Open source ERP for SMEs.

For the last decade or so, the biggest category of the IT investment has unarguably been Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Most of the bigger corporations in the developed countries have implemented ERP systems with an aim to achieving competitive edge in their respective business areas. Now that the top end of the ERP market has been saturated, the main interest has moved to non-commercial sectors such as universities and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). These organisations have not been able benefit directly from the ERP revolution because an ERP implementation requires huge resources and entails high risks. Over the same period, the concept of Open Source Software (OSS) has been enthusiastically adopted by the software engineering community. OSS has excelled in many systems software domains, for example, operating systems with Linux and web servers with Apache. Having observed these successes, the software industry has been showing interest in application domains such as enterprise information systems, more specifically ERP systems, as the next OSS candidates. In this paper, we outline the challenges as well as opportunities of OSS ERP development

Supporting the reconciliation of models of object behaviour

This paper presents Reconciliation+, a method which identifies overlaps between models of software systems behaviour expressed as UML object interaction diagrams (i.e., sequence and/or collaboration diagrams), checks whether the overlapping elements of these models satisfy specific consistency rules and, in cases where they violate these rules, guides software designers in handling the detected inconsistencies. The method detects overlaps between object interaction diagrams by using a probabilistic message matching algorithm that has been developed for this purpose. The guidance to software designers on when to check for inconsistencies and how to deal with them is delivered by enacting a built-in process model that specifies the consistency rules that can be checked against overlapping models and different ways of handling violations of these rules. Reconciliation+ is supported by a toolkit. It has also been evaluated in a case study. This case study has produced positive results which are discussed in the paper

Ada code reuse guidelines for design-for-reuse

The phenomenal growth in the costs of producing software over the last three decades has forced the computing industry to look for alternative strategies to that implied by the waterfall model of computer system development. One frequently observed solution is that of reusing the code from previously designed systems in the construction of new ones; this technique is known as software reuse. Ada language was developed as a tool to address the above problems and is believed to have many useful language features such as package and generics to produce reusable software. But programming in Ada does not guarantee the production of highly reusable software. Therefore guidelines for users are needed to maximise the benefits from using Ada. In this thesis, Ada code reuse guidelines are proposed, and as an attempt to prove the usefulness of them, reuse metrics are studied. The thesis concludes by stressing the novelty of the approach, the difficulties encountered, and enhancements to the proposed methods to overcome these shortcomings

Redocumentation through design pattern recovery:: an investigation and an implementation

In this thesis, two methods are developed in an aid to help users capture valuable design information and knowledge and reuse them. They are the design pattern recovery (DPR) method and pattern-based redocumentation (PBR) method. The DPR method is for matching up metrics of patterns with patterns themselves in order to capture valuable design information. Patterns are used as a container for storing the information. Two new metrics, i.e., p-value and s-value are introduced. They are obtained by analysing product metrics statistically. Once patterns have been detected from a system, the system can be redocumented using these patterns. Some existing XML (extensible Markup Language) technologies are utilised in order to realise the PRB method. Next, a case study is carried out to validate the soundness and usefulness of the DPR method. Finally, some conclusions drawn from this research are summarised, and further work is suggested for the researchers in software engineering

Open source ERP for SMEs

For the last decade or so, the biggest category of the IT investment has unarguably been Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Most of the bigger corporations in the developed countries have implemented ERP systems with an aim to achieving competitive edge in their respective business areas. Now that the top end of the ERP market has been saturated, the main interest has moved to non-commercial sectors such as universities and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). These organisations have not been able to benefit directly from the ERP revolution because an ERP implementation requires huge resources and entails high risks. Over the same period, the concept of Open Source Software (OSS) has been enthusiastically adopted by the software engineering community. OSS has excelled in many systems software domains, for example, operating systems with Linux and web servers with Apache. Having observed these successes, the software industry has been showing interest in application domains such as enterprise information systems, more specifically ERP systems, as the next OSS candidates. In this paper, we outline the challenges as well as opportunities of OSS ERP development

Piecewise exact solution of nonlinear momentum conservation equation with unconditional stability for time increment

Exact solution is adopted for computation of the inviscid Burgers equation on finite difference grid. Initial condition and following computed values of the independent variable are assumed to be piecewisely linear between fixed grid points, and local exact solution is used to find the value at the next time step at each grid point. Comparisons of Piecewise Exact Solution Method (PESM), existing upwind scheme, and the analytic solution show that the present method is more accurate than the upwind scheme. The unconditional stability is a strong merit of this method and is shown with a test result

Scour depth around multiple piles for current and wave

Experiments on scour around multiple piles were carried out for several current and wave conditions: pile numbers were 1, 3, and 7; and wave only, current only, and current and wave flows. A moderate wave condition was chosen as the representative wave, which produced relatively small scour depth. A depth-average current speed was chosen as the representative current, which produced relatively large scour hole. When waves were superimposed on current, scour hole depth decreased. Existing the Sumer and Fredsøe’s prediction formula of scour hole depth for current and wave flows for multiple piles describes the present experimental results reasonably well

Simulation of tombolo evolution by using CST3D-WA

Wave-average area morphologic change numerical modelling system, CST3D, is adopted to reproduce tombolo and salient evolution behind a detached breakwater at a laboratory. The numerical wave-average morphologic model equips the beachface slope controlling method. Beachface slope varies between two extreme values for erosion and siltation modes. The beachface slope is checked every time step, and the morphology at the beachface and flat surf terrace is modified, if necessary. The model system reproduced tombolo and salient evolution for 2 cases of Ming and Chiew’s experiments. Model results implies the length of the detached emerged structure plays an important role on formation of tombolos

Extension of piecewise exact solution method for two- and three-dimensional fluid flows

Extended forms of a pseudo-numerical scheme for advection terms in fluid momentum equations are proposed here. The fact that analytic solution exists for the Burgers equation, if velocity distribution in space is straight for one-dimensional flow, was shown by Jang et al. Analytic solution also exists for two- or three-dimensional fluid flows, if the velocity components in two- or three-direction are linearly distributed in space, and the existing piecewise exact solution method is extended for two- and three-dimensions here. The analytic solution is adopted for computation of the advecting property of fluid momentum in two- or three-dimensional directions. This method produces zero numerical error during one time increment so that it is distinguished from any other numerical scheme which produces small or large numerical error within one time increment. The behavior of the new scheme is demonstrated for two- and three-dimensional examples. The nonlinear modifications of velocity profiles towards singularity with time progress are well simulated for three test cases. The computed maximum relative errors for a given condition for one-, two-, and three-dimensions become larger as the number of dimension increases. The scheme is believed to work well for two- and three-dimensional flows