Critical success factors in ERP implementation: A review

ERP systems have become vital strategic tools in today’s competitive business environment. This ongoing research study presents a review of recent research work in ERP systems. It attempts to identify the main benefits of ERP systems, the drawbacks and the critical success factors for implementation discussed in the relevant literature. The findings revealed that despite some organizations have faced challenges undertaking ERP implementations, many others have enjoyed the benefits that the systems have brought to the organizations. ERP system facilitates the smooth flow of common functional information and practices across the entire organization. In addition, it improves the performance of the supply chain and reduces the cycle times. However, without top management support, having appropriate business plan and vision, re-engineering business process, effective project management, user involvement and education and training, organizations can not embrace the full benefits of such complex system and the risk of failure might be at high level

A rain height model to predict fading due to wet snow on terrestrial links

Recommendation ITU‐R P.530‐13 provides an internationally recognized prediction model for the fading due to wet snow on low‐elevation, terrestrial microwave links. An important parameter in this model is the altitude difference between the link and the rain height. The top of rain events is usually assumed to be 360 m above the zero‐degreeisotherm (ZDI). Above this height, hydrometeors are ice with low specific attenuation. Below this level, melting ice particles produce a specific attenuation up to 4 times that of the associated rain rate. A previous paper identified increasing ZDI height trends across northern Europe, North America and central Asia with slopes up to 10 m/yr. This paper examines NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction-National Center for Atmospheric Research Reanalysis 1 data to identify global distributions of ZDI height around mean levels that increase linearly over time. The average annual distribution of ZDI heights relative to the annual mean are calculated for each NOAA Reanalysis grid square and skew normal distributions are fitted. These are compared to models in Recommendation ITU‐R P.530‐13 and Recommendation ITU‐R 452‐14. The effects of ZDI trends and the calculated skew normal distributions are illustrated using calculated trends in fading due to wet snow for two notional 38 GHz links in Edinburgh. A slow decrease in the incidence of fading due to wet snow is predicted over most of Europe. However, some links could experience increases where warming has increased the wetness of snow

Determining how information technology is changing the role of leadership in virtual organization

Includes bibliographical references

Centralized versus market-based approaches to mobile task allocation problem: State-of-the-art

Centralized approach has been adopted for finding solutions to resource allocation problems (RAPs) in many real-life applications. On the other hand, market-based approach has been proposed as an alternative to solve the problem due to recent advancement in ICT technologies. In spite of the existence of some efforts to review the pros and cons of each approach in RAPs, the studies cannot be directly applied to specific problem domains like mobile task allocation problem which is characterised with high level of uncertainty on the availability of resources (workers). This paper aims to review existing studies on task allocation problems(TAPs) focusing on those two approaches and their comparison and identify major issues that need to be resolved for comparing the two approaches in mobile task allocation problems. Mobile Task Allocation Problem (MTAP) is defined and its problematic structures are explained in relation with task allocation to mobile workers. Solutions produced by each approach to some applications and variations of MTAP are also discussed and compared. Finally, some future research directions are identified in order to compare both approaches in function of uncertainty emerging from the mobile nature of the MTAP

Trends in the incidence of rain height and the effects on global satellite telecommunications

Satellite communications using millimetre waves, in Ka band and above, experience significant fading by rain. Strong attenuation is experienced between the ground station and a level known as the rain height, in ITU-R recommendations assumed to be 360 m above the zero-degree isotherm (ZDI). This paper examines NOAA NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 1 data to identify changes in the ZDI height over the last 30 years. Near the equator and the poles the ZDI height has been approximately stable over this period. However, in mid-latitudes, different regions show trends of increasing or decreasing ZDI height. Over the economically important regions of North America, China and Western Europe, the ZDI height has shown an increasing trend with peak rates in the range of 8 to 10 metres per year. Given a twenty-year life-time of a satellite system, this could lead to a 10 to 20% increase in fade intensity from a similar rain event. The effect will be compounded by increasing trends in the incidence of heavy rain recently identified in UK data. These trends will need to be considered when designing new systems

Extending IT infrastructures in the service sector organisations through enterprise resource planning – a telecom case study

Copyright @ 2012 ISEing.Service Sector Organisations (SSOs) have significantly focused on adopting and implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to automate their prime business processes, enhance organisational productivity with lower costs and prompt service delivery to fulfil consumer demands. Thus, ERP systems are considered as a principal source to provide imperative information vital for strategic decision making process. On the contrary, ERP systems adoption and implementation is also highly considered as a challenging and expensive process that not only requires rigorous efforts but also demands to have an exhaustive investigation of influential factors that are critical to the adoption and implementation of ERP systems. As a result, the authors exhibit that it is of great significance to investigate this area within SSOs. In so doing, this paper thus focuses on the ERP critical success factors from five different categories such as: stakeholders; process; technology; organisation; and project based on the literature analysis. These perspectives comprise of 24 factors that are imperative for a successful ERP adoption and implementation. These factors are validated through an in-depth qualitative single case study based research. The findings from the literature and empirical demonstrate that most of the factors influencing the decision making process for ERP adoption and implementation are highly significant with exception to few that have either low or medium importance