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418<br />

Part Three<br />

Planning and control<br />

■<br />

It often requires very considerable investment in the software itself, as well as its implementation.<br />

More significantly, it often requires a company’s processes to be changed to bring them<br />

in line with the assumptions built into the ERP software.<br />

➤ How did ERP develop?<br />

■<br />

■<br />

■<br />

ERP can be seen as the latest development from the original planning and control approach<br />

known as materials requirements planning (MRP).<br />

Although ERP is becoming increasingly competent at the integration of internal systems and<br />

databases, there is the even more significant potential of integration with other organizations’<br />

ERP (and equivalent) systems.<br />

In particular, the use of internet-based communication between customers, suppliers and<br />

other partners in the supply chain has opened up the possibility of web-based integration.<br />

➤ How should ERP systems be implemented?<br />

■<br />

■<br />

Because ERP systems are designed to address problems of information fragmentation implementation<br />

will be complex and cross organizational boundaries.<br />

There are a number of critical success factors (CSFs) that the organization must ‘get right’ in<br />

order for the ERP system to work effectively. Some of these are broad, organization-wide, or<br />

strategic, factors. Others are more project-specific, or tactical, factors.<br />

Case study<br />

Psycho Sports Ltd<br />

Peter Townsend knew that he would have to make some<br />

decisions pretty soon. His sports goods manufacturing business,<br />

Psycho Sports, had grown so rapidly over the last<br />

two years that he would soon have to install some systematic<br />

procedures and routines to manage the business.<br />

His biggest problem was in manufacturing control. He had<br />

started making specialist high-quality table tennis bats but<br />

now made a wide range of sports products, including tennis<br />

balls, darts and protective equipment for various games.<br />

Furthermore, his customers, once limited to specialist sports<br />

shops, now included some of the major sports retail chains.<br />

‘We really do have to get control of our manufacturing.<br />

I keep getting told that we need what seems to be called<br />

an MRP system. I wasn’t sure what this meant and so I have<br />

bought a specialist production control book from our local<br />

bookshop and read all about MRP principles. I must admit,<br />

these academics seem to delight in making simple things<br />

complicated. And there is so much jargon associated with<br />

the technique, I feel more confused now than I did before.<br />

Perhaps the best way forward is for me to take a very<br />

simple example from my own production unit and see<br />

Source: Corbis/Mark Cooper

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