Basic Overview of ERP Software Development - Advantages & Disadvantages
Enterprise Resource Planning:
ERP is a platform that facilitates the database control in a company. The working mechanism of ERP is simple and easy to understand. ERP aims to unite the data processed in various departments and division of a company. The central unit referred as the platform controls the entire system. It aims at providing connectivity in order to access the information from all faculties. The benefit of ERP is largely felt nowadays when operations are becoming global in the true sense.
With the intervention of ERP it becomes equally easy for the other departments of the company to check the information regarding the order. Similarly it is not necessary for departments to keep working on it all through to know their chance or in other words discharging their respective area of work in the whole process. On the contrary ERP intimates them as soon as it is their chance. ERP software solution is the one step answer. Implementing ERP in an organization depends upon that whether it could yield necessary benefits rather than the troublemaker.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
is an integrated computer-based system used to manage internal and external resources including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources. It is a software architecture whose purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. Built on a centralized database and normally utilizing a common computing platform, ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise wide system environment.
An ERP system can either reside on a centralized server or be distributed across modular hardware and software units that provide "services" and communicate on a local area network. The distributed design allows a business to assemble modules from different vendors without the need for the placement of multiple copies of complex, expensive computer systems in areas which will not use their full capacity.
Origin of the term
The initialism ERP was first employed by research and analysis firm Gartner Group in 1990 as an extension of MRP (Material Requirements Planning; later manufacturing resource planning) and CIM (Computer Integrated Manufacturing), and while not supplanting these terms, it has come to represent a larger whole. It came into use as makers of MRP software started to develop software applications beyond the manufacturing arena. ERP systems now attempt to cover all core functions of an enterprise, regardless of the organization's business or charter. These systems can now be found in non-manufacturing businesses, non-profit organizations and governments.
To be considered an ERP system, a software package should have the following traits:
- It should be integrated and operate in real-time with no periodic batch updates.
- All applications should access one database to prevent redundant data and multiple data definitions.
- All modules should have the same look and feel.
- Users should be able to access any information in the system without needed integration work on the part of the IS department