Purnendu Mandal

Issues in implementing ERP: A case study

Abstract Information technology/systems play a major role in improving the competitiveness of organizations. There are numerous enterprise information software packages available in the market. One of them is enterprise resource planning (ERP). ERP can provide significant improvements in efficiency across a company, but only when implemented correctly. Otherwise, an ERP system could be a curse and drag the whole enterprise into spiraling inefficiency. Planning for ERP systems and their implementations requires an integrated approach to meet the requirements of various functional areas. With a brief overview of ERP implementations, this paper describes some experiences of an ERP implementation in a water corporation. The case study reveals some of the intricacies during the planning and implementation stages that may occur in any company in any part of the world. Suggestions are offered in resolving the issues of implementing ERP.

Application of SAP R/3 in on-line inventory control

An organizational competitiveness depends upon the effectiveness of information flow and subsequently the material flow. Information systems especially computer based ones greatly contribute to the effective communication within an organization whether it could be manufacturing or services. For companies to be competitive, they need to have access to “the right kind of information at the right time”. An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system can help to improve the communication within an organization. In this paper, the authors describe how SAP R/3 software came in rescue of a potentially devastating inventory management situation in a large corporation with worldwide operations. The paper describes in detail the assessment of system requirements at various locations (production and storage facilities), configuration of SAP R/3 to meet those requirements, difficulties in system implementation, and benefits realized.

IT project implementation strategies for effective changes : a critical review

Information technology (IT) project implementation is still a grey area. There are differences of opinion among educators and practitioners on strategic emphasis and implementation methods. Implementation of IT projects, especially large IT projects, is synonymous to management of changes in an organisation, be it for altering the work culture or gaining competitive advantages. When formulating effective change management strategies to support the introduction of IT, it may be useful to integrate and use concepts and practices drawn from disciplines such as traditional project management, organisational/product innovation, and change management theory and practices. This paper examines project management and product innovation literature to identify change management concepts and practices.

Pre‐alliance planning: development of an information system infrastructure to support strategic alliance activities

Traditional business models are undergoing a process of redefinition following the drive to develop new business structures that support competition. The result of this has led to the development of virtual organizations, which are founded on alliance structures. In this paper a case study is used to describe the way in which a telecommunications organization and other retail electricity organizations initiated a strategic alliance, so that they could improve their market position, financial stability and customer base. A case study is used to describe the way in which a telecommunications organization explored how a strategic alliance with retail electricity organizations would be structured. Pre‐alliance activities and its impact on alliance formation, such as the design of an information systems framework, are presented and discussed. The experiences identified from the case study provide a learning opportunity for those organizations that are seeking to seize new business opportunities through strategic alliances.

Evaluating the impact of IT investments: use of a multi-period profit-linked productivity measurement model

Measuring the impact of investments in IT is still elusive. The perplexing productivity paradox phenomenon generated huge interest among IT researchers and produced numerous methods for impact measurement. But there is no robust model which can clarify clearly the business productivity and IT investment issues. In general, the measurement models have failed to show clear linkage between IT investment, employee productivity, operational costs and revenues. This paper explores further the productivity paradox, and then describes a multi-period profit-linked productivity measurement model that can demonstrate to managers the link between IT investments, productivity and profitability. For practical utility, the model is implemented in a spreadsheet application so that managers can test various policy options. The paper presents the benefits of this model and discusses possible future extensions.

Business practices and information strategy in performance improvement

Business practices facilitated by information strategies could potentially ensure the quality and improvement in organisational performance. It is evident that information technologies/information systems (IT/IS) has become a high value-adding enabler for organisational performance in todays aggressively competitive business. Implementation of large information systems, such as enterprise resources planning systems has been the prime enforcer of best practices in many organisations. With the help of a national survey of US manufacturing companies, this paper analyses the correlation between management practices and quality. The paper also identifies the domain of influence of information strategies in business performances.

Improved heuristically guided genetic algorithm for the flow shop scheduling problem

This paper deals with the problem of scheduling on makespan criterion in the flow shop environment. We have presented a new heuristic genetic algorithm (NGA) that combines the good features of both the genetic algorithms and heuristic search. The NGA is run on a large number of problems and its performance is compared with that of the Standard Genetic Algorithm (SGA) and the well-known Nawaz-Enscore-Ham (NEH) heuristic. The NGA is seen to perform better in almost all instances. The complexity of the NGA is found to be better than that of the SGA. The NGA also performs superior results when compared with the simulated annealing from the literature.

Effectiveness of information systems in supply chain performance: a system dynamics study

Organisations are streamlining their supply chains through successful deployment of Information Technology (IT) to succeed in todays global marketplace. Advances in information and communications technologies have made the availability of IT easier, but have they really improved the decision-making processes and performances of supply chains? Effective use of IT tools in a supply chain helps in integrating its trading partners and improving the ability to quickly respond to market changes. Previous works on system dynamics modelling of supply chain, in general, have analysed the effect of key performance variables on demand amplification and inventory level. Evidence of system dynamics simulation works focusing directly on IT implementation and its impact on supply chain are rare, which prompted the need for this study. This paper captures the impacts of using IT in various ways in a supply chain for auto industry. The dynamic interactions among different variables of the case supply chain have been modelled and analysed. Simulation result indicates that the influence of Information Systems (ISs) (through Data Accuracy (DA), Delivery Speed (DS), Usage of IT (UIT) tools, Process Integration (PI)) on the performance of supply chain is relatively more significant as compared to influences of other enabler variables.

Inter-country Analysis of E-Business

The phenomenal growth of e-business (e-commerce) in the last decade has confirmed one thing: there are enormous potentials in doing business electronically. The opportunity to increase revenue, lowering cost., streamlining operations, forming partnerships, etc., could be realized by adopting information technologies. Potential and reality are, however, two different things: to what extent businesses have been able to achieve the potentials? It is necessary to take a closer look at how e-business performed in the national and global context. There is a great need to analyze the ebusiness phenomena at global context, hence the making of this Special Issue.

Handbook of Computational Intelligence in Manufacturing and Production Management

During the last two decades, computer and information technologies have forced great changes in the ways businesses manage operations in meeting the desired quality of products and services, customer demands, competition, and other challenges. The Handbook of Computational Intelligence in Manufacturing and Production Management focuses on new developments in computational intelligence in areas such as forecasting, scheduling, production planning, inventory control, and aggregate planning, among others. This comprehensive collection of research provides cutting-edge knowledge on information technology developments for both researchers and professionals in fields such as operations and production management, Web engineering, artificial intelligence, and information resources management.