The Advantages of ERP System

In the absence of an ERP system, a large manufacturer may find itself with many software applications that cannot communicate or interface effectively with one another. Tasks that need to interface with one another may involve:

• Integration among different functional areas to ensure proper communication, productivity and efficiency
• Design engineering - how to best make the product
• Order tracking, from acceptance through fulfillment
• The revenue cycle, from invoice through cash receipt
• Managing inter-dependencies of complex processes bill of materials (BOM)
  
• Tracking the three-way match between purchase order (what was ordered), inventory receipts (what arrived), and costing (what the vendor invoiced)
• The accounting for all of these tasks: tracking the revenue, cost and profit at a granular level.

ERP Systems centralize the data in one place. Benefits of this include:

• Eliminates the problem of synchronizing changes between multiple systems
• Permits control of business processes that cross functional boundaries
• Provides top-down view of the enterprise (no "islands of information")
• Reduces the risk of loss of sensitive data by consolidating multiple permissions and security models into a single structure.

Some security features are included within an ERP system to protect against both outsider crime, such as industrial espionage, and insider crime, such as embezzlement. A data-tampering scenario, for example, might involve a disgruntled employee intentionally modifying prices to below-the-break even point in order to attempt to interfere with the company's profit or other sabotage. ERP systems typically provide functionality for implementing internal controls to prevent actions of this kind. ERP vendors are also moving toward better integration with other kinds of information security tools.

Why Implementation Failures?

Why implementation failures? The answer is simple, customer or user do not spend the initial time or effort to prepare their existing business processes for automation. In a manual system, many "Workarounds" and compromises can be utilized to circumvent bad or inefficient processes. However, when processes are automated, circumvention becomes difficult and tiny mistakes are magnified. Automating complex or non-value-added processes with an ERP system will not increase production or improve performance.

ERP implementation failures are a result of focusing the implementation and integrated without the critical steps of attempting to understand and simplify business processes. The most important element to a successful implementation is to follow what is known as the USA Principle - Understand, Simplify, and Automate.

What is Advanced planning and scheduling (APS)

Advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems vary a great deal in their functionality and interaction with other systems, causing confusion as to what APS really is. The more advanced APS modules generally include constraint models for both materials and capacity. The latest technology has the capability to model not just a production plant’s operation, but an entire supply chain, including suppliers, multiple production plants, and complex distribution chains. This overview of the development of enterprise resource planning systems is necessarily a bit simplistic and leaves out much detail.

Advanced Planning & Scheduling (also referred to as APS and Advanced Manufacturing) refers to a manufacturing management process by which raw materials and production capacity are optimally allocated to meet demand. APS is especially well-suited to environments where simpler planning methods cannot adequately address complex trade-offs between competing priorities.

Traditional planning and scheduling (such as Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP) utilize a stepwise procedure to allocate material and production capacity. This approach is simple but cumbersome, and does not readily adapt to changes in demand, resource capacity or material availability. Materials and capacity are planned separately, and many systems do not consider limited material availability or capacity constraints. Thus, this approach often results in plans that cannot be executed. However, despite attempts to shift to the new system, attempts have not always been successful, which has called for the combination of management philosophy with manufacturing.

Unlike previous systems, APS simultaneously plans and schedules production based on available materials, labor and plant capacity.

APS has commonly been applied where one or more of the following conditions are present:

1. Make To Order (as distinct from make to stock) manufacturing
2. capital-intensive production processes, where plant capacity is constrained
3. products 'competing' for plant capacity: where many different products are produced in each facility
4. products that require a large number of components or manufacturing tasks
5. production necessitates frequent schedule changes which cannot be predicted before the event

Advanced Planning & Scheduling software enables manufacturing scheduling and advanced scheduling optimization within these environments.

ERP & MRP Software Is Technology Improving The Market Demand

ERP & MRP Software is technology for every Industry. It tries to involve all the functions of the company, whether manufacturing or non-manufacturing. And it can also be applied to profit as well as non-profit organizations.
There are some companies, whose Information Technology department use only parts of the ERP system and modules it in such a way that they will be able to maximize it's use. Some may use an ERP & MRP software from one vendor and get another kind of MRP Software from another vendor and combine these two software via engineering skills and make one great system that is unique only to that particular organization. You have to understand that there are needs that are unique to a specific type of company and the ERP & MRP software can be engineered in such a way that if combined with another software, the ERP system will be able to work for the company with its unique policies and guidelines.

The hardest part in the implementation of the ERP & MRP software is the change in the business process that goes with it. There will be changes in work process and practices that may or may not be welcomed by your employees. So it is best to have an ERP implementation consultant to help you manage the behavior of your employees as well as theorganization development side of it. The duration of the implementation of the ERP & MRP software will depend on the size of the company, the attitude of the employees and their acceptance as well as adaptability to change, among other factors. The length for the implementation of the ERP& MRP software can take 3 months up to several years, once you have gone past it and smoothed out the engineering aspect as well. You can be assured that you will benefit greatly from the software.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Today

ERP systems in the early nineties came into the marketplace offering new breadth & integration.The systems were intended to control all of the information related to the “enterprise,” including customer, product, process, production, inventory, employee, financial data, and more.

Today’s advanced ERP systems continue to incorporate more outwardly facing functionality such as supply chain management, customer relationship management and supplier relationship management systems. In addition, software vendors are working hard to appeal to small to mid-sized manufacturing companies. They are also adding value in the areas of PLM product data management, quality management, field service modules, and Internet capabilities.

Now a day anybody can call their system offering enterprise resource planning, advanced planning and scheduling, or supply chain management, but the system itself must contain all the necessary elements to fully support a fast and more competitive supply chain in your specific environment or it just isn’t worth the investment.

The Gap with Larger Competitors

A converged network allows Small and Medium businesses to regain their edge over their Larger competitors and once again get closer to their Customers

Traditionally, small and medium size businesses have been more agile and more intimate with their customers than the typical large company could ever hope to be.

But I saw a major shift in the late '90s when large enterprises began taking advantage of networked solutions to establish effective communications channels and enable systems to share up-to-date customer information. This allowed customer-facing representatives across the enterprise to provide an enhanced customer experience thanks to their improved access to information. Suddenly, even the biggest companies could be closer to their customers and more effectively address their needs. Now the tide has turned once again. These network-based tools like voice over IP, or VoIP. Once reserved for large companies with dedicated IT staffs and hefty budgets - are now easy for small and medium size businesses to buy, deploy, and support as well.

One Network, Full Applications
A number of reasons have now made these sophisticated applications available for small and medium size businesses. Chief among these is the network itself. In the past, companies maintained disparate networks - one for voice communications, another for data, and possibly others for discrete business systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP). Increasingly, small and medium size businesses are merging these networks into one intelligent, secure Internet Protocol network that reduces operating costs and boosts employee productivity. By 2010, approximately 40% of companies will have integrated their voice and data communications into a single network, according to estimates from research firm Gartner.

A coverged IP Network is less expensive to design and operate, simpler to manage and maintain, and handles data, voice, and video traffic. This makes it possible for small and medium size businesses to enhance their interaction with customers,who increasingly expect an efficient, positive experience when they communicate with companies, no matter the size. Small and medium size businesses that have already converged their networks are deploying a wide variety of applications that take advantage of this synthesis.

For example, they can integrate a call-center application to their customer and increasingly ERP & MRP System is allowing representatives not only to instantly retrieve updated customer information, but also accurate supply chain data such as current inventory levels or delivery schedules.