Reflection Paper of Book Why Erp?

The case shows the implementation of SAP ERP solution in NIBCO, a manufacturer of pipe and fittings, a mid-size manufacturer with about 3,000 employees and revenue over 460 million USD. The company

To examine the reasons behind the SAP AG’S R/3 ERP implementation failure at Hershey’s Food Corporation

Enterprise resource Planning (ERP) is any integrated cross-functional software that reengineers manufacturing, distribution, finance, human resources and other basic business processes of a company to improve its efficiency, agility and profitability.1 On an initial view, an ERP system appears to be the cure for any company’s issues. The installation of such a system offers an organization the opportunity to re-structure their procedures, to coordinate branches’ systems in other geographic locations, unify information and inspire employees via granting them permission to company information. Now these chances exist at heightened costs financially. There are also implementation horrors and labor issues with which must be dealt with. A

The production staffs viewed the adoption of SAP as an ERP system that focuses on function such as inventory, finance, accounting, production, etc. They had doubt about how SAP modules are relevant to their business processes. The production staffs believed the functional view poorly represents the interaction with other functional views.

In business, it is important for companies to be able to communicate effectively. Each department of a company relies on the other departments as they add to the value chain. One way for a company to integrate its different departments is enterprise resource planning. ERPs are software programs that allow companies to join together data across operations on a company wide basis (Jessup and Valacich 248). ERPs store company information in a common database and allow all departments to access it from one central location (Koch). Companies without ERPS may contain many legacy systems, each operating with different

H. C. Stark Inc. invested in the SAP R/3 Enterprise Resource Planning software for the company but, only the finance dept. uses the software while the production, scheduling, shop floor scheduling and raw material orders and are still processed manually. These departments still believe in using the paper method of processing the transmittal of the sales orders from customers to the operations department. This process is longer than incorporating the software to accomplish the same tasks. Starck doesn't make full use of the functions in SAP R/3. In fact, schedule misses were mostly due to equipment failure. Mike from the sales dept stated there was an "informational

Cisco Systems, Inc.: Implementing ERP [HBR case #699022] Reviews Cisco System's approach to implementing Oracle's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software product. This case chronologically reviews the diverse, critical success factors and obstacles facing Cisco during its implementation. Cisco faced the need for information systems replacement based on its significant growth potential and its reliance on failing legacy systems. The discussion focuses on where management was particularly savvy in contrast to where it was the beneficiary of good fortune.

The usage of SAP in a business brings about tangible results in that the production ratio is high since data is put into the system once and can be forwarded to other levels in a smooth workflow using the social media available (Osterle, H. 1998). Operations can be carried in different sections and passed along to other levels within the firm for processing ensuring high output ratio within a short time. Employees can as well process their own transactions from various terminals and at the same time generate a final data of their activities.

In today’s business environment, companies use integrated information systems to gain competitive advantages. The primary objective of senior management is to generate a 10% profit to reinvest into the enterprise and expand their divisions. Several of Bandon’s competitors have implemented ERP with integrated CRM solutions. In order for Bandon Group, Inc. to compete with businesses such as Xerox, it is necessary to integrate the business applications. According to Monk, Ellen, & Wagner, “increasing information system efficiency often results in the effective management of business processes, which is essential to maximizing profit and sustainable growth” (2009). Bandon Group has common critical problems and issues within the organization today; there are also opportunities and challenges that need to be addressed. The technology department is small and strained. With the range of various technical solutions that have been implemented across the divisions it has become very difficult to provide data migrations, network support, technical support and training (Sumner, 2005). An ERP system can dramatically reduce costs and improve operational efficiency as it removes feudal decision-making and facilitates data integration and transparency between business units

SAP provides businesses scalable and customizable solutions for all aspects of your clients' businesses, from production to marketing and Human Resources to finance reporting. Moreover, SAP products and applications will allow your clients to operate at peak efficiency levels, with better communication and faster decision-making. Therefore, the

Since SAP ERP plays a key role in the operation, we might encounter resistance from stakeholders by integrating the systems. However, it is worthy to note that it is not uncommon for businesses to integrate ERP and CRM to achieve greater efficiency and collaboration between

In 1994, after a significant strategic planning effort took place, NIBCO Inc., decided to implement a plan to, “Go Live” with a new SAP program. (Brown, Dehayes, Hoffer, Martin & Perkins. 2012) The reasons behind NIBCO’s decision to implement and ERP System are those that are familiar to other companies who have made the same decision. One of the key conclusions from the strategic planning that led to the ERP implementation was that the organization could not prosper with its current information systems. (Brown, Dehayes, Hoffer, Martin & Perkins. 2012) They systems that they were currently using had evolved into a patchwork of legacy systems and reporting tools that could not talk to

The problem presented by Joseph-Armand Bombardier is the upcoming third round of ERP implementation in his organization. Even though a big improvement over the efficiency and success of execution between the first ERP round (Mirabel plant) and second round (Saint-Laurent plant), there is still room for improvement.

The project was conducted into four large phases, preparation, analysis, design and implementation. IS teams were capable of building scripting tools to assist with the project. NIBCO team members learned to apply an R/3 big bang implementation because IBM changed management approach was not ERP-specific. NIBCO’s also faced some problems implementing ERP SAP.

Although enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects are considered to be a risky investment for any organization, Keda had quite a number of reasons on why it decided to embark on ERP. The introduction of the Keda's silo-based model, as a way of encouraging a decentralized decision-making process, was actually affecting the performance of the Keda business. This was mainly due to the duplication of the identical processing tasks from different business units.