L. Wang
Management Information Systems in an Organization
Masters thesis,
Report 2004.TL.6908, Transport Engineering and Logistics / Industrial Organisation.
This master thesis mainly aims to find out whether there are mismatches
between ERP systems and different organizational types at operational
level, and what root causes of those mismatches are, if there are.
On basis of those objectives, types of industrial organization and the
modeling methodology of organization systems are firstly analyzed and
described from a system perspective. The BaanERP system, as a
representative of existing ERP systems, is then examined by using the
system approach.
By examining the modeling process and methodology of the
BaanERP system, it is found that the design of the BaanERP system starts
from a process point of view. This is a typical monodisciplinary design
approach.
Being built on such a single and process design approach, the BaanERP
system runs into several confrontations with its user organizations.
Firstly, a confrontation exists between high requirements from users on
the flexibility of their installed ERP systems and the rigid structure of
the BaanERP system.
Secondly, terminological confusions are aroused due to such a
monodisciplinary approach.
Finally, decomposition by using subsystem approach makes ERP system lose
the overview on the two flow elements during the course of design process.
In order to solve those identified confrontations, we propose an
interdisciplinary and functional oriented design approach for the design
of the BaanERP system in the future. Besides that, the PROPER model is
suggested to be a generic reference model for conducting such a functional
and interdisciplinary design approach.
In this thesis, the study is limited in examining the BaanERP system from a
products flow and a partial orders flow aspects. Other aspects like resources
flow and financial flow, etc. have not been touched. In the future, a more
panoramic view could be taken to examine the performance of ERP systems.
The followings are the conclusions drawn in this thesis:
- There do exist confrontations between the BaanERP system and its adopted
organizations. Those confrontations make the BaanERP system insufficient
to meet the requirements of users on the flexibility of their installed
BaanERP systems.
- The root cause of those confrontations is due to the design methodology
that the BaanERP system takes.
- A functional and interdisciplinary design approach is needed for the
design of the BaanERP system in the future.
Reports on Transport Engineering and Logistics (in Dutch)
Modified: 2005.11.29;
logistics@3mE.tudelft.nl
, TU Delft
/ 3mE
/ TT
/ LT.