RE: Is ERP dead? -- MIDRANGE-L

<RANT>

Somehow I don't see the value in an ERP package for an established company.
If you have decent software that does what a package will do, chances are it
will work better for you than an ERP package and will be easier to extend.
Of course, "decent software" is the part that's questionable.  When I read
the stories in the trade magazines about moves to ERP or whatever the flavor
of the month is, over and over again, the problem seems to be badly written
existing software.  The articles never deal with how the companies decided
to go with the package rather than fixing what they had.  I often wonder
whether it would have been better to do it in house.  Certainly, a lot of
the obvious blood baths reported in the magazines as unqualified successes
don't give me a lot of confidence in the package alternative.

If you don't know whether or not you have inventory available to fill
orders, you shouldn't be selling stuff.  That results from ignoring the
operational side of the business.  Whether you have an ERP package or not
doesn't matter.  Many companies had perfectly good systems to do this long
before the term "ERP" was invented.  It's Moliere's old gag about
discovering you've been speaking prose all your life.  

</RANT>

-----Original Message-----
From: DAsmussen@aol.com [mailto:DAsmussen@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2000 10:14 PM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Is ERP dead?


Booth,

In a message dated 5/26/00 10:05:26 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
boothm@earth.Goddard.edu writes:

> The featured speaker at our recent AS/400 User Group meeting made the 
>  off-hand remark that ERP is dead.  When did this happen? Who is next of 
>  kin?

Thanks!  I think you just gave me my next IMHO topic.  ERP was dead before 
they came up with the acronym, just as it died as JIT, MRP II, and MRP
before 
it.  ERP, or whatever acronym you use, is a company-wide commitment
requiring 
an average of 18 months to implement.  Most companies, especially in today's

"what have you done for me in the last quarter" stock market, don't have the

stones to properly implement ERP.  After three or more failed attempts 
(failed because they didn't commit the proper resources other than money) 
most companies just gave up.  Don't give me that "e-commerce" crap as a 
replacement, either.  You can't get a decent ATP (available to promise) 
without having either an ERP system in place or more warehouse space than 
God.  Note the companies that failed in e-commerce last Christmas were the 
ones that took orders but didn't know that they couldn't fill them...

Regards!

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"Often the best way to win is to forget to keep score."  -- Marianne
Espinosa 
Murphey
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator:
david@midrange.com
+---
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---