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ERP – an overview

ERP (Enterprise resource planning) has emerged as a crucial part of various organisations. The term ERP, refers to a company-wide computer software system which can help in the management and coordination of the various resources, information, and business functions from the various shared data stores.

An ERP system is based on a service-oriented architecture. This architecture has various modular hardware and software units also known as "services" designed to communicate with each other on a local area network.

The modular design of the ERP system provides the business flexibility of further addition and reconfiguration. All this can be done while ensuring the preservation of data integrity in a single shared database. This database can be both distributed and centralised.

The ERP solutions

Different companies adapt different ERP modules for their purposes. These modules are known as ERP solutions. Here is a look at some popular ERP solutions:

Manufacturing solutions: The manufacturing solutions include, engineering solutions, generating bills, scheduling, capacity calculation, management of workflow, quality control, managing the costs, managing the manufacturing flow.

Supply chain management solutions: These solutions include, checking on the cash orders, inventory management, order entry, purchasing, and product configuration. Supply chain planning, supplier scheduling solutions, goods inspection, commission calculation and claim processing are also included in the supply chain management solutions.

Financial solutions: They include general ledger management, management of cash, managing payable and receivable account and fixed assets.

Project management ERP solutions: Included are the management of the costs, bills and expenses. Performance and activity management are other forms of project management solutions.

Human resources ERP solutions: Payroll management, managing the time and attendance are included in these solutions. Roster management solutions are an integral part of the human resources solutions.

05 June 2009

Business Software for business professionals

Business software is a software program that helps an industry to boost its output or measure its productivity. The term encompasses a large variation of uses within the business environment, and can be classified by using a small, medium and large milieu.

The small business marketplace generally consists of home accounting software, and office suites such as Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org. The medium size, or SME, has a broader range of software applications, varying from accounting, groupware, customer relationship management, human resources software, outsourcing relationship management, loan origination software, shopping cart software, field service software, and other productivity enhancing applications.

The last segment covers venture level software applications, such as those in the fields of enterprise resource planning, enterprise content management (ECM), business process management and product lifecycle management.

These functions are extensive in scope, and often come with modules that either add local functions, or slot in the functionality of third-party software programs.

Today the technologies that have previously only existed in peer-to-peer software applications, like Kazaa and Napster, are starting to feature inside the business applications. JXTA is one such example.

It is an open source platform that enables the creation of machine and speech neutral applications. Peer based applications will be in particular useful for collecting the information at the edge of the network that at present resides in the neurons of the users themselves.

For instance digital dashboards, business software also known as Business Intelligence Dashboards, Enterprise Dashboards, or Executive Dashboards are visually-based summaries of business data that show at a glance the understanding of business conditions through metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). A very popular Business tool that has arisen in the last few years.

There are many types of business software tools like digital dashboards online, analytical processing, reporting software, data mining and Business performance management (BPM). Each has their respective uses and is quite important.

26 May 2009

A look at the various ERP business solutions

ERP is playing a big role in managing various types of businesses. Different organizations are using different forms of ERP business solutions. These business solutions are a combination of both ERP hardware and ERP software solutions.

Here is a look at the different forms of ERP business solutions. All of the following solutions are related to the different aspects of a business. These solutions today are an enduring part of all businesses today.

The Manufacturing solutions
The ERP business solutions for manufacturing help through the various engineering solutions. They also help in maintaining the schedules and managing the workflow. The solutions also help in controlling the quality, managing the costs and maintaining the overall flow of manufacturing.

Supply chain solutions
The ERP software solutions for supply chain management involve tracking the cash orders, managing the inventory, tracking the purchases and in the configuration of the products. These solutions also help in inspecting the goods, processing the various claims as well as the calculation of the various commissions.

Financial Solutions
The financial solutions include the management of the ledger, the cash and the fixed assets. It also includes management solutions for both payable as well as receivable accounts.

Human resources solutions
These solutions include the management of the organization’s human resources, its payroll and its training session. It also includes keeping a track of the attendance, the roster and the benefits to be given to the organization’s staff.

All the above mentioned ERP business solutions help to simplify the various business processes and make them even simpler.

26 May 2009

N-Tier Application Architecture in a Nutshell

N-tier application architecture, popularly referred as Multi-tier architecture in software engineering, is a client-server architecture having distinctly separated logic and process for presentation, application and data management. "N" implies any number of distinct tires used at the architecture -- like 2-tier, 3-tier or 4-tier. However, in popular use, N-tier Architecture implies to that of a three tier one. To understand the basics of N-tier Architecture, one needs to have a clear idea regarding layers and tiers of software architecture. Though used as synonyms, the both have distinct differences in logic. While the element from which the software solution is made up of is called layer, tier refers to the physical structuring mechanism.

User interface, business rules, storage of data and their accessibility are developed and maintained at N-tier application Architecture independently. Each process has its unique software module and separate platform. Unique and distinctly separated interface for each process adds to the efficiency of the architecture at a whole. Any one tier can be upgraded or replaced without affecting the efficiency of the whole architecture.

Presentation Tier of the N-tier architecture is the topmost level of application and displays information related purchasing, shopping cart content, browsing merchandise etc. The logic tier of N-tier architecture is also known as the Application tier. It performs the detailed processing and controls application’s functionality. Data tier consists of database servers and helps in storing and retrieving information. This tier aims at improving scalability and performance of the whole architecture. For better results, all information in an N-tier application architecture passes through a middleware tier.

15 Apr 2009

Business Case for an ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems have evolved from stand alone IT solutions for discrete functions to fully integrated application encompassing the entire organizations and in cases its stakeholders. Islands of automation have evolved over the years - there is a separate system for payroll processing, another system for supply chain management and yet another system for production management, all having batch feeds the finance module.

The tough decision today’s IT managers (and hopefully business leaders) face is to build a business case to move to a new system due to multiple issues – high cost of a new ERP system, risk of delayed or flawed implementation, lack of effective maintenance and support, lack of internet ready features and most importantly loss of control over individual applications.

What is required from the vendors is that they partner with the organization from the first step onwards i.e. help them build the business case that address all the concerns. Both the product (ERP application) and the service (implementation and maintenance) have to be right for a smooth transition.

Newer applications in the market have all the functionalities on a common platform and have plug and play features as well as scalable architecture allowing for phased roll outs helping ring fence the impact of the change, thereby mitigate the risks better. Second, an internet based solution allows for significantly lower cost than a traditional ERP as well as remote maintenance from a centralized location. This ensures minimal IT staff at the client site and experts ready to solve the tickets in the shortest time.

Go out there and build your business case for a new Enterprise Application.

Antje Wilmer, 22 Jan 2009