ERP IMPLEMENTATION LIFE CYCLE

•ERP applications are prepackaged software developed by commercial software vendors and custom installed for organizations to automate and integrate the various business processes. Although ERP are packaged software they are very different from PC-based software packages (e.g., Microsoft Office or other software) tha t you may have purchased for personal use as shown in Table 4-1.

ERP IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

•There are three major implementation plan choices are:

1.Comprehensive.

2. Middle-of-the-Road.

3. Vanilla.

•Methodology refers to a systematic approach to solving a business problem. ERP methodology builds on the theory that an enterprise can maximize its returns by maximizing the utilization of its fixed supply of resources. Information technology, with its increasing computer power and the ability to correlate pieces of information, has proven to be the best tool for business problem solving. Like SDLC, an ERP development life cycle provides a systematic approach to implementing ERP software in the changing but limited-resource organizational environment. There are many different vendor-driven methodologies or approaches that use traditional ERP development life cycle or rapid ERP life cycles (e.g., Total Solution, FastTrack, Rapid-Re,ASAP, and BIM)

TRADITIONAL ERP LIFE CYCLE

•The traditional ERP life cycle includes the following major stages:

Stage 1. Scope and Commitment Stage.

Stage 2. Analysis and Design Stage.

Stage 3. Acquisition & Development Stage.

Stage 4. Implementation Stage.

Stage 5. Operation Stage

ROLE OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT

•Change management (CM) plays an important role throughout the ERP life cycle. System failures often occur when the attention is not devoted to this from the beginning stages

 RAPID ERP LIFE CYCLES

•They provide different methodologies and techniques for rapid or accelerated implementation. Scripts and wizards provided by consultants can help automate some of the more common tasks that occur during an implementation. These include migration of data, identification of duplicate data, and other standard tasks.

•The appropriate implementation model may vary based on company, culture, software, budget, and the purpose of the implementation, but previous implementation experience of the program management and consultants will likely be the'largest driving factor in determining the best approach

TOTAL SOLUTION

1. The Value Proposition.

2. Reality Check.

3. AlignedApproach.

4. Success Dimension.

5. Delivering Value.

FASTTRACK

•Phases Designed to reflect and integrate decisions regarding business redesign, organizational change and performance, training, process and systems integrity, client-server technologies and technical architecture.

 1. Scoping and Planning: Project definition and scope. Project planning is initiated.

2. Visioning and Targeting: Needs assessment. Vision and targets identified. As-is modeling.

 3. Redesign: To-be Modeling. Software design and development.

4. Configuration: Software development. Integration test planning.

5. Testing and Delivery: Integration testing. Business and system delivery.

•Areas In addition, it identifies five areas (groups) as an individual thread to be woven into a cohesive fabric through its five phase workplan. The areas and a list of the functions performed are as follows:

1. Project Management (project organization, risk management, planning, monitoring, communications, budgeting, staffing, quality assurance).

2. Information Technology Architecture (hardware and network selection, procurement, installation, operations, software design, development, installation).

3. Process and Systems Integrity (security, audit control).

4. Change Leadership (leadership, commitment, organizations design, change-readiness, policies and procedures, performance measurements).

5. Training and Documentation (needs assessment, training design and delivery for project team, management, end-users, operations, and helpdesk. Scripting of enduser and operations documentation).

RAPID RE

•Gateway, a consulting firm in New York, has developed an ERP life cycle methodology called Rapid Re. The five-stage, 54-step modular methodology is customized to the needs of each project because that is what happens in practice. Individual projects skip, rearrange, or recombine tasks to meet their needs or give greater or lesser emphasis to some tasks.

Stage 1. Preparation. Mobilize, organize, and energize the people who will perform the reengineering project.

Stage 2. Identification. Develop a customer-oriented process model of the business.

Stage 3. Vision. Select the processes to reengineer and formulate redesign options capable of achieving breakthrough performance

Stage 4. Solution. Define the technical and social requirements for the new processes and develop detailed implementation plans.

Stage 5. Transformation. Implement the reengineering plans. In an ideal project, stages one and two consider all key processes within a company and conclude with a step that sets priorities for the processes to reengineer. The other stages are executed repeatedly for each process selected for reengineering.

ACCELERATED SAP (ASAP)

•The ASAP Roadmap is a detailed project plan by SAP that describes all activities in an implementation. It includes the entire technical area to support technical project management, and addresses such concerns as interfaces, data conversions, and authorizations earlier than do most traditional implementations. The ASAP Roadmap consists of five phases: project preparation, business blueprint, realization, final preparation, go-live, and support continuous change.

Phase 1. Project Preparation. Proper planning and assessing organizational readiness is essential. Determine if there is a:

• full agreement that all company decision makers are behind the project

• clear project objectives

• efficient decision-making process

• company culture that is willing to accept change.

Phase 2. Business Blueprint.

Phase 3. Realization.

Phase 4. Final Preparation.

Phase 5. Go-Live and Support.

BUSINESS INTEGRATION METHODOLOGY (BIM)

•The BIM methodology, developed by Accenture Systems in the 1990s, is targeted for full-scale ERP projects that diagnose business integration needs, design business strategies and architectures, deliver one or more business capabilities to meet those needs, and ensure that the value of those capabilities can be sustained over time.

1.The Planning Phase.

2.The Delivering Phase

3.The Managing Phase.

4.The Operating Phase.