Page 33 - MetalForming September 2013

the planet today, producing a wide range of value from very low to very high. To many, modern technology- enabled solutions still might seem the stuff of science fiction, when in fact they are installed in numerous pro- duction-manufacturing environments and producing results nothing short of amazing.
What generation of ERP are you running today? Have you recently explored the world of very real possi- bilities? If not, you may be missing out and losing ground in terms of com- petitive advantage.
Next-Generation ERP
Shops running older
ERP solutions, especially
those implemented before
2000, can benefit greatly
from modern, technolo- gy-enabled, next-genera-
tion ERP. Unless you are a technologist (and most
business executives are
not), you might not know
or care about that under-
lying technology, because
you don’t understand it.
But it is dangerous to
ignore it. While you don’t
need to know how newer development platforms
can allow your solution provider to deliver more innovation, it is very important that you understand the potential.
The “basics” of ERP used to be defined by basic functionality required by all types of companies. Basics usu- ally referred to core modules of ERP: general ledger, accounts and receiv- able, order management, purchasing and inventory control. For manufac- turers it also included MRP and the basic requirements for scheduling, cre- ating and managing production orders. Those modules remain important today, but the basics now include advanced-technology modules includ- ing work flow, event management (trig- gers and alerts), process modeling and enterprise portals. Older legacy solu- tions may not even include these
advanced options in their portfolios. What else should manufacturers look for? Without fully understanding the technology platform on which next- generation ERP solutions are built, it may be difficult to recognize available features. Here are a few hints to listen for as vendors describe their offerings:
• Service-oriented architecture
• Object-oriented data models
• Event-driven or message-based
technology
• Semantic layers
• Mobility
• Rules engines
• In-memory databases • HTML5 and XML
very real problem by making the user interface more intuitive and person- alized, much like the user interfaces found on mobile device. We call this the “consumerization” of IT, and the trend includes web-based access, making ERP accessible anywhere, anytime through mobile devices. Touch tech- nology is making its way into the hands of ERP users. Look for this to become more pervasive and for more devices to be natively supported.
New ways of engaging with ERP have put ease of use atop the leader board in terms of selection criteria. This is much more than just an intuitive user interface or how an accounts-
payable clerk or a material handlerinteractswithERP. Now business executives can readily put tabs on the pulse of the company through a select number of key performance indi- cators (KPIs). Next-gener- ation ERP solutions can present custom graphical view of KPIs and also allow an executive to drill down to successive levels of detail. These customized views combine ERP with other tools such as e-mail and Microsoft Office, and
can even offer chat functions allowing the user to record instant messages. And, they will be available on a myriad of devices.
Customization vs. Configuration and Tailoring
Different roles in the organization require different views, and different individuals also may require unique views. And what organization today doesn’t think it isn’t unique in some way? With traditional ERP based on older technology, providing a variety of views mean customization. Developers were forced to muck around in source code, which built barriers to moving forward with updates and upgrades. This made business applications like ERP rigid and inflexible. Sure, there were always some configuration
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All of these next-generation ERP features represent new ways of engag- ingwithERP,easeofconfigurationver- sus customization, improved integra- tion capabilities and new ways to deliver innovation.
New Ways to Engage With ERP
Users traditionally have engaged with ERP through a hierarchical series of menus, which require at least a rudi- mentary knowledge of data and process organization. Hopefully this organiza- tion reflects how the company and its business processes are structured. But, with a hierarchy of menus, there are no guarantees and so there also are no guarantees that navigation will be intu- itive or that business processes will be streamlined and efficient.
Next-generation ERP attacks this