The strategic design and development of ERP and RTMS

One of the crucial requirements of global manufacturing strategy is the ability to optimise the use of information technology. This paper describes a process to implement manufacturing strategies that are consistent with a particular company's overall business strategies and results with conceptual system architecture. A methodology is proposed and used to identify and implement an integrated manufacturing strategy which consists of two major horizons: Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) and a Real-Time Monitoring system (RTMS). RTMS, which can provide up-to-date information for the planning and scheduling of manufacturing orders, monitoring quality, improving communication and increasing productivity, is implemented and is integrated with an ERP system. The architecture of the ERP system is designed for a global manufacturing environment. The implementation was designed with a Distributed Object-Oriented Technology (DOOT) which increases the system scalability, configurability, flexibility and interoperability. The ERP is designed to support real-time data collection and processing for all required production and inventory analysis with a flexible architecture which can meet the distributed business requirements.     

中小生产企业计算机成本核算系统的实现

ERP在中国的应用与推广已经历了近20年,但由于种种原因,ERP在国内企业实施成功的案例并不多。虽如此,实施现代科学管理理念的ERP系统是成功企业的趋势。在大多数中小生产企业尚没有足够条件来实施ERP的时期,如何应对市场对产品成本、质量的不断提高的要求,使成本管理信息满足企业经营管理的需要是中小生产企业迫切需要解决的棘手问题。本文依据将生产管理融入到成本核算系统的方法以及本系统独有的＂车间库存＂和＂委外库存＂思想,主要论述了中小生产企业成本核算系统的设计思路及实现方案,为中小生产企业的管理和成本核算提供了具体的实现框架,具有现实意义和实际应用价值。     

An integrated decision making approach for ERP system selection

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have gained major prominence by enabling companies to streamline their operations, leverage and integrate business data process. In order to implement an ERP project successfully, it is necessary to select an ERP system which can be aligned with the needs of the company. Thus, a robust decision making approach for ERP software selection requires both company needs and characteristics of the ERP system and their interactions to be taken into account. This paper develops a novel decision framework for ERP software selection based on quality function deployment (QFD), fuzzy linear regression and zero–one goal programming. The proposed framework enables both company demands and ERP system characteristics to be considered, and provides the means for incorporating not only the relationships between company demands and ERP system characteristics but also the interactions between ERP system characteristics through adopting the QFD principles. The presented methodology appears as a sound investment decision making tool for ERP systems as well as other information systems. The potential use of the proposed decision framework is illustrated through an application.     

Fuzzy AHP-based decision support system for selecting ERP systems in textile industry by using balanced scorecard

An enterprise resource planning system (ERP) is the information backbone of a company that integrates and automates all business operations. It is a critical issue to select the suitable ERP system which meets all the business strategies and the goals of the company. This study presents an approach to select a suitable ERP system for textile industry. Textile companies have some difficulties to implement ERP systems such as variant structure of products, production variety and unqualified human resources. At first, the vision and the strategies of the organization are checked by using balanced scorecard. According to the company’s vision, strategies and KPIs, we can prepare a request for proposal. Then ERP packages that do not meet the requirements of the company are eliminated. After strategic management phase, the proposed methodology gives advice before ERP selection. The criteria were determined and then compared according to their importance. The rest ERP system solutions were selected to evaluate. An external evaluation team consisting of ERP consultants was assigned to select one of these solutions according to the predetermined criteria. In this study, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, a fuzzy extension of the multi-criteria decision-making technique AHP, was used to compare these ERP system solutions. The methodology was applied for a textile manufacturing company.     

A model for selecting an ERP system based on linguistic information processing

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) is an enterprise-wide application software package that integrates all necessary business functions into a single system with a common database. In order to implement an ERP project successfully in an organization, it is necessary to select a suitable ERP system. This paper presents a new model, which is based on linguistic information processing, for dealing with such a problem. In the study, a similarity degree based algorithm is proposed to aggregate the objective information about ERP systems from some external professional organizations, which may be expressed by different linguistic term sets. The consistency and inconsistency indices are defined by considering the subject information obtained from internal interviews with ERP vendors, and then a linear programming model is established for selecting the most suitable ERP system. Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the application of the proposed method.     

Implementation of rule-based information systems for integratedmanufacturing

Focuses on the development of a methodology within a software environment for automating the rule-based implementation of specifications of integrated manufacturing information systems. The specifications are initially formulated in a natural language and subsequently represented in terms of a graphical representation by the system designer. A new graphical representation tool is based on updated Petri nets (UPN) that we have developed as a specialized version of colored Petri nets. The rule-based implementation approach utilizes the similarity of features between UPN and the general rule specification language used for the implementation. The automation of the translation of UPN to the rule specification language is expected to considerably reduce the life-cycle for design and implementation of the system. The application presented deals with the control and management of information flow between the computer-aided design, process planning, manufacturing resource planning and shop floor control databases. This provides an integrated information framework for computer integrated manufacturing systems     

Understanding the role of managerial agency in achieving business benefits from ERP systems

Previous enterprise resource planning (ERP) research has identified ‘top management support’ as an important factor in implementation success. However, most studies are short on the detail of exactly how and why ‘top management support’ contributes to ERP success. Moreover, although ‘improved management decision‐making’ is often claimed as a business benefit of ERP systems, there is little evidence in previous ERP research of it having actually occurred. This paper examines the role of managerial agency at all levels in four Australian manufacturing organizations in achieving business benefits from ERP systems during the post‐implementation period. The research contributes to current understanding of the role of managerial agency in achieving business benefits from ERP systems by providing theoretically based, detailed and interesting insights from four interpretive case studies.     

Determining ERP customization choices using nominal group technique and analytical hierarchy process

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an information system that supports and integrates many facets of a business. A critical issue in ERP implementation is how to bridge the gap between the ERP system and an organization's business processes by customizing either the system, or the business processes of the organization, or both. Literature review shows that customization is a major hindrance in most of the ERP implementation projects. This research applies nominal group technique (NGT) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) techniques to Luo and Strong's framework to help organizations determine feasible customization choices for their ERP implementation initiatives. A case study is presented to illustrate its applicability in practice. The study has theoretical and practical implications for our understanding of ERP implementation process.     

A critical success factors model for ERP implementation

An effective IT infrastructure can support a business vision and strategy; a poor, decentralized one can break a company. More and more companies are turning to off-the-shelf ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions for IT planning and legacy systems management. The authors have developed a framework to help managers successfully plan and implement an ERP project     

Managing the full ERP life-cycle: Considerations of maintenance and support requirements and IT governance practice as integral elements of the formula for successful ERP adoption

Companies adopting enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have often focused primarily on implementation-related factors while neglecting those of post-implementation. As a result, the usefulness and operation of the ERP systems, once installed, are compromised. This research adopted a case study approach to demonstrate that ERP adoption efforts that fail to pay attention to post-implementation requirements (especially those relevant to maintenance and support (M&S)) from an early stage in the project lifecycle will face dire consequences. It points out that poor planning and management of M&S services can imperil the normal operations of an ERP system and the daily activities of a business. With the life span of ERP systems getting shorter, sound M&S practices can extend their life and create a stable system platform to support efficient and effective business operations. M&S issues deserve to be considered as integral elements among the critical success factors (CSF) of ERP adoption projects. In other words, ERP success requires a full lifecycle perspective to be taken by adopting companies. With lessons having been learned from the mistakes in the first project, the company in this case study revamped its ERP implementation second time out, with due consideration being given to M&S strategies and practices from project initiation onward in order to realize a stable, usable, and maintainable system. The case study explores and identifies the critical success factors (CSF) of ERP adoption, and shows that M&S must be included as a key element from the outset and throughout the system lifecycle. Our findings capture a great deal of experience for any ERP adopting companies to follow in order to avoid learning costly lessons both in implementation and subsequent M&S throughout the lifespan of the system. A set of propositions is also presented for academic researcher to consider in future ERP research endeavors.     

项目制造企业的ERP应用研究——以电梯制造企业为例①

项目制造兼具项目特点和制造本质,这两个方面决定了项目制造企业的业务存在其特殊性。尤其是在产品结构复杂,生产规模庞大的情况下,项目制造业务对于ERP系统提出了相当高的要求。目前国内外ERP软件现有的功能在满足项目制造业务的需求方面均存在很大的不足,必须在项目实施过程中通过客户化开发实现,这造成了企业的ERP系统建设项目中的大量重复工作。先通过典型项目制造企业中的业务调查挖掘出项目制造业务中存在的难点问题,分析项目制造业务的独特需求,最后将上述需求与目前国际上最先进的ERP软件之一Oracle EBS所能提供的功能进行匹配,找出ERP软件在支持项目制造业务的不足之处,希望能够为今后的ERP软件不断完善提供一些参考。     

The ERP Revolution: Surviving vs. Thriving

This paper presents preliminary findings from a research project that examined how firms are generating business value from their investments in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The research, which was done jointly with Benchmarking Partners, describes the stages of ERP implementation, the obstacles that firms encountered in generating benefits from the systems, and some critical success factors for getting business value from the implementation of an ERP system in business.     

The role of the customer order decoupling point in production and supply chain management

In order to compete successfully, operations in any type of firm need to be strategically aligned to the market requirements. This concerns both manufacturing and supply chain operations. The customer order decoupling point (CODP) is getting increasing attention as an important input to the design of manufacturing operations as well as supply chains. This paper investigates the impact of the position and role of the CODP on issues of concern for production and supply chain management. The focus is on the design and strategic planning aspects of the supply chain, and the design of manufacturing planning and control systems. The paper proposes a dual design approach for production and supply chain planning systems; one type of system for operations upstream the CODP and another type of system for downstream operations in order to fully support the characteristics and objectives of each respective part of the supply chain.     

A methodology for implementation of mobile robot in adaptive manufacturing environments

With the rapid development of technologies, many production systems and modes has been advanced with respect to manufacturing, management and information fields. The paper deals with the problem of the implementation of an autonomous industrial mobile robot in real-world industrial applications in which all these fields are considered, namely mobile robot technology, planning and scheduling and communication. A methodology for implementation consisting of: a mobile robot system design (Little Helper prototype), an appropriate industrial application (multiple-part feeding), an implementation concept for the industrial application (the Bartender Concept), a mathematical model and a genetic algorithm-based heuristic is proposed. Furthermore, in order for the mobile robot to work properly in a flexible (cloud-based) manufacturing environment, the communications and exchange of data between the mobile robot with other manufacturing systems and shop-floor operators are addressed in the methodology. The proposed methodology provides insight into how mobile robot technology and abilities contribute to cloud manufacturing systems. A real-world demonstration at an impeller production line in a factory and computational experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.     

Design of a feature-based order acceptance and scheduling module in an ERP system

Customer-oriented manufacturing competes on timely responses to customer requirements, and precise scheduling control for delivery. This challenge demands engineering design and production planning to be fully integrated via advanced enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. This paper proposes a generic feature association method and a detailed framework that can unify product and process models in order to satisfy customer orders with small batch sizes and high variations. A conceptual solution is introduced by integrating two traditionally separate feature domains: design configuration features and manufacturing process features. To achieve the proposed method, a customer feature class is suggested for the characterization of customers’ profiles related to the manufacturer. An instantiated customer feature object functionally tracks each customer’s selection of product configurations related to its requirements, specific orders, and production schedules with dynamic associations to the live manufacturing capacity. With the new associative integration method, a preliminary order acceptance system (OAS) prototype system has been implemented within an ERP order management system and its conceptual structure model is demonstrated within a multi-facet feature framework.     

An information system architecture for build- and engineer-to-order production of application services

In manufacturing, substantial efficiency gains have been achieved through industrialization. Key concepts of industrialization include standardization, automation, and modularization. Transferring these to IT service production promises increased efficiency. ERP systems apply such concepts and have been an integrating tool for making production for manufacturers more efficient. However, previous research has considered ERP systems for IT service providers either very broadly or only from a business or technical perspective. This article investigates how to apply the ERP system concept comprehensively to a specific type of IT service provider. To this end, application services are prescribed as being composed of three types of configuration models. This helps to achieve a composition of (IT) application services that is comparable to physical parts, and it further supports their management and automated production within an ERP system. An information system architecture with the ERP system at its core is presented. It supports application service production. All relevant service lifecycle phases are considered and a consistent domain model is provided that connects business and technical layer entities. Targeted companies can improve their application service production in terms of quality and efficiency by leveraging this novel automation- and model-based approach.     

Empirical evidence of an integrative knowledge competence framework for ERP systems implementation in UK industries

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems can greatly improve business productivity and better serve customers by creating values through integrating business processes and sharing current information. Knowledge Management (KM) is crucial for ERP systems implementation, but is particularly demanding task. This paper discusses ERP systems implementation in UK manufacturing and service sector organisations, focusing on empirical evidence of an innovative KM approach for improving knowledge competence for ERP success. Qualitative research was conducted, using semi-structured interviews with ERP experts. Data analysis used a combination of thematic and comparative analysis. The findings suggest that the integrative knowledge competence framework can provide ERP practitioners with useful guidance on what the key knowledge determinants are and how the relationships between knowledge components should be best managed to achieve ERP systems implementation success in real life business situations.     

基于业务模式数据库的柔性ERP研究

传统的面向事务处理的经典ERP系统不能快速适应多变环境下的企业动态业务流程重组.提出了基于业务模式数据库的柔性ERP(BMDF-ERP)系统.该系统抽象企业无关的业务模式构建领域业务模式数据库,在具体实施时,根据需求将其映射为企业业务模式数据库,由明确完备的企业业务模式数据库来驱动实际运行的ERP系统,业务需求的变化只对应企业业务模式数据库中业务模式的配置.在电力行业的成功实施证明系统是可行的.     

A generic methodology and a digital twin for zero defect manufacturing (ZDM) performance mapping towards design for ZDM

Over recent years, the manufacturing industry has seen constant growth and change. From one side, it has been affected by the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0). From the other side, it has had to enhance its ability to meet higher customer expectations, such as producing more customized products in a shorter time. In the contemporary competitive market of manufacturing, quality is a criterion of primary importance for winning market share. Quality improvement must be coupled with a concern for high performance. One of the most promising concepts for quality control and improvement is called zero defect manufacturing (ZDM), which utilizes the benefits of Industry 4.0 technologies. ZDM imposes the rule that any event in the production process should have a counter-action to mitigate it. In light of this, the current research developed a methodology the manufacturer can use to correctly select or design appropriate ZDM strategies and equipment to implement at each manufacturing stage. This methodology consists of several steps. The first step is to conduct several simulations using a dynamic scheduling tool with specific data sets to develop a digital twin (DT). The data sets are created using the Taguchi design of experiments methodology. The DT model is created for use in predicting the results of the developed scheduling tool without actually using said tool. Using the DT, multiple ZDM parameter-combination sets can be created and plugged into the model. This process generates ZDM performance maps that show the effect of each ZDM strategy at each manufacturing stage under different control parameters. These maps are intended to provide information for comparing different ZDM-oriented equipment to help manufacturers reach a final decision on correct and efficient ZDM implementation or to assist in the design phase of a ZDM strategy implementation.     

Cloud-based enterprise resource planning with elastic model–view–controller architecture for Internet realization

Companies currently encounter obstacles in networking, integration, and global manufacturing as mobile devices as well as computers increasingly facilitate commercial activities. Accordingly, we propose a new web-based enterprise resource planning (e-ERP) system that can be rapidly migrated from conventional on-site ERP systems. In this paper, by referring to Internet technologies and several key web topics, we explore the evolution of e-Commerce and ERP. We also discuss the applications of the proposed method based on an elastic model–view–controller e-ERP and software-as-a-service delivery. On the basis of information system architecture evaluation and realization results, we discuss the application of web technologies and web engineering models for the effective hosting of a reliable cloud ERP. In addition, on the basis of a review of the literature and related emerging technologies, we comparatively discuss several holistic frameworks of web application development from the technical and business perspectives. As indicated by the implementation results, the proposed approach can be used to effectively host a secure cloud ERP.