News & Views

June 28, 2011 from Manufacturing AUTOMATION – “Canadian manufacturers and distributors are increasingly turning to ERP to help them improve their fortunes, especially in the face of low-cost foreign competition and the high Canadian dollar. Many hope that ERP – or enterprise resource planning – software will help them become more efficient, productive and profitable. Unfortunately, too many companies learn that the path to ERP-driven value is more like a labyrinth.

Together with Manufacturing AUTOMATION, we surveyed 74 Canadian manufacturers and distributors with the goal of uncovering common, key drivers of ERP success. We defined ERP success relative to implementation, because a solid implementation is the launching point of ERP-driven value. To meet our definition of success, an ERP implementation must have been delivered on time, within five percent of budget, and to a level satisfactory to all stakeholders.

Surprisingly, only 18 percent of the respondents’ implementation projects qualified as successful…”

180 View – This is not good news. However it’s not surprising that ERP systems are not on time or on budget. Most organizations that have selected an ERP system have engaged a vendor to implement the new system based on poorly defined scope/requirements and a time and materials contract. Another big problem is that most organizations have not defined measurements of success before starting an ERP implementation making it almost impossible to achieve a “level satisfactory to all stakeholders”.