An ERP Implementation Method : Studying a Pharmaceutical Company
This work addresses ERP implementation issues for organizations, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing conceptual modeling methods without introducing major innovations.
The paper tackles the challenge of implementing ERP systems like SAP by proposing a modeling approach that uses predefined parts to abstract system specifications and streamline development, aiming to facilitate alignment between software requirements and business processes.
Analysing the development process for an ERP solution, in our case SAP, is one of the most critical processes in implementing standard software packages. Modelling of the proposed system can facilitate the development of enterprise systems not from scratch but through use of predefined parts who represents the best knowledge captured from numerous case studies. This aim at abstracting the specification of the required information system as well as modelling the process towards this goal. Modelling plays a central role in the organisation of the information systems development process and the information systems community has developed a large number of conceptual models, systems of concepts, for representing conceptual schemata. In the area of ERP systems, because of the characteristics that distinguishes them, conceptual modelling can help in all aspects of the development process, from goal elicitation to reuse of the captured knowledge, through the use of the appropriate modelling schemata. SAP offers a standardised software solution, thus making easier the alignment of SAP requirements to enterprise requirements in a goal form, and the correspondent business processes.