ERP Usability and the Mangle of Practice: Improving Work Processes and Employee Performance

After investing billions of dollars in their ERP implementations, many companies have continued to struggle with system inefficiency and user dissatisfaction. This paper aims to redefine ERP usability through the lens of sociomateriality and the related concept of the mangle of practice. Presenting research on agencies and assemblages derived from ERP system utilization, we conduct a content analysis of 50 interviews with ERP users to explore how material agencies are not pre-given but emerge temporally in practice through a dialectical process of resistance and accommodation. The insights gained from this research may offer a better understanding of the agency of ERP systems, their users, and the interrelated attributes of this assemblage. This approach may be particularly valuable in researching the expansion of management knowledge related to ERP best practices in everyday organizational life

Toiminnanohjausjärjestelmän käytettävyyden parantaminen aloitteleville ja kokeneille käyttäjille

Despite benefits and importance of ERP systems, they suffer from many usability problems. They have user interfaces that are complex and suffer from "daunting usability problems". Also, their implementation success rate is relatively low and their usability significantly influences this implementation success. As a company offering an ERP system to ferry operators was planning to renew the user interface of this system in future, we investigated usability of the current system so this could guide future implementation of the new user interface. We studied new and long time users by conducting sessions where the users told about their experiences, performed tasks with the system and filled usability questionnaire (System Usability Scale). Many novice and long time users reported problems. The scores from usability questionnaire show all but two participants perceived the usability of the system as below average and in adjective rating "not acceptable". Two users rated the usability as "excellent". We reasoned that there could be a group of users who use the system in such a way and in such context that they do not experience these problems. The results indicate novices have trouble, for example, navigating and completing tasks. Also some long time users reported navigation issues. The system seems to require that it’s users remember lots of things in order to use it well. The interviews and tasks indicate the system is complex and hard to use and both novices and experts face problems. This is supported by perceived usability scores. While experts could in most cases finish all tasks, during interview some of them reported problems such as finding products the customers needed, error reporting being unclear, configuration being tedious, and need for lots of manual typing, for example. We gave recommendations on what to consider when implementing new user interface for this ERP system. For example, navigation should be improved and users should be provided with powerful search tools. ERP usability is not studied much. Our study supports use of already developed heuristics in classifying usability problems. Our recommendations how to improve usability of the ERP system studied should give some guidelines on what could be done, although not much is backed by laboratory studies. More work is needed in this field to find and test solutions to usability problems users face

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

A Conceptual Model for User-system Collaboration: Enhancing Usability of Complex Information Systems

A variety of organizations around the world use complex information systems (e.g., enterprise resource planning and supply chain management systems). However, poor usability caused by system complexity continues to frustrate users and damage the reputation of these systems. In this study, we address usability issues with complex information systems from the human-computer collaboration perspective by modeling user-system interaction as a joint activity between the system and its users. We propose a conceptual model for user-system collaboration, elaborate on the components in the model and the relationships between the components, derive the required capabilities for collaborative information systems, and establish conceptual relationships between system collaborative behaviors and usability. We use empirical evidence gathered from a qualitative field study on ERP systems to illustrate the model and the possible impact of system collaborativeness (i.e., the presence or absence of collaborative capabilities) on usability. We do so to provide a strong conceptual foundation for modeling user-system collaboration and to encourage designers to employ the collaboration metaphor during system design and, thus, help them develop future complex information systems with better usability

An Online Sales System to Be Managed by People with Mental Illness

The percentage of the population aged 65 and over is increasing during the last decades. It is one of the problems that the European health system, and in particular the Spanish system, has to face out. This increase is linked to the rising of dependent people, whose suffer progressive deterioration of both their physical and mental capacities. In this context, technology plays a key role in improving the quality of life, not only of older people but also their caregivers. A technological ecosystem to support patients with mental illness, their caregivers, and the connection with their relatives was developed in previous works. This solution is prepared to evolve according to the users’ and organization’s needs. In this sense, the present work describes the inclusion of a new software tool, an online sales platform that promotes active ageing, seeking that it can be used and managed by older people who may have cognitive impairment problems. Although there are many e-commerce platforms on the market, they not consider users with special needs. The objective has not been to develop a software prototype from scratch, but to focus on aspects relating to accessibility and usability to improve online stores and apply these improvements to an existing solution, following the philosophy of Open Source software development. This work aims to describe the definition process itself

Towards a kansei-based user modeling methodology for eco-design

We propose here to highlight the benefits of building a framework linking Kansei Design (KD), User Centered Design (UCD) and Eco-design, as the correlation between these fields is barely explored in research at the current time. Therefore, we believe Kansei Design could serve the goal of achieving more sustainable products by setting up an accurate understanding of the user in terms of ecological awareness, and consequently enhancing performance in the Eco-design process. In the same way, we will consider the means-end chain approach inspired from marketing research, as it is useful for identifying ecological values, mapping associated functions and defining suitable design solutions. Information gathered will serve as entry data for conducting scenario-based design, and supporting the development of an Eco-friendly User Centered Design methodology (EcoUCD).ANR-ECOUS

Managing a Fleet of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) using Cloud Robotics Platform

In this paper, we provide details of implementing a system for managing a fleet of autonomous mobile robots (AMR) operating in a factory or a warehouse premise. While the robots are themselves autonomous in its motion and obstacle avoidance capability, the target destination for each robot is provided by a global planner. The global planner and the ground vehicles (robots) constitute a multi agent system (MAS) which communicate with each other over a wireless network. Three different approaches are explored for implementation. The first two approaches make use of the distributed computing based Networked Robotics architecture and communication framework of Robot Operating System (ROS) itself while the third approach uses Rapyuta Cloud Robotics framework for this implementation. The comparative performance of these approaches are analyzed through simulation as well as real world experiment with actual robots. These analyses provide an in-depth understanding of the inner working of the Cloud Robotics Platform in contrast to the usual ROS framework. The insight gained through this exercise will be valuable for students as well as practicing engineers interested in implementing similar systems else where. In the process, we also identify few critical limitations of the current Rapyuta platform and provide suggestions to overcome them.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures, journal pape

Ameliorating ERP Workflow Using a Sociomaterial Lens

Many companies struggle with implementing and calibrating prepackaged and configurable enterprise resource planning (ERP) business process workflows, especially master data creation and maintenance. The objective of this paper is to refine the understanding of ERP process workflow adaptability and usage through the lens of sociomateriality. The research aims to explore the degree and the associated consequences of employees’ resistance to packaged ERP workflows. Presenting research on agencies and assemblages derived from ERP system utilization, we conducted a content analysis of 98 interviews, made up of 50 ERP users dealing directly with ERP workflow usage and 48 ERP users involved in master data workflow usage, programming, and administration, to explore how material agencies emerge temporally in practice through a dialectical process of resistance and accommodation. The insights gained from this research may be particularly valuable in researching the expansion of management knowledge related to ERP best practices in everyday organizational life