ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

COMMONALITIES AND CONTRASTS: AN INVESTIGATION OF ERP USABILITY IN A COMPARATIVE USER STUDY

In recent years, several user studies have examined specific usability problems in the field of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). These studies focused on different branches, various usability aspects, and several user groups. In spite of this diversification, some common and essential usability problems have become apparent, which are related to system complexity and difficulties in finding required information. However, these findings are based on the situation in a specific country, a singular ERP system and few data samples. Therefore, this paper aims at complementing the related work by results from a comparative user survey from two different European countries: Germany and Latvia. The survey is based on 184 ERP users from Germany and 24 ERP users from Latvia. The results indicated that both countries have several contrasts, but also diverse commonalities in industry, ERP market and culture. However, users in both countries are very homogenous with regard to the assessment of usability problems in their ERP interfaces. This paper investigates elementary usability problems derived from the related work and examines to which extent they are valid in both countries today. The main hypothesis claims that diverse national characteristics do not necessarily lead to a different assessment of usability problems in ERP systems

Information systems evaluation methodologies

Due to the prevalent use of Information Systems (IS) in modern organisations nowadays, evaluation research in this field is becoming more and more important. In light of this, a set of rigorous methodologies were developed and used by IS researchers and practitioners to evaluate the increasingly complex IS implementation used. Moreover, different types of IS and different focusing perspectives of the evaluation require the selection and use of different evaluation approaches and methodologies. This paper aims to identify, explore, investigate and discuss the various key methodologies that can be used in IS evaluation from different perspectives, namely in nature (e.g. summative vs. formative evaluation) and in strategy (e.g. goal-based, goal-free and criteria-based evaluation). The paper concludes that evaluation methodologies should be selected depending on the nature of the IS and the specific goals and objectives of the evaluation. Nonetheless, it is also proposed that formative criteria-based evaluation and summative criteria-based evaluation are currently among the most and more widely used in IS research. The authors suggest that the combines used of one or more of these approaches can be applied at different stages of the IS life cycle in order to generate more rigorous and reliable evaluation outcomes

An evaluation framework to drive future evolution of a research prototype

The Open Source Component Artefact Repository (OSCAR) requires evaluation to confirm its suitability as a development environment for distributed software engineers. The evaluation will take note of several factors including usability of OSCAR as a stand-alone system, scalability and maintainability of the system and novel features not provided by existing artefact management systems. Additionally, the evaluation design attempts to address some of the omissions (due to time constraints) from the industrial partner evaluations. This evaluation is intended to be a prelude to the evaluation of the awareness support being added to OSCAR; thus establishing a baseline to which the effects of awareness support may be compared

nformation Quality, Reporting and Organisational Performance

This study aims at the exploration of the statistical relationship between the quality of the Information produced by Information Systems (IS) such as ERPs and Organisational Performance. The definition of information quality encompasses measures such as accuracy, precision, currency, timeliness, conciseness, which aim at providing decision tools to the users of any Information System. Producing quality information /reports is the primary purpose of any IS. The results from a survey on 168 Greek companies show a strong correlation between Information Quality and Organisational Performance when this is expressed by financial and not financial measures

Accessibility of websites of the European national tourism boards

Purpose: The aim is to find out the current state of accessibility of the websites of European national tourism boards. Furthermore, the identification of the most common errors in terms of accessibility as well as recommendations leading to their correction is aimed for. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on methods of testing the availability of web systems. The testing included automated tools, namely AChecker and Accessibility Evaluation Tool, as well as the WCAG 2.1 checklist developed by WebAIM initiative. Findings: The research has shown a relatively high accessibility of those websites. Nevertheless, some accessibility violations have been identified that can significantly complicate the accessibility of those websites for users using various assistive devices or other alternative hardware or software means. The most commonly identified errors include: failure to use alternative text for content-relevant images, the absence of text or audio transcripts for videos shared via Youtube, missing descriptions for text form elements and missing label for search form. Practical implications: The results of the research can be used in the evaluation of web presentations at the level of tourism boards and destination management. Originality/Value: The main output of this article is the application of web testing methodology on a comprehensive set of national tourist boards.peer-reviewe

Assessing the transformability of public housing through bim

Public residential buildings make a large portion of the European existing stock and they quite often require deep renovation interventions. A methodology for setting priorities and targeting regeneration investments should be defined relying on the increasing use of building information modelling (BIM) tools even for managing existing buildings. The aim of this paper is to integrate the evaluation process into BIM Revit software developing a specific plug-in, a Decision support system (DSS) that will help to identify the most appropriate flats to be transformed. It is based on measuring three indicators: Usability, Fragmentation, and Constructive Modifiability. Through their weighted average it is possible to obtain a final transformability score. The proposed approach has been tested on a case study chosen within the 1st P.E.E.P. (1st public plan for council and affordable housing) that has been approved in Rome in 1964. The results demonstrate that the transformability of apartments is related mainly to the Constructive Modifiability indicator and buildings with reinforced concrete frames show higher scores. A widespread application of such a methodology on large real estate portfolio may lead stakeholders involved in housing management investments in clear choices related to maintenance of buildings

European criteria for assessing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems: Preliminary Results from Multiple Empirical Studies

This research report provides preliminary results in terms of ERP system selection criteria across five European Union countries based on empirical studies. The paper provides a structured list of decision making criteria considered in ERP decisions and contrasts weights as well as achievement levels across countries. Research was guided by the Delone & McLean Information Systems (D&M IS) success model supported with views on project and vendor related aspects needed to capture the whole scope of the decision problem. The main considered dimensions were: quality; net benefits; project costs and time; and a vendor dimension. Especially the considered dimensions from the D&M IS success model, namely quality and net benefits varied across countries in terms of their initial weighting and satisfaction levels achieved after ERP implementation. However, a common global notion seems to be that quality and project related criteria are more important to the decision maker than potential benefits on the organisational or individual level