Strategies for Implementing a Successful Enterprise Resource Planning System

The U.S. Department of Defense executives consider enterprise resource planning systems as a critical technology because of increasingly global operations and audit compliance pressures, which may affect organizational performance and overall success. The estimated cost to implement enterprise resources systems to avoid failure and meet budget cost across the Department of Defense services and agencies has ranged from $530 million to$2.4 billion. Guided by the general systems theory, the purpose of this single-case study was to explore enterprise resource planning strategies developed and implemented by United States Marine Corps military leaders. Data collection consisted of a review of organizational documents and semistructured interviews of 5 organizational leaders in a United States Marine Corps base in Albany, Georgia. Data analysis entailed interview transcription, keyword and phrase coding, and emergent theme identification. The prominent emergent themes were essential strategic planning guidance and organizational leaders and change management, which are the essential components for effectively implementing enterprise resource planning systems. The Department of Defense executives and senior leaders may use the findings of this study to develop an essential strategic plan, which could reduce the excessive cost and over-budget associated with enterprise resource planning systems. Social change implications include enhancing end user knowledge and reducing inefficiencies within organizations to improve corporate social responsibility

Strategies for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises to Engage Third-Party Logistics Providers

Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) managers struggle to stay competitive. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies SME managers located in Canada use to engage third-party logistics (3PL) providers to improve their supply chains. Porter\u27s value chain theory formed the conceptual framework for this study. Data collection included semistructured interviews with 3 managers from 3 different SMEs in the province of Ontario and a review of the documents related to the use of 3PL providers. Member checking was conducted to enhance credibility of interpretation of the data collected. Data analysis was used to identify key themes, and data triangulation was performed on data from interviews and relevant company documents. Main themes that indicated the benefits of 3PL providers were identified through data analysis. The main themes included access to resources, competitive advantage, and enhanced customer service. Study findings may contribute to social change by helping SME managers improve their survival rate in Canada, maintain or create employment, and generate more personal income and taxes

An integrated framework for improving supply chain performance

In 2009, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants [Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, (2009). Global SCM excellence study., p.5.] reported that 40% of 234 companies had the wrong priorities in regard to efficiency vs. responsiveness. In 2014, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS) [PwC and APICS, Sustainable supply chains: Making value the priority 2014] found that 76% of 500 supply chain executives identified sustainability as an important aspect of their supply chain. The results highlight the importance of achieving consistency between customer expectations, in terms of cost and service level, and supply chain performance in today’s competitive business environment. Despite this, however, no integrated supply chain design framework exists to control majority of the important functions related to supply chain strategy, structure, process and performance. The literature review showed that simulation is rarely considered at the strategic level, but the research experiments highlighted a number of ways in which simulation tools might be useful at this level, such as exploring the impact of strategic fit and decoupling points, and assessing different supply chain network configurations and policies. This research contributes to knowledge by designing and developing a framework that integrates strategy, process and resources, and allows the use of simulation tools to consider the three dimensions of efficiency, responsiveness and sustainability concurrently during the design process. The proposed framework is validated using a hypothetical supply chain network. Simulation allows performance to be assessed under a range of scenarios. The simulation experiments showed that under the suggested policies, efficiency improved from 25.38% to 30.58% and responsiveness rose from 18.37% to 32.78%. However, they also indicated that while policies oriented towards improving responsiveness had a positive impact on sustainability, those oriented towards improving efficiency had a negative impact. The significance of the research lies in its development of a supply chain design framework that could assist companies in achieving the optimum configuration of supply chain resources, thereby helping them reduce inventory, lower costs, enhance responsiveness and improve strategic focus in terms of design, execution and capital investments

Evaluating alternative industrial network organizations and information systems

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a simulation‐based evaluation method for the comparison of different organizational forms and software support levels in the field of supply chain management (SCM). Design/methodology/approach – Apart from widely known logistic performance indicators, the discrete event simulation model considers explicitly coordination cost as stemming from iterative administration procedures. Findings - The method is applied to an exemplary supply chain configuration considering various parameter settings. Curiously, additional coordination cost does not always result in improved logistic performance. Influence factor variations lead to different organizational recommendations. The results confirm the high importance of (up to now) disregarded dimensions when evaluating SCM concepts and IT tools. Research limitations/implications – The model is based on simplified product and network structures. Future research shall include more complex, real world configurations. Practical implications – The developed method is designed for the identification of improvement potential when SCM software is employed. Coordination schemes based only on ERP systems are valid alternatives in industrial practice because significant investment IT can be avoided. Therefore, the evaluation of these coordination procedures, in particular the cost due to iterations, is of high managerial interest and the method provides a comprehensive tool for strategic IT decision making. Originality/value – Reviewed literature is mostly focused on the benefits of SCM software implementations. However, ERP system based supply chain coordination is still widespread industrial practice but associated coordination cost has not been addressed by researchers