate
data, improved reports.
Modules access same data from the central
database, avoids multiple data input and
update operations.
Minimizes retrieving and reporting delays.
Time savings, improved control by
enterprise-wide analysis of organizational
decisions.
Changes in business processes easy to
adapt and restructure.
Structured and modular design with âaddons.â
Vendor-supported long-term contract as
part of the system procurement.
Extended modules such as CRM and SCM.
Internet commerce, collaborative culture.
6. 6 Rashid, Hossain & Patrick
Table 2: Disadvantages of ERP systems
Disadvantage
Time-consuming
Expensive
Conformity of the modules
Vendor dependence
Features and complexity
Scalability and global outreach
Extended ERP capability
How to overcome
Minimize sensitive issues, internal politics
and raise general consensus.
Cost may vary from thousands of dollars to
millions. Business process reengineering
cost may be extremely high.
The architecture and components of the
selected system should conform to the
business processes, culture and strategic
goals of the organization.
Single
vendor
vs.
multi-vendor
consideration, options for âbest of breeds,â
long-term committed support.
ERP system may have too many features
and modules so the user needs to consider
carefully and implement the needful only.
Look for vendor investment in R&D, longterm commitment to product and services,
consider Internet-enabled systems.
Consider middle-ware âadd-onâ facilities
and extended modules such as CRM and
SCM.
attributed to the fact that the vendors are adding applications such as supply
chain management, customer relationship management and the integration of
Internet-enabled applications for e-business.
More than 60% of the Fortune 1000 companies have installed or are
in the process of implementing packaged ERP systems to support their
back-end business activities (Kraft, 2001). These packages implemented
by the Fortune 1000 companies run well over the IT budgets for most
SMEs. ERP vendors are targeting this untapped SME market with supposedly scaled-back systems suitable for smaller firms by offering simple,
cheaper and pre-configured easy-to-install solutions within budget and
time constraints. For some vendors this may lead to offering centrally
managed Internet-enabled ERP-system-based services for SMEs to access and use anytime from anywhere.
ERP SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE
ERP vendors, mostly experienced from the MRP and financial software
services fields, realized the limitations of the old legacy information systems
7. The Evolution of ERP Systems: A Historical Perspective 7
used in large enterprises of the 1970s and 1980s. Some of these old systems
were developed in-house while others were developed by different vendors
using several different database management systems, languages and packages, creating islands of noncompatible solutions unfit for seamless data flow
between them. It was difficult to increase the capacity of such systems or the
users were unable to upgrade them with the organizationâs business changes,
strategic goals and new information technologies.
An ERP system is required to have the following characteristics:
â˘
Modular design comprising many distinct business modules such as
financial, manufacturing, accounting, distribution, etc.
â˘
Use centralized common database management system (DBMS)
â˘
The modules are integrated and provide seamless data flow among the
modules, increasing operational transparency through standard interfaces
â˘
They are generally complex systems involving high cost
â˘
They are flexible and offer best business practices
â˘
They require time-consuming tailoring and configuration setups for
integrating with the companyâs business functions
â˘
The modules work in real time with online and batch processing
capabilities
â˘
They are or soon they will be Internet-enabled
Different ERP vendors provide ERP systems with some degree of
specialty but the core modules are almost the same for all of them. Some of
the core ERP modules found in the successful ERP systems are the following:
â˘
Accounting management
â˘
Financial management
â˘
Manufacturing management
â˘
Production management
â˘
Transportation management
â˘
Sales & distribution management
â˘
Human resources management
â˘
Supply chain management
â˘
Customer relationship management
â˘
E-Business
The modules of an ERP system can either work as stand-alone units or
several modules can be combined together to form an integrated system. The
systems are usually designed to operate under several operating platforms
such as UNIX, MS Windows NT, Windows 2000, IBM AIX, and HP-UX
systems. SAP AG, the largest ERP vendor, provides a number of modules
with its famous R/3 ERP system, which are shown in Table 3. New modules
are introduced by SAP and other vendors in response to the market and
technological demand such as the Internet technology.
8. 8 Rashid, Hossain & Patrick
Table 3: Some of the modules of SAPâs R/3
Financial Accounting
Project System
Human Resources
Production Planning
Investment Management
FI
PS
HR
PP
IM
Controlling
Workflow
Plant Maintenance
Materials Management
Enterprise Controlling
CO
WF
PM
MM
EC
Modules of Internet version mySAP.COM
mySAP Workplace
mySAP E-Procurement
mySAP Supply Chain Mgmt.
mySAP Product Lifecycle Mgmt.
mySAP Customer Relationship
mySAP Business Intelligence
Mgmt.
mySAP Mobile Business
mySAP Financials
Asset Management
Industry Solutions
Quality Management
Sales & Distribution
Treasury
AM
IS
QM
SD
TR
mySAP Human Resources
mySAP Marketplace by
SAPMarkets
mySAP Hosted Solutions
mySAP Technology
Enterprise systems employ thin client/server (C/S) technology or client/
fat server (C/FS) architecture, creating a decentralized computing environment. In a C/S system a number of client devices operated by end users such
as desktop PCs request services from application servers, which in turn get the
requested service-related information from the database servers. The requests
may be simple data files, data values, communication services, transaction
processing or master file updates. The general practice is to have three-tier
architecture such as in Figure 3. In this three-tier system the user interface runs
on the client. To run ERP systems relatively powerful PCs (clients) and
powerful servers are required where most of the hundreds of thousands of
operations are performed. The client/server system functions are performed
following three layers of logic:
â˘
Presentation Layer: Graphical user interface (GUI) or browser for data
entry or accessing system functions
â˘
Application Layer: Business rules, functions, logic, and programs
acting on data received/transferred from/to the database servers
â˘
Database Layer: Management of the organizationâs operational or
transactional data including metadata; mostly employs industry standard
RDBMS with structured query language (SQL) provisions
This logical arrangement helps the ERP user interface to run on the
clients, the processing modules to run on the middle-tier application servers,
and the database system to run on the database servers.
COMMERCIAL ERP SYSTEMS
The five dominating ERP software suppliers are SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft,
Baan and J.D. Edwards. Together they control more than 60% of the multibillion dollar global market.
9. The Evolution of ERP Systems: A Historical Perspective 9
Figure 3: Three-tier ERP systems architecture
Presentation
Layer
(Front Tier)
Application Layer
(Middle Tier)
Client
Workstations
Application
Servers
Database Layer
(Back Tier)
Database Servers
Each vendor, due to historic reasons, has a specialty in one particular
module area such as Baan in manufacturing, PeopleSoft in human resources
management, SAP in logistics and Oracle in financials. There are also about
50 established and a few more newly emerging smaller and midsize ERP
vendors including third-party developers competing for the ERP market. The
result is stiff competition and feature-overlapping products difficult to
differentiate. Due to keen competition for control of the lucrative ERP market
share, the vendors are continuously updating their products and adding new
technology-based features. Long-term vision, commitment to service and
support, module features, specialty, experience and financial strength for
R&D are considered the major vendor qualities for product selection and
turnkey implementation. In the following sections we provide brief profiles
of these five ERP giants.
SAP AGâFlagship Products R/3, mySAP.COM
SAP AG (âSysteme, Anwendungen, und Produkte in Datenverarbeitungâ),
or Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing, was started by five
former IBM engineers in Germany in 1972 for producing integrated business
application software for the manufacturing enterprise (SAP, 2001). Its first
ERP product, R/2, was launched in 1979 using a mainframe-based centralized
database that was then redesigned as client/server software R/3 in 1992.
System R/3 was a breakthrough and by 1999 SAP AG became the third largest
software vendor in the world and the largest in the ERP sector with a market
10. 10 Rashid, Hossain & Patrick
share of about 36% serving over 17,000 customers in over 100 countries. In
1999 SAP AG extended the ERP functions by adding CRM, SCM, sales-force
automation and data warehousing. SAP has also invested significantly in its
R&D sector with the result of newer versions of R/3 3.1, 4.0, 4.6 including
Internet functionalities and other enhancements. SAPâs Internet-enabled ERP
solutions are provided by the recently launched ERP product called
mySAP.COM. SAP has the broadest ERP functionality, capacity to spend
significantly on R&D, strong industry-focused solutions and long-term vision.
Oracle CorporationâFlagship Product Oracle Applications
Oracle (Oracle, 2001), founded in 1977 in the USA, is best-known for its
database software and related applications and is the second largest software
company in the world after Microsoft. Oracleâs enterprise software applications started to work with its database in 1987. It accounts for $2.5 billion out
of the companyâs $9.3 billion in 1999, which places Oracle second to SAP in
the enterprise systems category with over 5,000 customers in 140 countries.
Oracles ERP system is known as Oracle Applications, having more than 50
different modules in six major categories: finance, accounts payable, human
resources, manufacturing, supply chain, projects and front office. Oracle has
other strong products in the software field including DBMS, data warehousing, work flow, systems administration, application development tools (APIs),
and consulting services. A notable feature of Oracle is that it is both a
competitor and a partner to some of the industry leaders in the ERP market
such as SAP, Baan and PeopleSoft because of the use of Oracleâs DBMS in
their ERP systems.
Oracle has integrated its ERP solutions with the Internet and has
introduced several applications in the electronic commerce and Internetbased commerce areas. Oracleâs Internet infrastructure is created around two
powerful products: Oracle9i Database and Oracle9i Application Server.
Another significant feature of Oracle is its OSBS, or Oracle Small Business
Suite which provides consistent financials, payroll, inventory control, order
entry, purchase orders, and CRM functionalityâall delivered as a Web
service. Oracle also offers an easy-to-activate Web presence that helps
companies to sell their goods via the Internet.
PeopleSoft Inc.âFlagship Product PeopleSoft8
PeopleSoft is one of the newest ERP software firms started in 1987 in
Pleasanton, California, with specialization in human resource management
and financial services modules. PeopleSoft quickly managed to offer other
corporate functions and attained a revenue of $32 million in 1992. Enterprise
11. The Evolution of ERP Systems: A Historical Perspective 11
solutions from PeopleSoft include modules for manufacturing, materials
management, distribution, finance, human resources and supply chain planning. SAP AG and Oracleâwith longer experience, stronger financial base
and worldwide presenceâare the main competitors to PeopleSoft. Many
customers comment that PeopleSoft has a culture of collaboration with
customers, which makes it more flexible than its competitors. One of the
strengths of PeopleSoft is the recognition by its customers that it is flexible
and collaborative. The flagship application PeopleSoft8 with scores of
applications was developed by PeopleSoft with an expenditure of $500
million and 2,000 developers over 2 years as a pure Internet-based collaborative enterprise system. âOur revolutionary eBusiness platform is the first
open XML platform to offer scalability and ease of use for all users.
PeopleSoft 8 requires no client software other than a standard Web browser,
giving you the ability to securely run your business anytime, anywhereâ
(PeopleSoft, 2001). âOur eBusiness applications and consulting services
enable true global operationsâmanaging multiple currencies, languages, and
business processes for more than 4,400 organizations in 109 countriesâ
(PeopleSoft, 2001). PeopleSoft with about 10% market share, is the third
largest ERP vendor after SAP AG and Oracle.
The Baan CompanyâFlagship Product BaanERP
Founded in 1978 in The Netherlands, Baan (Baan, 2001) started with
expertise in software for the manufacturing industry and by 1997 claimed an
ERP market share of roughly 5%. Bannâs revenue in 1998 was roughly $750
million and while facing a slight slowdown in 1999 started growing again in
2001 with sales up 12% at ÂŁ7,231million and operating profit of ÂŁ926 million.
Baan has more than 15,000 customer sites all over the world and more than
3,000 employees. Baan believes that âthe Internet is the ultimate enablerâ and
âInternet technologies help companies become order-driven and customerfocused by enabling collaboration across the âvalue chain.â Suppliers, distributors, manufacturers and customers can work together to deliver the right
product at the right price.â ERP solution areas that Baan covers include
finance, procurement, manufacturing, distribution, integration and implementation, planning, sales, service and maintenance, business portals, collaborative commerce and business intelligence. Bannâs flagship product is
BaanERP (formerly called Triton, then Baan IV), launched in 1998. One
innovative product from Baan is the Orgware tool that can cut implementation
cost significantly by automatically configuring the enterprise software. Baanâs
ERP software is best known in the aerospace, automotive, defence, and
electronics industries.
12. 12 Rashid, Hossain & Patrick
J.D. Edwards & Co.âFlagship Product OneWorld
J.D. Edwards was founded in 1977 in Denver (cofounded by Jack
Thompson, Dan Gregory and C. Edward McVaney) with long experience of
supplying software for the AS/400 market. J.D. Edwardsâ flagship ERP
product called OneWorld is âcapable of running on multiple platforms and
with multiple databases, ... [and] revolutionizes enterprise software by
liberating users from inflexible, static technologiesâ (JD Edwards, 2001). The
product includes modules for finance, manufacturing, distribution/logistics
and human resources, quality management, maintenance management, data
warehousing, customer support and after-sales service. J.D. Edwardsâ revenue jumped to $944 million in 1999 from $120 million in1992, having more
than 5,000 customers in over 100 countries. The OneWorld system is
considered to be more flexible than similar competing products and within the
reach of smaller enterprises. J.D. Edwardsâ Internet-extended version of
OneWorld was launched recently as OneWorld Xe (âXeâ stands for âextended enterpriseâ).
EXTENDED ERP
The proliferation of the Internet has shown tremendous impact on every
aspect of the IT sector including ERP systems becoming more and more
âInternet-enabledâ (Lawton, 2000). This environment of accessing systems
resources from anywhere anytime has helped ERP vendors extend their
legacy ERP systems to integrate with newer external business modules such
as supply chain management, customer relationship management, sales force
automation (SFA), advanced planning and scheduling (APS), business intelligence (BI), and e-business capabilities. In fact ERP is becoming the ebusiness backbone for organizations doing online business transactions over
the Internet. Internet-based solutions are destined to improve customer
satisfaction, increase marketing and sales opportunities, expand distribution
channels, and provide more cost-effective billing and payment methods. The
extension to SCM and CRM enables effective tri-party business relationships
between the organization, suppliers and the customers. A supply chain
management has sub-modules for procurement of materials, transformation
of the materials into products and distribution of products to customers.
âSuccessful supply chain management allows an enterprise to anticipate
demand and deliver the right product to the right place at the right time at the
lowest possible cost to satisfy its customers. Dramatic savings can be
achieved in inventory reduction, transportation costs and reduced spoilage by
13. The Evolution of ERP Systems: A Historical Perspective 13
matching supply with actual demandâ (IBM, 2001). With the deployment
of a CRM, organizations are able to gather knowledge about their customers, opening opportunities to assess customer needs, values and costs
throughout the business life cycle for better understanding and investment
decisions. The sub-modules found in typical CRM packages are marketing, sales, customer service and support systems using Internet and other
access facilities with the intention of increasing customer loyalty through
improved customer satisfaction.
E-commerce is the conduct of business transactions among organizations with the support of networked information and communication technologies, especially utilizing Internet applications such as the Web and email, effectively reaching global customers. Adoption of e-commerce and ebusiness solutions, especially business-to-business (B2B) solutions, are seen
by many as the wave of current and future extensions of traditional ERP
systems of most small, medium and large vendors. The front-end Web-based
Internet-business applications are integrated with the back-office ERP-based
applications, enabling business transactions such as order placement, purchasing, inventory updates, employee benefits, etc. to take place between the
customers, suppliers and the enterprise based on reliable, relevant data and
applications instantly in a border-less domain.
The legacy ERP systems designed to integrate enterprise functions
within the four walls of the enterprise have introduced software solutions with
a Web-interface essentially extending to Internet-enabled CRM, SCM and
other Internet-business models. Examples of such extended ERPs are available from most of the ERP vendors. Thus SAPâs Internet-enabled integrated
ERP system called mySAP.COM (SAP, 2001) is a suite of ERP, CRM and
other products that can be linked together using Internet portals. The concept
of the Internet-enabled extended ERP system is shown in Figure 4.
An example of an extended ERP system may be Oracleâs e-business suite
of ERP systems that connects to CRM and SCM. Oracleâs FastForward Web
Store (Oracle, 2001) provides applications for establishing online stores for
handling transactions and services with the possibility of linking into Oracleâs
ERP applications. ERP and e-commerce applications of an enterprise can
share a common database with the deployment of Oracle Applications 11i
(Oracle, 2001) integrating Web sites with ERP back-office applications. Baan
has integrated its ERP, CRM and SCM with manufacturing management
software. J.D. Edwardsâ Oneworld ERP package is reengineered to OneWorld
Xe (âXeâ stands for âextended enterpriseâ), which enables the organization
to extend the enterprise beyond physical walls to collaborate with customers,
partners, and suppliers with additional tools for business-to-business (B2B)
14. 14 Rashid, Hossain & Patrick
Figure 4: Web-enabled extended ERP system
CRM/SCM
Application
Server
ERP
Application
Server
I
N
T
Web Server
R
Web Portals
A
E-mail Server
N
E
T
Enterprise Systems
I
N
T
E
R
N
E
T
Web Browser
Mail Client
Customer
success. The Swedish ERP vendor Intentia International AB (Intentia,
2001) has a product suite called Movex that integrates ERP, CRM and
other management software.
SUMMARY AND THE FUTURE
The major industrial information systems manufacturers that emerged
from the 1980s and early 1990s defined the history of the development of ERP
systems. Hence the major providers are representatives of certain industries
as much as competitors in a common marketplace. To this extent there are still
opportunities for new ERP vendors to emerge from industries that so far have
not contributed to the ERP phenomenon. Some obvious examples are the
aerospace industry, the finance industry and the logistics industry. Analysis
of the market penetration of ERP systems shows clearly that the current
players have to downsize their products and offerings to be attractive to
SMEs. There appears to be no public discussion as to how this will be
achieved and whether it requires a significant change in software architecture.
This situation again is an opportunity for smaller players to seize the day and
offer smaller systems running on smaller hardware platforms more efficiently. These innovators will ultimately take the lead in the ERP software
market as large systems will not produce the continual income stream that
small, robust, easy-to-use systems can achieve. Importantly these attributes
contribute to a system becoming ubiquitous in the same way that Microsoft
has achieved ubiquity for its operating system. Future successful vendors will
15. The Evolution of ERP Systems: A Historical Perspective 15
capture large markets of smaller businesses, who will provide a more
consistent and enduring income stream.
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