Lies Your ERP System Tells You

This article focuses on the difficulties enterprise resource planning (ERP) faces in bridging gaps between businesses and vendors. Enterprise resource management systems promise to simplify business planning, but gaps remain in moving information to and from the factory floor. ERP vendors are making it easier to get that information. Market leader SAP, for example, is collaborating with companies that make manufacturing software. Management execution systems manage automated equipment, and moderate the flow of information to and from enterprise systems. Vendors have also rethought how ERP delivers value. Instead of emphasizing control, they talk increasingly must do it despite ongoing changes in models, specifications, and configurations. Data grow stale and corrupt over time, according to a consultant. Experts suggest that when operational personnel take as much responsibility for manufacturing data as they do for their pay checks, they will be able to count on their ERP systems to tell the truth.