Surfacing ERP exploitation risks through a risk ontology

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a risk identification checklist for facilitating user companies to surface, organise and manage potential risks associated with the post-adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Design/methodology/approach – A desktop study, based on the process of a critical literature review, was conducted by the researchers. The critical review focused on IS and business research papers, books, case studies and theoretical articles, etc. Findings – By systematically and critically analysing and synthesising the literature reviewed, the researchers identified and proposed a total of 40 ERP post-implementation risks related to diverse operational, analytical, organisation-wide and technical aspects. A risk ontology was subsequently established to highlight these ERP risks, as well as to present their potential causal relationships. Research limitations/implications – For researchers, the established ERP risk ontology represents a starting point for further research, and provides early insights into a research field that will become increasingly important as more and more companies progress from implementation to exploitation of ERPs. Practical implications – For practitioners, the risk ontology is an important tool and checklist to support risk identification, prevention, management and control, as well as to facilitate strategic planning and decision making. Originality/value – There is a scarcity of studies focusing on ERP post-implementation in contrast with an over abundance of studies focusing on system implementation and project management aspects. This paper aims to fill this significant research gap by presenting a risk ontology of ERP post-adoption. It represents a first attempt in producing a comprehensive model in its area. No other such models could be found from the literature reviewed

Non-spectator Contributions To The Lifetime of Λb\Lambda_{b}

In this work, we evaluate the contributions of non-spectator effects to the lifetimes of $\Lambda_b$ and B-mesons. Based on the well-established models and within a reasonable range of the concerned parameters, the contributions can reduce the lifetime of $\Lambda_b$ by $7 \sim 8$ compared to that of B-mesons which are not significantly affected. This might partly explain the measured ratio $\tau(\Lambda_{b})/\tau(B^{0})=0.79$ \cite{Data}, which has been a long-standing discrepancy between theory and experimental data

Why ERP Post-Implementation Fails? Lessons Learned from A Failure Case in China

When thousands of Chinese companies have implemented ERP systems as a means of optimising business processes and improving management efficiency, how to realise the full benefits promised by these systems and achieve continuous ERP success emerges to be the real challenge faced by practitioners. This paper reports on an empirical study that aimed to examine and explore factors that can affect ERP performance and even trigger ERP post-implementation failure in the Chinese context. The research took a Chinese manufacturing firm, which recently failed in ERP exploitation, as a case study. It adopted an inductive research design supported by in-depth interviews and participative observation as the main methods of data collection. The findings identified that ERP exploitation failure in the case company was not just caused by technical pitfalls of the system, but more importantly was also attributed to critical problems related to top management, IT professional and system users. By drawing on the findings of the case study, the researchers identified a list of key lessons and recommendations that are valuable for helping Chinese companies to play more successfully in ERP usage and exploitation

Barriers and risks associated with the post-implementation of ERP systems in China : cases of state-owned enterprises in the electronic and telecommunication manufacturing sector in Guangdong.

Since 1978, China has gradually reformed its economic system from the traditional planning economy to a more competitive market-oriented economy. After an effort of three decades, China has now become the world's fourth-largest economy behind the US, Japan and Germany. Nevertheless, the continuous national economic reform and entrance of foreign companies have significantly changed China's business status quo, and resulted in increasingly drastic market competition in the domestic market. Faced with this competitive environment and economic pressure, thousands of Chinese companies have implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in order to improve operational efficiency and enhance core competencies

Nonclassical photon pairs generated from a room-temperature atomic ensemble

We report experimental generation of non-classically correlated photon pairs from collective emission in a room-temperature atomic vapor cell. The nonclassical feature of the emission is demonstrated by observing a violation of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Each pair of correlated photons are separated by a controllable time delay up to 2 microseconds. This experiment demonstrates an important step towards the realization of the Duan-Lukin-Cirac-Zoller scheme for scalable long-distance quantum communication.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Identifying And Improving Deficient Business Processes To Prepare SMEs For ERP Implementation

The study reported in this paper aims to identify, explore and improve hitherto deficient business processes for SMEs in order to prepare them for ERP implementation projects. When business process improvement is traditionally perceived as a task that is particularly related to the ERP project phase, this paper argues that broad changes of business processes should actually be performed well before implementing the system. The research took a Cypriot SME as a case study, and adopted in-depth interview as the main method of data collection. The qualitative data collected was analysed by using an inductive thematic analysis approach. The findings identified that business deficiencies and problems, which can impact potential ERP adoption and usage in SMEs, can be localised across business processes, e.g. sales ordering and stock controlling processes. Disregarding these deficient business processes and business drawbacks in the ERP preparation stage will have implications not just for the subsequent ERP project, but also for the long-term ERP usage

Reduced expression of Metastasis Suppressor-1 (MTSS1) accelerates progression of human bladder uroepithelium cell carcinoma

Background: Metastasis suppressor 1 (MTSS1) is a multi-functional cytoskeletal protein. Recent research showed that MTSS1 is a potential tumor suppressor in many types of cancer cells, including kidney and bladder cancer cells. However, the clinical implication of MTSS1 in human bladder uroepithelium cell carcinoma (BUCC) and its potential in suppressing BUCC tumorigenesis remains undetermined. In the present study, the expression of MTSS1 in human BUCC tissue samples, and correlations between MTSS1 and pathological grade and stage of the tumors were examined in BUCC specimens. The function of MTSS1 in BUCC progression was explored. Materials and Methods: The mRNA and protein expression of MTSS1 were examined in 68 BUCC tissue samples with matching adjacent normal bladder tissues using quantitative real-time PCR and western blotting. Furthermore, the bladder cancer cell line 5637 was used to determine the anticancer effect of MTSS1. Results: Lower MTSS1 mRNA expression was recorded in BUCC tissues compared to normal bladder tissues. A lower MTSS1 mRNA level was observed in tumors with high clinical stage and with high pathological nuclear grade. Likewise, MTSS1 protein expression in normal bladder tissue was significantly higher than that in BUCC tissue. The protein level of MTSS1 significantly negatively correlated with clinical stage and pathological nuclear grade of BUCC. Cumulative survival curves indicated that MTSS1 expression was negatively correlated with survival time: patients with a high level of MTSS1 had significantly longer survival time than those with a low level of MTSS1 (p<0.001). Overexpression of MTSS1 reduced BUCC cell proliferation, cell-cycle progression and colony formation, but had no influence on BUCC cell apoptosis. Conclusion: Overexpression of MTSS1 suppresses BUCC development, providing a novel perspective for BUCC tumorigenesis and a potential therapeutic target for BUCC

Standardized Volume Power Density Boost in Frequency-Up Converted Contact-Separation Mode Triboelectric Nanogenerators

The influence of a mechanical structure’s volume increment on the volume power density (VPD) of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) is often neglected when considering surface charge density and surface power density. This paper aims to address this gap by introducing a standardized VPD metric for a more comprehensive evaluation of TENG performance. The study specifically focuses on 2 frequency-up mechanisms, namely, the integration of planetary gears (PG-TENG) and the implementation of a double-cantilever structure (DC-TENG), to investigate their impact on VPD. The study reveals that the PG-TENG achieves the highest volume average power density, measuring at 0.92 W/m3. This value surpasses the DC-TENG by 1.26 times and the counterpart TENG by a magnitude of 69.9 times. Additionally, the PG-TENG demonstrates superior average power output. These findings introduce a new approach for enhancing TENGs by incorporating frequency-up mechanisms, and highlight the importance of VPD as a key performance metric for evaluating TENGs