MRP ERP SAP Trends

Companies have spent billions of dollars and untold man-hours installing vast enterprise resource planning (ERP) software systems. MRP ERP SAP was supposed to take them to new heights of efficiency by enabling them to move financial and other data speedily from one department to another.

But many MRP ERP SAP users, two-thirds of which are manufacturers, have found themselves in the position of the puzzled buyer of a new home with a problem. The big pipes bringing water have been put in, but the plumber forgot to install all the faucets, spigots, shower heads, and other fixtures that make the water useful. Read "data" for "water," and you get an idea of the frustration that has dampened the hopes of many users of ERP.

Fed up with these inadequacies, manufacturers have turned to a software industry that's sprung up to supply the missing faucets. This new group of suppliers, which understands the factory world better than the big-name ERP vendors, offers a wide range of products. Some are ERP modules, relatively inexpensive pieces that can be installed quickly to modify or replace all or part of an MRP ERP SAP system, or even eliminate the need for full-scale conventional ERP.

Most of the new products foster "value-driven manufacturing," a concept much in vogue that embraces various steps that add value for both customer and producer--from removing bottlenecks within a company to broadening its reach via the Internet. The value-driven idea has also caught the attention of the big-name ERP vendors, led by Germany's SAP, which are belatedly coming out with similar software of their own as well as some ERP modules that can be installed quickly. But that hasn't prevented a sales slowdown at SAP and most of its peers, even as business is skyrocketing for independent software companies that got there first.

MRP ERP SAP's most important role is to serve as a backbone for keeping a corporation's books more efficiently than was done with older, less integrated systems. It's not surprising that many ERP programs are geared to an outmoded approach of mass-producing in a top-to-bottom push to build for inventory. In today's manufacturing the emphasis is shifting to "demand pull," based on incoming orders, as well as "flow manufacturing," which allows a fast changeover, as orders come in, from making one product to making another on the same line.

While these changes have gone on, manufacturers have also been swarming to e-commerce. Because conventional ERP software is not designed for these new practices, industry analysts say, it can hamper manufacturing innovation. In a scathing report earlier this year, AMR Research analyst Tom Grace lambasted big ERP vendors for their failure "to wake up and recognize today's customer requirements."

Another big problem with conventional MRP ERP SAP software is complexity. Years can go by before companies get it running. The Gartner Group survey found that only half the companies that bought ERP software from SAP in the past five years have put it to full use, a figure SAP disputes. All the big vendors have been making progress in speeding up installation.

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