ERP in trade press

   I wonder why I seen so many major trade press doing major ERP articles
   recently.  I suspect we are pretty close to the 50 year anniversary of
   APICS inventing ERP, but because of the current anti-IBM campaign in which
   anything that has been around for a few years and continuously improved,
   is legacy that must be replaced with something fresh, people are reluctant
   to admit that ERP has been continuously improved for 50 years.

   Anyhow, I thought you might like to check out some of the following.

   APICS is of course the premier source of ERP education.
   http://www.apics-gftw.com/ERP.htm
   http://www.apics.org/Education/Courseware/erpobjectives.htm
   I have also contributed a small amount to Wikipedia on ERP
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning ... scroll to
   the end to find useful links, such as
   http://www.cio.com/research/erp/edit/erpbasics.html

   Manufacturing Business Technology May 2006 issue www.MBTmag.com   cover
   story "the Year of ERP" actually has several stories where SSA is on their
   radar screen, along with a host of other ERP survivors (there used to be a
   lot more companies before they got consolidated). 

   I was flabbergasted when they quoted AMR Research as saying that fully one
   third of companies under $500 million in revenue are now installing new
   ERP systems.  In my opinion, to get good value out of an ERP system, a
   company should use it for at least a decade, if not several decades,
   before replacing it with something else.  These figures would imply
   enormous churning going on out there.  Other research is quoted on what
   the enterprises involved in the churning are looking for in an ERP.

   The May 2006 Issue of Managing Automation www.managingautomation.com talks
   about the last 20 years, of Manufacturing Technology, and what they
   project for the years ahead.  Based on their timeline, ERP was an
   outgrowth of MRP II, and did not show up until about 10 years ago, but now
   is about dead, being replaced by other software things.  Even though I
   disagreed with their perspective, I found a lot of interesting stuff in
   that issue.

   IT Jungle has a series going on how Productivity is enhanced by ERP, and
   some of the challenges faced by companies not managing it well.  While I
   found some interesting gems in there, the writing is too much like BPCS
   DOC and not enough like a good BPCS manual.
   http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh050806-story04.html

   -
   Al Macintyre
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AlMac
   BPCS/400 Computer Janitor ... see
   http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/stories/2002/11/08/bpcsDocSources.html