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Study With ERP And SAP By : Chinmay D Bhamare (AIMS Inst Of Management ,Chalisgaon)

BCA (Sem -VI) (Only For North Maharashtra University Related Colleges )

Eddition 1st 2014

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Copyright C

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Syllabus

North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon(B.C.A. Semester VI) BCA – 62 Introduction to ERP and SAP

1. Introduction to ERPa. Meaning, Need, Merits & Demerits of ERPb. Concepts of ERP related technologiesi. MRP I and MRP II ii. Management information system (MIS)iii. Data warehousing and Data Miningiv. Supply chain Management (SCM)v. OLAP(On Line Analytical Processing)2. ERP implementation lifecycle a. Evaluation and selection of ERP Packageb. Project Planning & Implementationc. Team training and testing d. End user training e. Going Live f. Post evaluation and maintenanceg. Risks associated with ERP 3. ERP Modules and Vendors a. Finance b. Sales and Distribution c. Inventory Controld. Vendors, consultants and users4. ERP Software Overview a. SAP b. BAAN c. Oracle 5. Introduction to SAP a. Meaning History and features of SAPb. SAP R/2 Architecture and its Limitations c. SAP R/3 Architecture & Application Modules

Enterprise resource planning software, or ERP, doesn’t live up to its acronym. Forget about planning—it doesn’t do much of that—and forget about resource, a throwaway term. But remember the enterprise part. This is ERP’s true ambition. It attempts to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments’ particular needs.

That is a tall order, building a single software program that serves the needs of people in finance as well as it does the people in human resources and in the warehouse. Each of those departments typically has its own computer system optimized for the particular

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ways that the department does its work. But ERP combines them all together into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database so that the various departments can more easily share information and communicate with each other.

That integrated approach can have a tremendous payback if companies install the software correctly.

Take a customer order, for example. Typically, when a customer places an order, that order begins a mostly paper-based journey from in-basket to in-basket around the company, often being keyed and rekeyed into different departments’ computer systems along the way. All that lounging around in in-baskets causes delays and lost orders, and all the keying into different computer systems invites errors. Meanwhile, no one in the company truly knows what the status of the order is at any given point because there is no way for the finance department, for example, to get into the warehouse’s computer system to see whether the item has been shipped. "You’ll have to call the warehouse" is the familiar refrain heard by frustrated customers.

ERP vanquishes the old standalone computer systems in finance, HR, manufacturing and the warehouse, and replaces them with a single unified software program divided into software modules that roughly approximate the old standalone systems. Finance, manufacturing and the warehouse all still get their own software, except now the software is linked together so that someone in finance can look into the warehouse software to see if an order has been shipped. Most vendors’ ERP software is flexible enough that you can install some modules without buying the whole package. Many companies, for example, will just install an ERP finance or HR module and leave the rest of the functions for another day.

How can ERP improve a company’s business performance?

ERP’s best hope for demonstrating value is as a sort of battering ram for improving the way your company takes a customer order and processes it into an invoice and revenue—otherwise known as the order fulfillment process. That is why ERP is often referred to as back-office software. It doesn’t handle the up-front selling process (although most ERP vendors have developed CRM software or acquired pure-play CRM providers that can do this); rather, ERP takes a customer order and provides a software road map for automating the different steps along the path to fulfilling it. When a customer service representative enters a customer order into an ERP system, he has all the information necessary to complete the order (the customer’s credit rating and order history from the finance module, the company’s inventory levels from the warehouse module and the shipping dock’s trucking schedule from the logistics module, for example).

People in these different departments all see the same information and can update it. When one department finishes with the order it is automatically routed via the ERP system to the next department. To find out where the order is at any point, you need only log in to the ERP system and track it down. With luck, the order process moves like a bolt of lightning through the organization, and customers get their orders faster and with fewer errors than before. ERP can apply that same magic to the other major business processes, such as employee benefits or financial reporting.

That, at least, is the dream of ERP. The reality is much harsher.

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Let’s go back to those inboxes for a minute. That process may not have been efficient, but it was simple. Finance did its job, the warehouse did its job, and if anything went wrong outside of the department’s walls, it was somebody else’s problem. Not anymore. With ERP, the customer service representatives are no longer just typists entering someone’s name into a computer and hitting the return key. The ERP screen makes them businesspeople. It flickers with the customer’s credit rating from the finance department and the product inventory levels from the warehouse. Will the customer pay on time? Will we be able to ship the order on time? These are decisions that customer service representatives have never had to make before, and the answers affect the customer and every other department in the company. But it’s not just the customer service representatives who have to wake up. People in the warehouse who used to keep inventory in their heads or on scraps of paper now need to put that information online. If they don’t, customer service reps will see low inventory levels on their screens and tell customers that their requested item is not in stock. Accountability, responsibility and communication have never been tested like this before.

People don’t like to change, and ERP asks them to change how they do their jobs. That is why the value of ERP is so hard to pin down. The software is less important than the changes companies make in the ways they do business. If you use ERP to improve the ways your people take orders, manufacture goods, ship them and bill for them, you will see value from the software. If you simply install the software without changing the ways people do their jobs, you may not see any value at all—indeed, the new software could slow you down by simply replacing the old software that everyone knew with new software that no one does.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of ERP

The advantages and disadvantages of ERP is an interesting Study. The foremost advantage of an

ERP system is bringing down the costs and saving the valuable time which would have been

wasted in procedural maneuvers and unwanted delays.

There are a number of powerful advantages to Enterprise Resource Planning.

It has been used to solve a number of problems that have plagued large

organizations in the past. At the same time, it is not without a number of

disadvantages. Being able to weigh the two will allow a company to decide if

this solution will properly meet their needs.

Advantages of ERP

Integration

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Integration can be highest benefit of them all - practically, the only really good project aim for

implementing ERP is reducing data redundancy and redundant data entry. If this is set as a goal,

to automate inventory posting to G/L etc. then it might be a successful project. Those companies

where integration is not so important or even dangerous tend to have a hard time with ERP: ERP

does not improve the individual efficiency of users, so if they expect it, it will be a big

disappointment - ERP only improves the cooperation of users.

Efficiency

Generally, ERP software focuses on integration and tends to not care about the daily needs of

people. I think individual efficiency can suffer by implementing an ERP - so the big question is

that whether the benefit of integration and cooperation can make up for the loss in personal

efficiency or not.

Cost reduction

It reduces cost only if the company took accounting and reporting seriously even before the ERP

and had put a lot of manual effort in it. If they didn't care about it, if they just did some simple

accounting to fill mandatory statements and if internal reporting did not exists of has not been

financially-oriented, then no cost is reduced. If you can get a good estimate on next years sales

by asking "Hey Joe, how it's going?" then don't ever think on implementing an ERP.

Fewer personnel

Same as above. Less reporting or accounting personnel, but more sales assistants etc.

Accuracy

People are accurate, not software. What ERP does is makes the lives of inaccurate people or

organization a complete hell and maybe forces them to be accurate (which means hiring more

people or distributing work better), or it falls.

Disadvantages of ERP

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Problems with ERP systems are mainly due to inadequate investment in ongoing training for

involved personnel, including those implementing and testing changes, as well as a lack of

corporate policy protecting the integrity of the data in the ERP systems and how it is used.

1. Customization of the ERP software is limited.

2. Re-engineering of business processes to fit the "industry standard" prescribed by the ERP

system may lead to a loss of competitive advantage.

3. ERP systems can be very expensive leading to a new category of "ERP light" solutions

4.ERPs are often seen as too rigid and too difficult to adapt to the specific workflow and business

process of some companies—this is cited as one of the main causes of their failure.

5. Many of the integrated links need high accuracy in other applications to work effectively. A

company can achieve minimum standards, and then over time "dirty data" will reduce the

reliability of some applications.

6. Once a system is established, switching costs are very high for any one of the partners

(reducing flexibility and strategic control at the corporate level).

7. The blurring of company boundaries can cause problems in accountability, lines of

responsibility, and employee morale.

8. Resistance in sharing sensitive internal information between departments can reduce the

effectiveness of the software.

9. Some large organizations may have multiple departments with separate, independent

resources, missions, chains-of-command, etc, and consolidation into a single enterprise may

yield limited benefits.

10. The system may be too complex measured against the actual needs of the customer.

Conclusion

ERP is recommended in an organization not only because the advantages outnumber the

disadvantages but also by keeping in mind the ways to overcome the disadvantages. An

organization has to correctly weigh the advantages and disadvantages of ERP before going for

them.

Business Process Reengineering(BPR)• Dr.Michael Hammer ‘the fundamental rethinking and radical

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redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost,quality,service and speed”.

Material Requirements Planning (MRP I)

Following the strict APICS definition, MRP (more accurately MRP I, read MRP-one) is a system that helps a manufacturer plan their purchasing and production activities, and when necessary, create the required purchase orders and production orders in time to meet customer commitments.This leads to the Great Paradox of Manufacturing: An inventory control system helps you maintain an inventory of your materials.

An MRP system helps you maintain no inventory of your materials.

Without an MRP system, manufacturers typically react by purchasing material they might need. With an MRP system, manufacturers purchase material they definitely do need. Which do you think is a better use of limited financial resources?

Many manufacturing systems combine the distinct functions of MPS (Master Production Schedule) and MRP into one called MRP. It is possible to create an MPS without an MRP, but not possible to create an MRP without an MPS. If you are convinced that the software you are considering performs the functions described here, then strict adherence to the terminology is not that important.

Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II)

As the term implies, Manufacturing Resource Planning (aka MRP II, read MRP-two), is an extension to MRP I that goes far beyond planning and acquiring the materials needed for production, but every other resource related to the successful operation of a manufacturing plant, including people and machinery.

Some impressive demonstrations can be made by manufacturing software vendors selling “fix all your problems with one click” systems. In our opinion, MRP II requires a level of sophistication far beyond that of most of our prospective customers. Ford Motors and Caterpillar depend on MRP II to run their manufacturing operations. MRP II is a big job – one best reserved for the big boys.

Few low-end to mid-ranged manufacturing systems offer MRP II, but if they do, beware. Systems that perform real MRP II functions cost hundreds of thousands, often millions

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of dollars. If the system you are looking at claims MRP II capabilities for far, far less turn your fluff detector to stun.

MIS

Information is the basis for every decision taken in an organization. The efficiency of management depends upon the availability of regular and relevant information. Thus it is essential that an effective and efficient reporting system be developed as part of accounting system. The main object of management information is to obtain the required about the operating results of an organization regularly in order to use them for future planning and control.

The old techniques like intuition, rule of thumb, personal whim and prestige, etc. are now considered useless in the process of decision taking. Modern management is constantly on look out for such quantitative and such information, which can help in analyzing the proposed alternative actions and choosing one as its decision. Thus, modern management functions are information-oriented more popularly known as “management by information”. And the system through which information is communicated to the management is known as“management information system (MIS)”. The management needs full information before taking any decision. good decisions can minimize costs and optimize results. Management information system can be helpful to the management in undertaking management decisions smoothly and effectively.

Management information system can be analyzed thus:

1. Management: management covers the planning, control, and administration of the operations of a concern. The top management handles planning; the middle management concentrates on controlling; and the lower management is concerned with actual administration.

2. Information: information, in MIS, means the processed data that helps the management in planning, controlling and operations. Data means all the facts arising out of the operations of the concern. Data is processed i.e. recorded, summarized, compared and finally presented to the management in the form of MIS report.

3. System: data is processed into information with the help of a system. a system is made up of inputs, processing, output and feedback or control.

Thus MIS means a system for processing data in order to give proper information to the management for performing its functions.

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Data Warehousing

Bill Inmon (2002) says that the “data warehouse contains a very useful source of data for the explorer and data miner. The data found in the data warehouse is cleansed, integrated, organized. And the data is historical”. To help managers and decision makers retrieve information they need from tremendous amount of data reside in database, many enterprises have built system environments focusing on data warehousing technology, deployed that as an integral part of a decision support systems (DSS). Data warehouse is responsible for providing information needed for supporting executive decision making. As a result, data warehousing technology has been integrated into ERP systems (Zhang et al, 2006).Yusuf et al (2004) defines Data warehouse as “an integrated collection of data. The data is stored centrally and is extracted from operational, historical and external databases”. Data warehouses are used for decision support. Historical, summarized and consolidated data is more important than detailed, individual records.

Data Mining

Data mining is the study and extraction of patterns from a large set of data. It can be defined as the process of analyzing data from different viewpoints and summarizing it into useful information for planning and increase revenue. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions or angles, categorize it, and summarize the relationships identified (Anderson, 2009). Data mining can also be defined as the “practice of automatically searching large stores of data to discover patterns and trends that go beyond simple analysis” (Oracle, 2009). Data mining uses sophisticated mathematical algorithms to slice the data and evaluate the probability of future events. The key properties of data mining are (thearling, 2009):1. Automatic discovery of patterns2. Prediction of likely outcomes3. Creation of actionable informationData Mining is widely used in applications such as product analysis, demand and supply analysis, understanding consumer research marketing, investment trend in stocks & real estates, telecommunications, e-commerce and so on (Chou et al, 2005). However, a database which is new and which has only a current piece of information is not suitable for data mining as it can never detect trends and long term patterns of behaviour. Historical data is very essential for data mining as historical data contains valuable chunk of information hidden in it. Mature data is crucial for understanding the seasonality of business and the larger cycles of business to which every corporation is subject (Inmon, 1996).Data mining uses data from data source in order to provide users with meaningful indicators. Data from ERP systems is used as data source. Modern ERP systems provide advanced BI tools out of the box, avoiding the hassle of connecting a stand-alone BI system, and lowering the cost which is a critical capability to consider ERP for midsize companies, with limited staff and resources to maintain multiple systems (Newcomer, 2009). After implementing the ERP system in organizations, they tend to concentrate more on the return on investment (ROI). Chou et al (2005) says that “In order to justify their return-on-investment (ROI), more and more organizations are

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turning to BI tools that make data collected by ERP, customer relationship management (CRM), and other data-intensive applications meaningful”.Since a BI system includes technologies for reporting, analysis, and sharing information, many ERP vendors have integrated these solutions with ERP systems to truly maximize the ROI of ERP. The integration of BI and ERP systems can strengthen corporate decision-making capability through utilizing the analytical capability of BI system and data managerial capability of ERP system (Chou et al, 2005). Business Intelligence (BI) can help in competition analysis, market research, economical trends, consume behaviour, industry research, and geographical information analysis and so on. Business Intelligence using data mining helps in decision-making

What is Supply Chain Management?

The concept of Supply Chain Management is based on two core ideas. The first is that

practically every product that reaches an end user represents the cumulative effort of

multiple organizations. These organizations are referred to collectively as the supply

chain.

The second idea is that while supply chains have existed for a long time, most

organizations have only paid attention to what was happening within their “four walls.”

Few businesses understood, much less managed, the entire chain of activities that

ultimately delivered products to the final customer. The result was disjointed and often

ineffective supply chains.

Supply chain management, then, is the active management of supply chain activities to

maximize customer value and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. It

represents a conscious effort by the supply chain firms to develop and run supply

chains in the most effective & efficient ways possible. Supply chain activities cover

everything from product development, sourcing, production, and logistics, as well as the

information systems needed to coordinate these activities.

The organizations that make up the supply chain are “linked” together through physical

flows and information flows. Physical flows involve the transformation, movement, and

storage of goods and materials. They are the most visible piece of the supply chain. But

just as important are information flows. Information flows allow the various supply chain

partners to coordinate their long-term plans, and to control the day-to-day flow of goods

and material up and down the supply chain.

OLAP (online analytical processing) is computer processing that enables a user to easily and selectively extract and view data from different points of view. For example, a user can request

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that data be analyzed to display a spreadsheet showing all of a company's beach ball products sold in Florida in the month of July, compare revenue figures with those for the same products in September, and then see a comparison of other product sales in Florida in the same time period. To facilitate this kind of analysis, OLAP data is stored in a multidimensional database. Whereas a relational database can be thought of as two-dimensional, a multidimensional database considers each data attribute (such as product, geographic sales region, and time period) as a separate "dimension." OLAP software can locate the intersection of dimensions (all products sold in the Eastern region above a certain price during a certain time period) and display them. Attributes such as time periods can be broken down into subattributes.

OLAP can be used for data mining or the discovery of previously undiscerned relationships between data items. An OLAP database does not need to be as large as a data warehouse, since not all transactional data is needed for trend analysis. Using Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), data can be imported from existing relational databases to create a multidimensional database for OLAP.

Two leading OLAP products are Hyperion Solution's Essbase and Oracle's Express Server. OLAP products are typically designed for multiple-user environments, with the cost of the softwarebased on the number of users.

ERP IMPLIMENTATION LIFE CYCLE

Evaluation and selection of ERP package is an essential criterion for successful ERP implementation. Quality of selection will have a long term impact on the processes of the organization. It is also not easy to switch to another product with concomitant scale of investment and complexities. This evaluation and selection process should be properly directed and normally comprises of following activities:

Formation of an evaluation committee: An ERP implementation is not an IT project but a business oriented development. Therefore, in addition to Chief Information Officer, this committee should comprise of all functional heads and driven by a top management representative. Since all business functions are represented in selection process, the chosen package would have wide acceptance subsequently.

Requirement Analysis: This analysis should outline functional expectations of various business divisions, such as warehouse, finance, procurement, from potential ERP package. Vital requirements specific to the company should be highlighted e.g.

Must have Distribution Requirement Planning (DRP) functionality. In transit inventory and pallet tracking, as a part of shipping requirement. Multiple purchase orders linked to one bill of lading. Multi currency and multi locations functionality.

Requirement analysis forms a base for preparing a Request for Proposal (RFP), where important technical and commercial perquisites are incorporated. Common examples of technical perquisites: flexibility, Upgradability, User friendliness, field level security, Operating system and database compatibility. Common examples of commercial

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perquisites: cost, reference sites, high level project plan, resumes of consultants, post implementation support, financial health of the company, local presence, number of installation and upgrade.

Selection Criteria: A pre-determined selection Criteria should be ready before actual selection process commences. Selection criteria are normally in the form of questionnaire and point system, where each question represents a business or technical need. Weightage for each point or a group of points are predetermined which varies according to criticality of the issue. These processes help in making the selection process objective and transparent.

Selection Process: Selection process constitutes various stages as mentioned below:

1. Short listing of vendors: Hundreds of ERP packages are available in the market, which have different concept, architecture and sets of functionalities. Analyzing all the packages is not feasible. Organization need to identify a few best suited packages by looking at product literatures of vendor, finding out which product is being used by their peer organizations and getting help from external consultants. Once a few packages are short listed, respective vendors should be asked to respond to the RFP, as per its format.

2. Demo and Presentation: Responses from shortlisted vendors are evaluated by the selection committee after collating scores obtained by them and a consensus is reached about their final ranking. Anyone not fulfilling a predetermined vital requirement is eliminated at this stage. Top two or three vendors, are then invited for demo and presentation. Mode of presentation should be carefully scripted and send to the vendors in advance. They should be asked to walkthrough a particular business cycle through their vanilla software. They should be specifically asked to clarify any area of concern about their proposal, which may expose weak/ problem area of their offer.

3. Site visit and contract negotiations: After the committee has reached a decision on best suited package, visits to reference sites are imperative. The vendor should provide reference sites of similar size and industry, identical version and belonging to same geographical location. Team members should have look and feel of the systems operating at reference sites and ask pertinent questions covering overall satisfaction, functionality, cost/ time over run, support concerns etc. After site visit, if the committee members feel that their selection is right, they proceed with final negotiation and procurement. Negotiations are normally held on license and annual maintenance cost, payment plan including a leasing option, support issues and other commercial and legal terms

Implimentation .

4. An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation project is complex in nature, involves a lot of people, require the coordinated effort of a number of groups. It also needs substantial investment and has a long completion period. To successfully implement an ERP system is a very difficult task and requires huge efforts from all the stakeholders.

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5. ERP systems have fundamentally changed the work of IT organizations. The sheer size and complexity of ERP implementation makes managing these projects difficult. There are really two basic sides to ERP management, people and technology. An ERP packages touches the entire organization and can affect nearly every employee. In some cases, an ERP project manager may not be able to know who will be affected, which can lead to some nasty surprises. One mismanaged ERP implementation can lead to huge loss of time and money.

6. The project manager must cope with many tasks. Whether you are implementing one module or multiple modules, you must ensure consistently and full integration across the various sub-projects, which is an enormous effort even for an experienced system architect.

Planing

Follow the step-by-step ERP software evaluation and implementation project planning guide outlined below to objectively judge multiple vendor solutions and then select the best ERP solution for your company. Self-assess where you are today in your ERP planning and solution decision process, then follow the relevant links to get more planning materials and reference information to assist your solution selection project.  

Consider each step carefully and thoughtfully. Despite the time and budget pressures applicable to every such project, resist the temptation to skip Steps 1-5 by simply making assumptions. Allow sufficient time to let your business requirements, solution vision and project approach gelamongst your key decision makers. Making hasty planning decisions based on unvetted assumptions and expectations is high-risk and results in a poor outcome. Your new ERP solution will have a broad and long-term impact on your organization; make it a good decision!

For more detailed information on each step, download our complete ERP Solution Selection Process Step-by-Step Guide white paper. Use it to compare Microsoft Dynamics solutions to others to identify the solution and project approach that exactly meets your unique needs.

Step 1 - Mobilize Your ERP Project Team

> Designate and engage your ERP project executive sponsor, project lead, evaluation team and key stakeholders

Step 2 –Assess Your ERP Project Readiness > How well-defined, understood and documented are your requirements? 

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> What type and how much help are you looking for? > Understand how your organization compares to others?

Step 3 – Create Your ERP Solution Vision & Project Approach > Define your key objectives, solution vision and business requirements> Perform a gap analysis between your current and future state vision > Define your IT Strategy & Plan to enable your ERP solution> Plan your ERP program people, process and technology projects to fill the gaps and enable the new business capabilities required       > Perform a formal New ERP Solution Risk Assessment

Step 4 – Define Your Tactical ERP Procurement Plan > Align the procurement process to your needs, budget, and risk assessment > Define your product evaluation approach> Define your RFP format requirements> Prepare your formal procurement work plan

Step 5 – Define Your ERP Solution Decision Criteria > Define your software product related requirements > Specify your implementation project approach requirements > Create your risk mitigation requirements > Understand relevant cost drivers to optimize total cost of ownership (TCO)

Step 6 – Qualify ERP Vendor Solutions > Identify and research viable ERP solution options > Prepare for and review product demonstration(s)> Evaluate ERP solutions against your decision criteria

Step 7 – Select Your New ERP Vendor Solution > Choose the ERP solution that best meets your needs

4. TRAINING AND TESTING

• Pre-test the database.

• Verify testing.

• Train the Trainer.

• Perform final testing.

Pre-test the database: The project team should practice in the test database to confirm that all information is accurate and working correctly. Use a full week of real transaction data to push through the system to validate output. Run real life scenarios to test for data accuracy. Occurring simultaneously with testing, make sure all necessary interfaces are designed and integration issues are resolved to ensure the software works in concert with other systems. Verify testing; Make sure the actual test mirrors the

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Standard Operating Procedures outlined in step 2, and determine whether modifications need to made. Train the Trainer: It is less costly and very effective if you train the trainer. Assign project team members to run the in-house training. Set up user workstations for at least 2 days of training by functional area. Provide additional tools, such as cheat sheets and training documentation. Refresher training should also be provided as needed on an ongoing basis. Final Testing: The project team needs to perform a final test on the data and processes once training is complete and make any needed adjustments. You won’t need to run parallel systems, if you have completed a thorough testing.

5. GO LIVE AND EVALUATION

ERP Go-Live is one of the last events to be scheduled in an ERP implementation plan. It is also the most hectic and intense period in the entire ERP project so it deserves some particular attention.Schedule Before & After

This is the moment when you throw the switch and your business begins running (much better) on your new ERP. To make that moment magic, you will begin earlier with some check off details. You will also extend the moment to include some days or maybe weeks immediately following the actual go-live.

Complete Testing

Your ERP testing began months ago and has resulted in much learning and a lot of issues to be resolved. Look over your issue list. What issues are remaining open? Which issues will still be open on the planned go-live date? If any of those are show stoppers, consider delaying go live. The others? Are they an improvement you can live without for a while? The few remaining will require a work around until they can be resolved.Set Up Your Hardware

Be sure your hardware set up and working at all sites. This includes servers and networks as well as desktop computers. It also includes any wireless networks and wireless connections both on your premises and externally. Is the speed of the system at all sites adequate? Have you tested the system under a load? It might work well with only a few super users testing and completely fail when thousands of users across the globe begin using it at ERP go-live.

Review Your Training Program

Check with customers and suppliers to be sure any portals they depend on still work with the new ERP. Does anyone at those organizations need any training?

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Review your training schedule. Who fell through the cracks? Someone was out to lunch and never got the training they will need. Some others will possibly need remedial training.

Reports & Support

Are all reports and dashboards designed and ready to run? Have the users accepted them?Who will support users at ERP go-live – on site or remote? Super users, managers, and technical people will be needed. Maybe only to hold someone’s hand. Maybe to work out a solution to that situation you forgot to test. These people will need to be quickly available for a long time – maybe more than 24 hours! So plan for it and be sure they are fed and rested as much as possible.

You should know the time needed for data conversion and the time for installation of the ERP system. Decide on cutoff times and dates for transactions. Throw the switch and get ready for pats on the back when it is all wildly successful.

This is the phase where the actual users of the system will be trained on how to use the syste

The employ

ees who are going to use the new system are identified and their skills are noted.

Based on their skill levels are divided into groups.

Then each group is given training on the new system.

This training is very useful as the success of the ERP system is in the hands of end-users.

The end-user training is much more important and much more difficult than implementation team training since people are always reluctant to change.

You can have the best technology in the world, but if you don’t have a community who wants to use it and who are excited about it, then it has no purpose.” Chris Hughes Co-Founder of FaceBook.

Evaluation : Develop a structured evaluation plan which ties back to the goals and objectives

that were set in the planning stage. In addition, a post-implementation audit should be

performed after the system has been up and running for the first week for reconciliation

purposes and three to six months following to test whether or not the anticipated ROI and

business benefits are being realized. Comparing actual numbers with previously established

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benchmarks will reveal if the software tool does what it is intended to do - add value to the

business. It is important to periodically review the business. It is important to periodically review the system's performance to maximize ROI.

This is the very critical phase when the implementation phase is over.

There must be enough employees who are trained to handle the problem that might occurred when the system is running.

There must be technical people in the company who have the ability to enhance the system when required.

Living with ERP systems will be different from installing them.

Projects for implementing the ERP sysstems get a lot of resources and attention.

owever an organisation can only get the maximum value of these inputs if it successfully adopts and effectively uses the system.

Risk associated with erp

ALL applications software projects involve risk. Even the simplest effort probably has only a 90 per cent chance of success - i.e. the project is on-time within budget and attains all the planned benefits. As projects increase in scope, the odds of achieving success diminish rapidly.

Implementation projects require companies to strike a balance between the desires to satisfy everyone's functionality needs and the need to keep things simple enough to ensure success. If you implement a package with no software modifications, you are more likely to succeed than if you make major software and structural operating adjustments. But without customization you may end up with a system that executes flawlessly, but does not support your business adequately. It is necessary to balance risk and results at a level comfortable for your company.

Many managers understand the risks involved with new software and put all their efforts into minimizing them. What many fail to realize is the high-risk associated with existing applications that will be retained - the most onerous of these being bad data in the current system. It is common that many problems with a company's existing system are more related to inaccurate data than to faulty systems. Yet, the system usually takes the blame. Converting to a shiny, new system replete with the latest features and functions and then populating it with rusty, broken-down data does little more than continue yesterday's problems.

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Is there is any way to minimize risk? Obviously, you could do less in less time, but this is generally not a viable solution. One of the best hedges against risk is the use of a proven methodology. The simpler this is the better. Going into battle without a firm plan of attack will only invite more trouble for your side. One blanket methodology is not necessary - software selection, acceptance testing and implementation can each have tailored methodologies.

A methodology will help ward off risk, but a contingency plan is still absolutely necessary. Virtually all planning for such projects has a positive spin to it - the assumption is made that the project will unfold as planned. Ugly surprises that surface during the course of the project can devastate the project and even the entire company. Having a working contingency plan, agreed up in advance, can come to the project team's rescue.

Implementing an ERP project involves a certain amount of risk. The ERP system cannot be implemented in a totally risk free environment. The only thing that differentiates successful and flawed or failed implementations is the way in which the risk were anticipated, handled and mitigated.

Module And Vendors

Vendors***

VENDORS are the people who have developed the ERP packages. They are the people who have invested huge amounts of time and effort in research and development, to create the packaged solutions. If one studies the history of ERP packages and finds out how each package evolved, then it soon becomes evident that every ERP package grew out of the experience or opportunity of a group of people working in a specific business who created systems that could deal with certain business segments.

Now with the ERP marketplace become crowded with more and more players entering the market and the competition increasing, today's ERP packages have features and functionality to cater to the needs of businesses in almost all sectors.

ERP vendors spend crores of rupees in research and come up with innovations that make the packages more efficient, flexible and easy to implement and use. Also, with the evolution of new technologies the vendors have to constantly upgrade their products to use the best and latest advancements in technology.

Choosing the right software vendor goes beyond evaluating software functionality. There has been a gradual movement among a handful of the largest software vendors to take a one-size-fits-all posture. Some vendors

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believe functionality ratings are no longer important since all software systems are beginning to look alike. While appearances may tend to support this theory, reality paints a different picture.

Merely having a particular function does not guarantee that users will be able to capably work with it. If two vendors offer a function required in a specific industry segment, and one specializes in deploying it in that segment while the other does not, the difference can be dramatic. The one-size-fits-all garment may fit everybody, but the question is does it look good to everyone?

Vendor selection is not a popularity contest and bigger does not always mean better. While the financial stability, ensured longevity and broad spectrum of offerings provided by the top vendors are good reasons for selecting them, size is not without its downside. Size breeds bureaucracy and bureaucracy hamper personal attention and agility.

While small vendors that are not quite household names may carry increased risks in the area of long-term longevity, they may actually provide a better solution if they specialize in your industry segment rather than covering a broad spectrum of industries.

You have the greatest leverage with your vendor once you have made the decision to buy their software but have not yet issued the purchase order. Waiting for the end of their quarter can help you get the best price.

Also view the financial stability of your future relationship as important - you will receive positive support from your vendor as long as it is profitable for them to do so. The relationship is a balancing act. Interest your vendors to get the job done right, on-time and within budget, but watch out for penalties that may increase project pressure and sour the relationship.

It is important to remember that the vendor, as long as they provide working software and capable personnel, really as very little responsibility for your overall success. Responsibility for success of failure lies within the four walls of your business, and if you import failure in the form of a third-party, it's still your responsibility.

ERP MODULES

All ERP packages contain many modules. The common modules which are available in almost all ERP software packages are as following:

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1. Finance2. Manufacturing & Production Planning3. Sales & Distribution4. Plant Maintenance5. Quality Management6. Material Management

FINANCE MODULE

1. A set of processes are required so that they can provide the financial information in the form that is required by the user, such financial solution is provided by the ERP package.

2. The financial application component of the ERP provides us with the information of financial functionality across the different business area.

3. The finance business of ERP also provides analysis support to the business.4. The finance module of the most ERP system will have the following subsystems:

a. Financial Accounting (General Ledgers, Accounts Receivable / Payable, Fixed Asset Accounting)

b. Investment Management (Investment Planning / Budgeting / Controlling)c. Controlling (Cash Management, Treasury Management)d. Enterprise Controlling (EIS, Business Planning and Budgeting)

1.FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING

1. The financial accounting system objective is to provide company-wide control and integration of financial information which is required for strategic decision making.2. The Financial Accounting Module of an ERP system, gives you the ability to centrally track financial accounting data within an international framework of multiple currencies, companies and languages.

Eg: When raw material moves from inventory into manufacturing, the system reduces quantity values in inventory and subtracts value for inventory account in the balance sheet.

I. GENERAL LEDGERa. The general ledger is essential to both financial accounting system and to

strategic decision making.b. The general ledger supports all the functions which are required in

financial accounting system. It contains of sub-ledgers.

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PURCHASING(QUANTITY AND VALUE)

SALES(ORDER AND BILL)

VENDOR (PAYABLE) CUSTOMER (RECEIVABLE)

FIXED ASSETSEMPLOYEES

(SALARY AND WAGES)

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c. The GL provides document parking, posting, reporting, and an integrated financial calendar for automating periodic activities.

d. It provides the summary information from the other components at the user defined level of detail.

e. According to the company requirements, the general ledger is structured in a number of accounts, according to the requirement.

f. The output generated by the general ledger is the data summary that can be used in planning, distribution and reporting.

g. In the general ledger we can also create our own database table and non standard fields as per the requirement of the business organization.

TYPICAL GENERAL LEDGER

II. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE / PAYABLEa. ERP system provides us a financial overview of business partner

relationships by maintaining accounts payable & receivable.

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b. These accounts are integrated with general ledger and it is associated in sales and distribution & material management.

c. They are performed automatically when related processes take place in other modules.

d. It uses the standard business rules for the data entry and reporting to processing payments and bank transactions.

e. The accounts receivable and payable functions include:i. Internet Integrationii. Document Managementiii. EDI processingiv. Automatic Integration with Cash Management

f. The module also provides, enterprise wide credit management with workflow integration, payment automation with EFT and check processing etc.

III. ASSET ACCOUNTINGa. This module manages the company’s fixed asset. It provides the detailed

information on asset related transactions.b. The functions performed by this module are:

i. Provides with depreciation charge.ii. Support throughout the complete lifecycle of the asset.

iii. Management of capital assets.iv. Integration with Plant Maintenance for management of

machinery and equipment.c. Fixed Assets: It does not change. Eg: Land & Building

d. Current Assets: It keeps on changing. Eg: Cash

IV. LEGAL CONSOLIDATION

a. All the financial statements should be integrated effectively with the operational data.

b. The legal consolidation helps in the direct data transfer from individual statements into the consolidated report.

c. The legal consolidation helps to create multiple views of consolidated data and thus we can generate separate reports for the different functions of an organization.

2.CONTROLLING:

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a) This module gathers the functions required for effective internal cost accounting.b) It offers a versatile information system, with standard reports and helps in

analysis.

I. OVERHEAD COST CONTROLLING:-

a) Many organizations experience a significant increase in the percentage of indirect costs, which cannot be directly assigned to either the products manufactured or to the services rendered.

b) While cost monitoring and optimization may be quite advanced in production areas; transparency is often lacking in overhead cost areas.

c) The over head cost controlling system focuses on monitoring and the allocation of overheads.

II. COST CENTER ACCOUNTING :

a) It analyses where the overheads have occurred in the organization.b) The cost is allocated to various sub areas of the organization and the techniques

are followed so that we can come to know where the expenses have been incurred.

III. OVERHEAD ORDERS:

a) This system collects and analyses costs and also checks and monitors the budget that has been assigned.

IV. ACTIVITY BASED COSTING:

a) This module gives a response to the growing need for monitoring and controlling cross-departmental business processes.

b) This system automatically determines the utilization of business processes by products, customers and other cost objects based on the cost drivers taken from the integrated accounting environment.

V. PRODUCT COST CONTROLLING:

a) It determines the cost arising from manufacturing a product or providing a service.

VI. COST OBJECT CONTROLLING:

a) This module helps in monitoring the manufacturing orders.

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b) Integration with the logistics component results in a logistical quantity flow, that provides instant information on actual cost object costs, allowing ongoing costing calculations at any time.

c) Follow up calculations determine and analyse the variances between actual manufacturing cost, and the plan cost resulting from product cost planning.

VII. PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS:

a) Profitability analysis subsystem examines the sources of returns.

b) Information from profitability analysis, frames important decisions in areas such as determining prices, selecting customers, developing conditions and choosing distribution channels.

3. INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT:

a) Investment management process starts from the planning of an organization till the settlement of an organization.

b) The investment programs are carried out in each and every department and it also tells us the up to date information about funds, plant cost and actual cost from external and internal activities.

c) The investment program allows to distribute budgets which help us to monitor the budget and avoid over run.

d) It also helps us to manage and plan capital projects.

e) The investment measures that need to be monitored are done from time to time according to the internal order.

4.TREASURY MODULE

a) The organization can gain a significant competitive advantage by efficiently managing the short term, medium term and long term payment flows and managing the risk.

b) All these operating divisions are linked so that the financial transactions can be planned and these positions in treasury have a significant impact on the organizations success.

c) It also helps in management and control of cash flow.d) Manages the risk among all the division of organization.e) The treasury component provides us with the following sub components:

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1. Cash Management2. Treasury Management3. Market Risk Management4. Funds Management

I.CASH MANAGEMENTa. It allows us to analyze financial transaction for a given period of time.b. It provides the information on the sources and the uses of funds to secure

liquidity so that the payment obligation can be met on time.c. It also monitors and controls the incoming and outgoing payment flow and

provides the data for managing short term money market investment.

II.TREASURY MANAGEMENTa. The treasurer takes the result of current liquidity, currency and the risk

position on the money and the capital market before taking decision in the form of financial instruments in treasury management.

b. The treasury management component offers functions for managing financial deal and position.

c. It also supports flexible reporting and evaluation structure for analyzing position.

III. MARKET RISK MANAGEMENTa. This plays a vital role within the Treasury, in ensuring your company’s

competitiveness.b. This module provides us with the feedback which consists of data collection

risk measurement, analysis and active planning process for the financial instruments.

c. This process deals with the treasury and corporate functions.d. Market risk management acts as an integrated, central risk control station

with monitoring and management functions.

IV.FUNDS MANAGEMENT

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This module supports the subsystems of fund management process from budgeting all the way through payment including monitoring expenditures, activities, resources and revenues.

5. ENTERPRISE CONTROLLING

a. Enterprise controlling comprises of those functions that will optimize share-holder value, while meeting internal objectives for growth and investment.

b. This module includes:i. Executive Information Systemsii. Business Planning and Budgeting.iii. Profit Centre Accounting.

I. EXECUTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEMS (EIS)

a) It provides an overview of the critical information necessary to manage the organization.

b) It integrates data from other ERP components and non- ERP data sources both inside and outside the enterprise.

c) Drill- down reporting and report portfolio are available to evaluate and present the data.

II.BUSINESS PLANNING AND BUDGETING

a) Business Planning and Budgeting supports the management team of business units and groups in the calculation of business targets such as return on investment.

b) It also supports central investment planning, budget release and tracking.c) It automatically transfers data about investment requirements from transaction

applications and provides extensive analysis functions for budget monitoring.

III.PROFIT CENTRE ACCOUNTING

a) It analyses the profitability of internal responsibility centres.b) All business transactions in financial accounting, material management, asset

management and sales and distribution which affects profit are automatically reflected in profit center accounting.

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SALES AND DISTRIBUTION MODULE

With today’s business environment characterized by growing competition shrinking cycle times and the accelerating pace of technological innovation companies are increasingly being forced to streamline business processes.

Here, increased efficiency in sales and distribution is a key factor to insure that companies retain a competitive edge and improve both profit margins and customer service.

The following are the sales related business transactions:

Sales queries, such as inquiries and quotations Sales orders Outline agreements, such as contracts and scheduling agreements Delivery/Shipment Invoicing/Billing After sales support

During sales order processing, the following basic functions are carried out:

Inquiry handling Quotation preparation and processing Contracts and contract management(order management) Monitoring the sales transactions Checking for availability Transferring requirements to material planning(MRP)Scheduling the delivery Calculating pricing and taxes Checking credit limits Invoicing/Billing Creating printed or electronically transmitted documents(confirmations and so

on)

The sales and distribution module very actively interacts with the material management and financial accounting modules for delivery and billing.

Typically, a sales and distribution module will contain the following sub systems:

Master data management Order management Warehouse management

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Shipping

Billing

Inquiry

Contracts

Quotation

Order

Delivery

Invoice

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING

MATERIALS MANAGEMENT

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Shipping Billing Pricing Sales support Transportation Foreign trade

MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT

1. Every company will have products, customers and will require raw materials and will have suppliers.

2. The task of the Master data management module is to keep information about all these entities, so that these can be made available to the decision makers and also for the automatic generation of reports, contracts, invoices and so on.

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THE SALES AND DISTRIBUTION MODULE.

3. Automatic sales processing, using ERP system, requires that the master data has been stored in the system.

4. In addition to sales and distribution, other departments of the company, such as accounting or materials management access the master data.

ORDER MANAGEMENT

This module usually includes sales order management and purchase order management and supports the entire sales and purchase processes from start to finish.

i. Sales order management.

1. Applications in sales order management represents a company’s most important point of contact with the customer.

2. These applications allow a company to manage sales operations quickly and efficiently and provide comprehensive solutions for the management of quotes, orders, contracts, prices, and customer discounts.

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Order historyStatistics

Change orderManagement

Delivery StatusMonitoring

Returns handling

SalesOrderEntry

Credit checkingPricing and distribution

DiscountingMargin Analysis

Inventory availabilityChecking

Inventory commitment

Materials Management Production PlanningWarehouse Management

Invoicing Quotations/ContractsEDI/Internet

RequisitionsScheduleDefinitions

Planning/Sales/Shop Floor Sourcing Information

Request for quotation

PurchaseOrder

PurchaseSchedule

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SALES ORDER MANAGEMENT.

ii. Purchase order management

1. Purchase order management is increasingly essential in today’s even more competitive business environment because it enables a company to make the correct purchase decisions about quality and price, where quality refers to supply lead-time as well as to the (to be purchased) product itself.

2. Purchase order management includes online requisitioning, centralized contract management, just in time schedules and vendor management.

PURCHASE FLOW

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Purchase order Analysis enables historical as well as statistical data to be used to assist in the analysis of purchase activities.

iii. WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT

This module provides real time information about inventory levels across the enterprise and tools to manage the daily operational needs of single-site or multiple-site four wall warehouses.

Components of a good warehouse management application include the following:

Inventory Planning: Comprises of planned inventory movements, so that customers receive right order in the right quantity at the right time.

Inventory handling: Allows for monitoring of all warehouse order scenarios such as the receipt, issue and transfer of inventory.

Intelligent location assignment: Used to create intelligent storage put away lists.

Inventory reporting: This function permits full visibility of inventory at single or multiple sites.

Inventory analysis: This module enables the analysis of information that result from warehousing activities and the use of feedback in process optimization.

Lot control: This facility offers lot tracking and tracing, so that a company can trace all the raw materials and the finished goods that its products require.

Distribution data collection: This is an essential element in paperless warehousing that provides the communication link between storage and shipping systems and warehousing equipment like bar coding scanners.

SHIPPING

The shipping module supports the following functions:

Monitoring dates of orders due for delivery Creating and processing deliveries Planning and monitoring work lists for shipping activities Monitoring material availability and processing outstanding orders Picking(can be linked to the warehouse management system) Packing deliveries Information support for transportation planning.

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Support for foreign trade requirements Printing and sending shipping output Data update in goods issue.

BILLING

A business transaction is completed for sales and distribution once it has been billed. The ERP systems support billing functions like issue of invoices on the basic of goods and services, issuing f debit and credit memos.

PRICING

1. The term pricing is used broadly to describe the calculationof prices (for external use by customers or vendors) and costs (for internal purposes such as cost accounting).

2. The pricing module keeps the information about the prices of the various items, the details about the quantity discounts, the discounts to the different customer categories and so on and enables the organization to generate documents like quotations, delivery notes, invoices and so on.

3. Also, since this information is available to all the sales people, they can make better decisions thus improving the sales performance.

SALES SUPPORT

1. The sales support component helps the sales and marketing department to support your existing customers and, at the same time, to develop new business.

2. Sales support provides an environment where all sales personnel-both the field sales people and the staff in the sales office-can contribute to and access valuable information about customers, sales prospects, competitors and their products and contact people.

3. The sales support component functions, both as a source of information for all other areas of sales and distribution and as an initiating force for acquiring business.

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TRANSPORTATION

1. Transportation is an essential element of the logistics chain.2. It effects both inward and outward movement of goods.3. Effective transportation planning is required to ensure that shipments are

dispatched without delay and that they arrive on schedule.4. Transportation costs play a considerable role in determining the price of a

product.5. It is important that these transportation costs are kept to a minimum in order to

keep the price of the product competitive.

FOREIGN TRADE

1. The entire logistics chain, from the import of raw materials, finished and unfinished goods, to the sale of goods and the transfer of data to materials management and financial accounts, is significantly influenced by foreign trade activities.

2. These main tasks in foreign trade processing can be carried out using the foreign trade system.

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HUMAN RESOURCE MODULE

Human resource management is an essential factor of any successful business.

The various subsystems under HR module are:

Personnel management: (HR master data, Personnel administration, information systems, recruitment, travel management, benefits administration, salary administration)

Organizational management: (Organizational structure, staffing, schedules, job descriptions, planning scenarios, personnel cost planning)

Payroll Accounting: (Gross/net accounting, history function dialogue capability, multi currency capability, international solutions)

Time management : (Shift planning, work schedules, time recording, absence determination)

Personnel development : Career and succession planning, profile comparisons, qualifications assessments, additional training determination. Training and event management.)

PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

Personnel management includes numerous software components, which allow you to deal with human resources tasks more quickly, accurately and efficiently. You can use these components not only as part of the company wide ERP solution but also as stand alone systems.

i. Personnel Administration

Information is no longer owned by specific departments, but is shared by multiple entities across an organization. This eliminates duplicate entries reduces the chance for error and improves data accuracy.

ii.Employee master data

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1. Human resource module has a centralized database with integration to multiple components for processing employee information.

2. The system provides tools to save time and help you tailor the system to fit your needs.

3. The HR module contains features for storing any desired information about your employees.

4. Most systems have the facility to scan the original documents for optical Storage.

5. The HR Information system displays graphical information such as organization charts or employee data.

6. The system can produce charts and reports-both standard and customer defined.

iii.Recruitment management

1. This function helps in hiring the right people with the right skills.

2. Reducing the cost of recruiting and hiring new employees is a challenge for the HR professional, who is responsible for placing people in the right job, at the right time, and with the right skills and education.

3. These requirements are fulfilled only through effective automation of the entire recruitment process.

4. The recruitment component is designed to help meet every facet of this challenge.

5. This component includes processes for managing open positions/requisitions, applicant screening, selection and hiring, correspondence, reporting and cost analysis.

iv.Travel Management

1. This module helps you in processing the travel expenses effortlessly, in several currencies and formants.

2. HR Travel management allows you to process a business trip from start to finish-from the initial travel request right through to posting in financial accounting and controlling.

3. This includes any subsequent corrections and all retroactive accounting requirements.

4. Travel management automatically calculates the tax.

5. It automatically processes credit card transactions for a particular trip.

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6. You reimburse costs incurred during a trip through a payroll accounting, accounts payable accounting or by data medium exchange.

7. In addition, Travel management provides multiple report formats.

8. You can enter receipts in any currency and then print reports in your native currency.

Benefits Administration

1. Using the benefits administration component, you can define eligibility groups and rules based on a wide range of factors.

2. You can determine the variables, rules and costs formulas for each benefits plan.

Salary Administration

1. This function helps you in simplifying the process of rewarding your employees.

2. Administration of salaries is an ongoing process within your human resource department.

3. It is particularly important during the review processes, when your goal is to justify reward good performance.

4. The salary administration module assists you in the salary review process by taking into account standard salary changes within the company as well as individual competition exceptions.

ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT

This module will assist you in maintaining an accurate picture of your organizations structure, no matter how fast it changes. In many cases, graphical environments make it easy to review any moves, additions, or changes in employee positions.

PAYROLL ACCOUNTING

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1. The payroll accounting system can fulfill the payroll requirements and provide you with the flexibility to respond to your changing needs.

2. Payroll accounting should address payroll functions from a global point of view.

3. You should be able to centralize your payroll processing, or decentralize the data based on country or legal entities.

4. Most payroll accounting systems give you the options and capabilities to establish business rules without modifying the existing payroll.

5. Many systems have the features to remind you when transactions are due for processing.

6. With payroll accounting, you have the ability to tailor the system to your organization requirement.

7. With country specific versions of payroll accounting, you can fulfill language, currency and regulatory requirements.

TIME MANAGEMENT

1. It is a flexible tool designed to handle complicated evaluation rules to fulfill regulatory requirements and determine overtime and other time related data.

2. The time evaluation component stores your organizations business rules and automatically validates hours worked and wage types.

i. Shift Planning

1. Shift planning module helps you to plan your workforce requirements quickly and accurately.

2. You can plan your shifts according to your requirements taking into consideration all criteria, including absences due to leave or sickness, and employee requests for time off.

3. Shift planning keeps you informed at all times of any staff excess or deficit.

4. Another advantage of shift planning is that it enables you to temporarily assign an employee or employees to another organizational unit where they are needed, allowing for a temporary change of cost centre.

PERSONNEL DEVELOPMENT

Effective personnel development planning ensures that the goals of the organization and the goals of the employee are in harmony. The benefits of such

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planning include improvements in employee performance, employee potential, staff quality, working climate and employee morale.

i. Training and Event Management

1. A good HR system will have scheduled seminars, training courses and business events.

2. On completion of a training course, appraisal forms can be automatically issued.

3. Appraisals can be carried out for instructors, attendees, business events and training courses.

PLANT MAINTAINENCE MODULE

1. The achievement of world class performance demands delivery of quality products expeditiously and economically.

2. Organizations simply cannot achieve excellence with unreliable equipment.

3. Machine breakdown and idle time for repair was once an accepted practice. Times have changed.

4. Today when a machine breaks down, it can shut down the production line and the customer's entire plant.

5. The Preventive Maintenance module provides an integrated solution for supporting the operational needs of an enterprise wide system.

6. The Plant maintenance module includes an entire family of product covering all aspects of plant/ equipment maintenance and becomes, integral to the achievement of process improvement.

7. The major subsystems of a maintenance module are :1. Preventive Maintenance Control.2. Equipment Tracking.3. Component Tracking.4. Plant Maintenance Calibration Tracking.5. Plant Maintenance Warranty Claims Tracking.

PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE CONTROL

1. Preventive Maintenance Control provides planning, scheduling and control of facilities and equipment.

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2. Preventive Maintenance Control enables organizations to lower repair costs by avoiding downtime, machine breakage and process variability.

3. Companies achieve higher machine utilisation and improved machine reliability and tolerance control, along with higher production yields.

EQUIPMENT TRACKING

1. Equipment is an asset that needs to be monitored and protected.

2. In many situations, equipment maintenance costs constitute the single largest controllable expenditure of an organization.

3. All facets of plant location history and utilization history are described and tracked.

4. This history includes acquisition and disposition information and associations between different pieces of equipment to pinpoint operational dependencies.

5. Each piece of equipment is defined by a model and a serial number.

6. All of this information can be used to create equipment specifications, which provide detailed information for technical specialists working in equipment operations, maintenance and transportation control.

COMPONENT TRACKING

1. Components are typically subsets of larger equipment and deserve the same amount of cost controlling scrunity.

2. Component tracking enables equipments managers to identify components with chronic repair problems.

3. They can determine whether a repair or replacement should be covered by warranty.

4. Planning component replacements, rather then waiting for components failures to occur, reduces unscheduled equipment downtime.

5. Component tracking includes repair/exchange history and component service life.

PLANT MAINTENANCE CALIBRATION TRACKING

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Plant Maintenance Calibration Tracking allows organization to leverage their investment in the Plant maintenance module by providing for the tracking of equipment calibration in support of ISO9001 requirements.

PLANT MAINTENANCE WARRANTY CLAIMS TRACKING

1. Plant Maintenance Warranty Claims Tracking is an administrative system, designed to provide control of all items covered by manufacturer and vendor warranties.

2. It enables plant management to recover all of the warranty; reimbursements to which they are entitled but have not been able to recover in the past.

3. Features include the ability to, establish the type-and length of warranty, for example, elapsed day, months: mileage stipulation, or operating units.

4. A complete history is performed fur each item covered by the warranty, and information regarding the warranty service provider is generated.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT MODULE

1. The quality management module supports the essential elements of a system.2. It penetrates all processes within an organization.3. The task priorities, according to the quality loop, shift from production

(implementation phase) to production planningand product development (planning phase), to procurement and sales and distribution, as well as through the entire usage phase.

4. It handles the traditional tasks of quality planning, quality inspection and quality control.

5. The quality management module’s internal functions do not directly interact with the data or processes of other modules.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT MODULE – FUNCTIONS:

The quality management module fulfills the following functions:

1. QUALITY PLANNING: Management of basic data for quality planning and inspection planning, material specifications, etc.

2. QUALITY INSPECTION : Trigger inspections, inspection processing with inspection plan selection and sample calculation etc.

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3. QUALITY CONTROL .: Dynamic sample determination on the basis of the quality level history, quality management information system for inspections and inspection results and quality notifications, etc.

COMPUTER INTEGRATED QUALITY MANAGEMENT (CIQ)

1. The integration of Quality management in the ERP system provides considerable advantages because only an integrated system can support all the elements of quality mgmt system.

2. This integration allows the quality mgmt to influence all processes within a company, thereby affecting all phases of a products life-cycle.

3. The quality management module is integrated with the master data and processes of the following applications:

i. MATERIAL MANAGEMENT: Purchasing, Inventory mgmt, Warehouse mgmt, Material Requirement Planning.

ii. PRODUCTION: Work scheduling, shop floor control.iii. SALES AND DISTRIBUTION: Delivery, creation of quality certificates.

4. The quality management module supports the exchange of data with the other applications in order to prevent related data from being recorded and stored redundantly.

5. For example, the information provided by a goods receipt posting relating to the material, vendor and lot size is automatically transferred to the inspection lot data record when an inspection is triggered.

MATERIAL MANAGEMENT MODULE:

The material management module optimizes all purchasing processes with workflow-driven processing functions, enables

automated supplier evaluation, lowers procurement and warehousing costs with accurate inventory and warehouse management and integrates invoice verification.

The main module of material management are as follows:

i. Pre- Purchasing Activity.

ii. Purchasing.

iii. Vendor Evaluation.

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iv. Inventory management.

v. Invoice verification and material inspection.

I. PRE-PURCHASING ACTIVITIES:

1. This system supports the complete cycle of bid invitation, award of contract and acceptance of services and also include maintaining a service master database, in which the descriptions of all services that are to be procured can be stored.

2. The system also keeps separate sets of service specifications that can be created for each concrete procurement project or proposed procurement in the purchasing documents.

3. Set of service specifications may include both items with services and items with materials.

4. The steps that are followed in the pre-purchasing activity are shown in the diagram that follows:

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REQUIREMENTS CALCULATION

REQUSISTION FOR QUOTATIONS

QUOTATION EVALUATION

VENDOR RATINGS

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THE PRE-PURCHASING ACTIVITIES MODULE

II. PURCHASING:

1. Purchasing is a very important component of the material management module.2. It supports all the phases of material management, material planning and control,

purchasing, goods receiving, inventory management and invoice verification.3. Good communication between all parties in the procurement process is

necessary for purchasing to function smoothly.4. Purchasing communicates with other modules in the system to ensure a constant

flow of information.5. For example it works side-by-side with the following modules : Cost Accounting

System ,Financial Accounting, Sales and distribution

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VENDOR SELECTION

CONTRACTS

PURCHASING

COST ACCOUNTING SYSTEMFINANACIAL ACCOUNTING SALES AND DISTRIBUTION

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III. VENDOR EVALUATION:

1. The vendor evaluation system supports the optimization of the procurement process in the case of both material and service.

2. By evaluating vendors, you can improve your enterprises competitive-ness.3. Most of the vendor evaluation systems offer you a point-based evaluation

system, based on certain selection criteria. Most systems have their own pre-defined set of criteria, but will allow the user-defined set of criteria also.

4. Using these criteria, the performance of the vendors is measured and points are given.

5. The main criteria that are usually used are price, quality, delivery, service and support, replacement of returns, lead time and so on.

6. The vendor evaluation system ensures that evaluation of vendors is objective, since all vendors are assessed according to uniform criteria and the scores are computed automatically.

IV. INVENTORY MANAGEMENT:

1. Inventory management systems allow you to manage your stocks on a quantity and value basis, plan, enter and check any goods movements and carry out physical inventory.

2. In the inventory management system the physical stocks reflect all transactions resulting in a change in stock and thus in updated inventory levels.

3. The user can easily obtain an overview of the current stocks of any given material.

4. For each material not only are the stocks in the warehouse shown , but also the stocks ordered but not yet delivered, reserved for production or for customer, and the stocks in quality inspection can be monitored.

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5. Special stocks from the vendor or from the customer are managed separately from the company’s own stock.

6. Most inventory management systems support inventory methods like periodic inventory, continuous inventory, inventory sampling and cycle counting.

V. INVOICE VERIFICATION AND MATERIAL INSPECTION.

The invoice verification component is part of the material management system. It provides the link between materials management components and the financial accounting, controlling and asset accounting components.

Invoice verification material management serves the following purposes:

i. It completes the materials procurement process- which starts with the purchase requisition, continues with purchasing and goods receipt and ends with the invoice receipt.

ii. It allows invoices that do not originate in materials procurement (services, expenses, etc) to be processed.

iii. It allows credit memos to be processed, either as invoice cancellations or discounts.

Invoice verification does not handle the payment or the analysis of invoices. The information required for these processes is passed on to other departments.

MANUFACTURING MODULE:

1. A good manufacturing system should provide for multi mode manufacturing applications that encompass full integration of resource management.

2. These manufacturing applications should allow an easier exchange of information throughout the entire global enterprise, or at a single site within a company.

3. The manufacturing module should enable an enterprise to marry technology with business processes to create an integrated solution.

4. It must provide the information base upon which the entire operation should be run.

5. It should contain the necessary business rules to manage the entire supply chain process whether within a facility, btwn facilities or across the entire supply chain.

HOW DOES MANUFACTURING RESPOND TO THE CUSTOMER?

1. The manufactures must respond quickly and effectively to customer demands.

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2. While agility is desirable, agility without an effective enterprise manufacturing system results in speed without purpose.

3. Effective execution provides short cycle tem, quality assurance, continuous improvement &quick response to process variability.

4. All three elements contribute to a management decision to install an enterprise-wide manufacturing management system.

5. Some of the major subsystem of the manufacturing module is:I. Materials and capacity planningII. Shop floor controlIII. Quality managementIV. JIT/repetitive manufacturingV. Cost managementVI. Engineering change controlVII. Engineering data managementVIII. Configuration managementIX. ToolingX. Serialization/lot control

MATERIAL AND CAPACITY PLANNING

1. The planning systems of ERP packages are designed to provide the responsiveness your company needs to meet those customer requirements.

2. With these systems, planners can stimulate alternative plans; gaining the information they need to determine which parts and assemblies to make, which to buy and when to manufacture or purchase.

3. Material plans can be developed from a wide variety of sources that include the master schedule, sales forecasts and dependant and independent demand.

4. The company can customize planning processes because input is described by system parameters that are easily changed.

5. To reduce effort and accelerate communication across the supply chain, planned orders can be confirmed and converted automatically (or manually) into production and purchase orders.

6. Graphical reporting makes potential material and capacity problems easy to identify.

7. Depending on the requirements of the company’s product and processes, production can be scheduled using work orders or repetitive build schedules.

8. Using the shop floor control facility, the company has the visibility necessary for managing lead-times and for carefully controlling the amount of work-in-process and the timely release of production orders.

SHOP FLOOR CONTROL

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1. Process reengineering efforts and the elimination of waste have necessitated greater reliance upon powerful, user friendly, flexible shop floor planning and control systems.

2. Management needs timely, accurate information and the ability to manage the shop floor by exception.

3. A shop order can be reprinted at any time with user selection of weather to relocate material

4. This reprinting gives a shop foreman flexibility to print a duplicate copy when an order is split between operators.

5. This feature also gives the shop scheduler, the ability to reprint the shop packet and to reflect new material allocations that correct previous shortages.

6. Every shop order can be maintained throughout its life.7. All systems provide a full function shop order maintenance capability, allowing

the user to evaluate and adjust operation steps and components.8. Orders can be re scheduled either backward or forward.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT

1. All manufacturing modules track quality control activities. These systems allow a wide variety of characteristics and parameters to be specified in a test and inspection operations and maintain an extensive history to improve product quality and identify recurring problems.

2. The quality management systems usually support the bench marking on optimal product design, process engineering and quality assurance data by all functional departments within the manufacturing enterprise thereby facilitating definitions of repeatable processes, route cause analysis and a continuous improvement of manufacturing methods.

3. This documentation supports the job functions of quality assurance and production managers in validating the manufacturer’s conformance to ISO 9000, good manufacturing practices GMP world wide, MIL-Q-9858 in the United States and a variety specific industry standards of quality assurance.

4. Many systems not only provide high volumes repetitive manufacturing functionality, but also provide for the transition to rate based production by allowing the use of repetitive scheduling, even for the products are not rate based.

5. This allows a production facility to transition products from the discreet manufacture into a JIT/repetitive focus. For eg. When the demand pattern for an item begins to stabilize and shown a repeatable/ predictable pattern, then a productive schedule can be initiative even though the item may not be designated as rate based.

6. Overtime, as the items demand pattern grows, the item can be switched to full rate based production scheduling.

7. This transition capability enables production facility to adopt process reengineering, set up production, single minute exchange of die(SMED)programs

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employee empowerment work teams etc. with the confidence of knowing that the planning and control system will effectively support the efforts.

8. GIT/repetitive includes strong analytic capabilities.

Cost management

1. ERP packages provide extensive cost information at several levels that have businesses identify drivers and reduce product cost. You can choose the costing method that best reflects your company’s business.

2. FILO (Last in First out) FIFO (First in first out), moving average unit or lot costing methods can be assigned by items.

3. Many vendors all support ACTIVITY BASED COSTING (ABC) with activities visibility by cost object as well as cost for user defined groupings such as departments.

4. Manufacturing system provides extensive information about production costs at several levels, which gives you the visibility that you need to identify costs drives and reduce product costs.

Engineering data management

1. The 1st step to shorter product development activities. Engineering Data Management is designed to help your company trim data transfer time, reduce errors & increase design productivity an automated link bwtn engineering and production information.

2. Most packages allow a smooth integration, with popular CAD packages, to simplify the exchange of information abt drawings, items BOMs and routings.

Engineering Change Control

1. By using Engineering Change control, business can give effective control over engineering change orders.

2. Your company can define the authorization steps for improving and implementing an engineering Change Orders.

3. When these steps are completed, the system automatically the change in the production database.

Configuration Management

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1. The Configuration management dramatically reduce order cycle time by eliminating the lengthy engineering review, typically associated with determining feasibility and the costs associated with the configured end item.

2. This reduction is achieved by creating a flexible user-defined knowledge base that is accessed by a powerful analytic engine.

Serialization / Lot Control

1. The lot control system provides for the pre-allocation of lot numbers.2. This Feature is available throughout the product offerings and includes MRP,

shop floor control, order processing and JIT. Tooling

1. For many manufacturers, ensuring that proper tooling is available is just as critical to production schedules as the availability of material.

2. The ERP system extends capacity and inventory management to include these valuable resources.

3. These systems help to ensure that tools and materials arrive together at scheduled operations by storing tools in inventory and planning and allocating the required tools as part of the production order.

Erp software overview

During the olden days, a large number of people who were connected with the ERP sector such as analysts, programmers and users did the implementation of ERP systems in a single firm. Now, as we all know, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) relies on very large and complex software, the main reason being its extensive function within the organization.

However, due to the advent of the internet, consultants are now able to connect to company computers for any basic installation such as those of standard updates.Nowadays, a trend catching up is that of web-based ERP systems. These ERP systems can be downloaded easily through web browsers. The major advantage of these web-based ERP's is that they traverse multiple platforms and can be maintained from one centralized location. There is no requirement for a client installation to deploy them.

If we go by today's standards, customization is the buzzword for every ERP system implementation. The main reason for this the generic nature of the ERP packages as far as their reports and examinations are concerned. As the ERP System may pr may not be customized according to the needs of the customer, it can be said that it is the customization that makes the ERP a super success or an abject failure.

In the olden days, the main problem in customizing and implementing an ERP was that there were no ERP Software companies which were concerned with this line of work. This is however not the case anymore. There are a whole number of ERP Software companies that have sprung up in recent times, which are exclusively focused in the ERP domain. Some of the most reputed ERP Software companies are SAP, Oracle,

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BAAN, etc. However, these companies were more into Windows-based installation rather than Web-Base installation. One of the major players in the web-based ERP Software Company market is the Mumbai-based eresource ERP.

These ERP Software companies basically send experts over to study the system, the business processes, etc. and give suggestions as to how the existing system can be tailored to suit an ERP installation. It is not required that the entire ERP system belonging to the ERP Software Company be installed at the client location. Just the basic modification of the existing ERP system at the client location by the ERP Software Company is sufficient.

It is the responsibility of the ERP Software Company to send people over to the client so as to train their existing personnel in the workings of the newly installed ERP system. Thus, the education, subsequent training, and any sort of troubleshooting of the newly installed ERP system, is concerned is borne by the ERP software company. This is a

very important factor as far as operating and ERP system is concerned.

BAAN

The Baan Corporation was created by Jan Baan in 1978 in Barneveld, Netherlands, to provide financial and administrative consulting services. With the development of his first software package, Jan Baan and his brother Paul Baan entered what was to become the ERP industry. The Baan company focused on the creation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

Jan Baan developed his first computer program on Durango F-85 computers in BASIC language. In the early '80s, Baan Company began to develop application on Unix computers with C and self-developed Baan-C language, whose syntax was very similar to BASIC language.[1]

Baan gained its popularity in the early nineties. Baan software is famous for its Dynamic Enterprise Modeler (DEM), technical architecture and its 4GL language. Baan 4GL and Tools nowadays is still considered to be one of the most efficient and productive database application development platforms. Baan became a real threat to market leader SAPafter winning a large Boeing deal in 1994. It went IPO in 1995 and became a public listed company in Amsterdam and US Nasdaq. Several large consulting firms throughout the world partnered to implement Baan IV for multi-national companies. It acquired several other software companies to enrich its product porfolio, including Antalys, Aurum, Berclain, Coda and Caps Logistics. Sales growth rate was once claimed to reach 91% per year.

However the fall of the Baan Company began in 1998. The management exaggerated company revenue by booking "sales" of software licenses that were actually transferred to a related distributor. The discovery of this "creative" revenue manipulation led to a sharp decline of Baan's stock price at the end of 1998.[2]

In June 2000, facing worsening financial difficulties, lawsuits and reporting seven consecutive quarterly losses and bleak prospects, Baan was sold at a price of US$700

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million toInvensys,[3] a UK automation, controls, and process solutions group to become a unit of its Software and Services Division. Laurens van der Tang was the president of this unit. With the acquisition of Baan, Invensys's CEO Allen Yurko began to offer "Sensor to Boardroom" solutions to customers.

In June 2003, after Allen Yurko stepped down, Invensys sold its Baan unit to SSA Global Technologies for US$ 135 million. Upon acquiring the Baan software, SSA renamed Baan as SSA ERP Ln. In August 2005, SSA Global released a new version of Baan, named SSA ERP LN 6.1.

In May 2006, SSA was acquired by Infor Global Solutions of Atlanta, a major ERP consolidator in the market

SAP

SAP, started in 1972 by five former IBM employees in Mannheim, Germany, states that it is the world's largest inter-enterprise software company and the world's fourth-largest independent software supplier, overall.

The original name for SAP was German: Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte, German for "Systems Applications and Products." The original SAP idea was to provide customers with the ability to interact with a common corporate database for a comprehensive range of applications. Gradually, the applications have been assembled and today many corporations, including IBM and Microsoft, are using SAP products to run their own businesses.

SAP applications, built around their latest R/3 system, provide the capability to manage financial, asset, and cost accounting, production operations and materials, personnel, plants, and archived documents. The R/3 system runs on a number of platforms includingWindows 2000 and uses the client/server model. The latest version of R/3 includes a comprehensive Internet-enabled package.

SAP has recently recast its product offerings under a comprehensive Web interface, called mySAP.com, and added new e-business applications, including customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM).

As of January 2007, SAP, a publicly traded company, had over 38,4000 employees in over 50 countries, and more than 36,200 customers around the world. SAP is turning its attention to small- and-medium sized businesses (SMB). A recent R/3 version was provided for IBM'sAS/400 platform.

What is SAP History ?Five ex IBM employees started SAP as a small software and just one customer in Germany.. Those visionary entrepreneurs started SAP in 1972. They started it with the vision of the software that process data when a user wants, when a customer wants and not in overnight batch jobs like earlier software.

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In earlier years, SAP started as R/2 that is Real time architecture with 2 servers. This got changed in later years as R/3 that is Real time architecture with 3 servers. These 3 servers are Application Server, Production Server and Database server. In 2009, SAP released its latest version that is ECC 6.0 Now it is being assumed that SAP will not release any new versions but it will keep updating it with time.

Recently, SAP is teaming up with Open Text in ECM (Enterprise Content Management) sector and other third party tax wares to provide an end to end solution for organizations. For example, SAP and Open Text all together provides an end to end Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) solution.

Sap R/3

based on application server, database server and presentation server, the application server is the third layer which was added to the previous two-tier architecture to make it three-tier architecture. The presentation server of SAP R/3 works as GUI and is an application called as sapgui.exe. This application is installed at the client system which takes the input and sends it to the application server which processes the requests and revert back the results or the output of the input.

The application server consists of executable applications developed in ABAP. Services are distributed on many application servers and a message server helps in maintaining communication between many application servers. This design helps in distributing the workload according to the availability of the server with every new user. All the requests made by the client after getting processed by the application server are transferred to database server which then carries out the tasks like data storage, retrieval and modifications. The output is then sent back to application server which is processed and passed to the presentation server in SAP R/3 architecture.

The benefit of this architecture, apart from number of users and speed, was the integration of other modules with key and frequently used modules. The key modules of the company were at the one place while all the activities within those modules could be reflected in other related modules in real time. This also immensely improved the performance of reporting and analytical tools and management of different divisions working at different locations. Large organizations could install this ERP which would work as an independent application for the division and could also provide consolidated view of the whole organization at the highest level in real time.

The cross application functionality and enterprise-critical distributed IT system helps in managing business workflows even at the divisional level which makes application extremely user friendly. It provides easy and perfect integration with other popular non-SAP products. It can comply with different levels of IT infrastructure in contrast with SAP R/2 architecture which used to run on mainframe systems. Read more about SAP R/3 Architecture. Also read about SAP Business One In India.

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Limitation R/3

1. SAP R/3(OLTP) offers a collection of more than 2700 powerful and flexible business reports.These reports are spread across several applications. Navigating through several multilevelmenus to fetch a particular set of reports is a time consuming process.

2. Several reports are designed(delivered by default) to meet operational or transaction needs only.

3. Most of the reports are predefined, list oriented & provides very limited OLAP functionality.

4. Several business applications and their associated reporting tools make it hard to select aspecific reporting tool.

5. These reporting tools are inconsistent, designing & creating a report is a complex process.

6. Maintenance of thousands of available reports for software upgrade (VERSION UPGRADE) isa complex task.

7. Knowledge of how often a particular report is used are every period is not available.

8. As a consequence( Consequently) all reports are need to be maintained regardless of theirusage.

9. Performance impact on SAP R/3 OLTP Operations is a major issue.

10. SAP R/3 OLTP system are designed & configured to meet high transaction rates( No oftransactions for a time period)

11. Creating a robust report & generating OLAP environment( Reporting environment) underOLTP environment (Transaction Environment) needs different configuration parameters.

12. These settings will affect the OLTP operations intern.

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13. SAP R/3 OLTP reports are flat reports ( 2 dimensional ), where as BW reports are Multi-dimensional, MultiLingual, Several levels of hierarchies are supported in SAP BW reporting. Master data makes resusability - [Attributes, Texts, Hierarchies] in SAP BW.

14. Creation of report takes more time in SAP R/3 Where as it takes very less time in SAP BW.

15. SAP R/3 or ECC reports are application specific where as BW reports are subject specific.

Sap s

sSap R/2.

SAP R/2 is a real-time enterprise resource planning (ERP) software produced by the German company SAP AG.

SAP R/2 followed the company's first product, a materials management module called RM/1. What was unique about R/2 was that it was a packaged software application that processed real-time on a mainframe computer taking advantage of Time Sharing Option and integrated all of an enterprise's functions, such as accounting, manufacturingprocesses, supply chain logistics and human resources.

R/2 is a set of coordinated business applications from SAP, a German company that introduced the product in 1979. R/2 gained popularity until the mid-1990s, when it was superseded by the more capable R/3 product, later updated by mySAP.com. To some extent, R/2 is still in use.

Now more than 20 years old, R/2 continues to be supported by SAP, although support is expected to decline. Using Application Link Enabled (ALE) technology, R/2 systems can share data with R/3 and mySAP.com-equipped systems. However, SAP says that it may more cost-effective to migrate to R/3 rather than to stay with R/2, because of the improved support and expanded features available with the current product.

The database and application sits on the mainframe computer and users access the applicationthroughterminals. 

Terminal is simply a dumb box without a CPU; keyboard and a monitor is attached to thisbox. 

In comparison to three-tiered architecture you can think mainframe as applications server and a database server combined and a terminal as a presentation layer.

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Net Reference sites :

http://www.erpfocus.comhttp://www.datacorinc.comhttp://managementstudyguide.com

http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.comhttp://scm.ncsu.edu

http://www.ukessays.co.ukhttp://lecture-notes-forstudents.blogspot.in

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http://blog.misysinc.comhttp://erpinbusiness.blogspot.inhttp://www.cio.com

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