Title: An enterprise model and the organisation of ERP

Authors: W.H. Ip, B. Chen

Addresses: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Hong Kong, SAR China. ' School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, P.R. China

Abstract: Many BPR practitioners have indicated that the application of information technology is critical to the success of their BPR. ERP is currently one of the most popular information systems being employed to help organisations gain competitive advantage. Companies worldwide have attempted to implement ERP systems, but failure has been experienced by many. Very often this failure has been due to managerial rather than technical issues. In this paper, the managerial and organisational aspects of ERP are elaborated upon. In particular, the experience of ERP implementation in China is emphasised, and the differences in characteristics and strategy between the ERP implementation process and the ERP system are identified. It has been found that the ERP system is a virtual enterprise or model that has its own organisational structure and normative process, and that can be managed scientifically. ERP implementation requires mapping this virtual enterprise to the status of a real entity. To map the virtual enterprise into an organisation, we proposed the IDEF methodology to cater to the macroscopic context of reengineering. IDEF provides a practical vehicle through which management and organisation are connected to the virtual ERP system for customisation, validation and documentation.

Keywords: enterprise resource planning; ERP implementation; business process reengineering; BPR; virtual enterprise; mapping; organisation; management; IDEF; information systems; China; organisational structure; virtual ERP; enterprise modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2004.005933

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2004 Vol.21 No.3, pp.79 - 86

Published online: 30 Dec 2004 *

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