Bridging the Gap Between Organisational Needs and ERP Functionality

Abstract

We argue that ERP installations are difficult to align to specific requirements of the enterprise because of the low level at which ERP functionality is described. We raise this level from a functional description to a goal-oriented one. We use SAP R/3 to illustrate this. A SAP goal expresses the task that a SAP function carries out and abstracts away from the performance of this task. Since a SAP goal can be achieved in many ways, we introduce the notion of SAP strategies. We organise goals and strategies as a directed graph called a map. We illustrate the map with the Materials Management Module of SAP. In order to evaluate and compare the use of the map with the functional approach, we develop an evaluation framework. The evaluation and comparison is presented. The materials management map is then used to align the SAP module to the stores and purchase department of an academic institute.

Mining configurable enterprise information systems

“…They observe that the system frustrates the normal way of handling processes. Maybe the system is not able to support the process as it should be carried out, or maybe the business process as implemented in the enterprise information system is not known or accepted by the employees [30]. As a result, the actual business process may diverge from the processes as implemented in the enterprise information system.…”

Requirements engineering for cross-organizational ERP implementation undocumented assumptions and potential mismatches

“…Recent research in ERP RE has identified flaws with these standard processes and proposed creative solutions to reduce the cost of ERP RE by avoiding scope creep, involving the right stakeholders, allocating sufficient resources, and enlisting vendors' and consultants' support to RE problems [3,4,8,9,10,11,16,28,34]. Nevertheless, the central problem of ERP implementation still exists: to find a match between the flexibility often required by the business, and the rigidity usually imposed by the ERP system.…”

Supporting development and evolution of service-based processes

“…The problem of non-alignment between business and technical requirements in design of enterprise business processes has been widely studied in the research community ( [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]). Our work differs in two aspects.…”