Implementation Approaches

The following are the implementation approaches for ERP

Big Bang Approach

In this approach, ERP is implemented at one-go at all the offices of the organisation.

Pilot Rollout

In the Pilot rollout approach, one subsidiary business unit (SBU) is selected as the pilot and ERP is first implemented in that unit. Then it is rolled out to other business units in a phased out manner.

Functional Rollout

In the functional rollout approach, one function like finance or materials management is selected for implementation. Then one by one ERP is implemented for each of the functions in the organisation.

Cross-Develop Global Prototype
In the cross-develop global prototype, a prototype is first developed and tested. Once successful, the implementation is done for the entire organisation.

Common Questions

1. What is ERP?

ERP is a package with the techniques and concepts for the integrated management of business as a whole, for effective use of management resources, to improve the efficiency of an enterprise. Initially, ERP was targeted for manufacturing industry mainly for planning and managing core business like production and financial market. As the growth and merits of ERP package ERP software is designed for basic process of a company from manufacturing to small shops with a target of integrating information across the company.

2. Different types of ERP?

SAP, BAAN, JD Edwards, Oracle Financials, Siebel, PeopleSoft. Among all the ERP’s most of the companies implemented or trying to implement SAP because of number of advantages over other ERP packages.

3. What is SAP?

SAP is the name of the company founded in 1972 under the German name (Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing) is the leading ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software package.

4. Why do you usually choose to implement SAP?

There are number of technical reasons numbers of companies are planning to implement SAP. It’s highly configurable, highly secure data handling, minimum data redundancy, maximum data consistency; you can capitalize on economics of sales like purchasing, tight integration-cross function.

5. Can CRM run without a SAP R/3 implementation?

Certainly, you can run CRM without R/3 implementation. You can use pre-defined content in CRM using your non-SAP data. Here you simply need to map the transfer structures associated with CRM data sources to the inbound data files or load data in CRM.

6. What is IDES?

International Demonstration and Education System. A sample application provided for faster learning and implementation.


7. What is SAP R/3?

A third generation set of highly integrated software modules that performs common business function based on multinational leading practice. Takes care of any enterprise however diverse in operation, spread over the world. In R/3 system all the three servers like presentation; application server and database server are located at different system.

8. What are presentation, application and database servers in SAP R/3?

The application layer of an R/3 System is made up of the application servers and the message server. Application programs in an R/3 System are run on application servers. The application servers communicate with the presentation components, the database, and also with each other, using the message server. All the data are stored in a centralized server. This server is called database server.

9. What are datasets?

The sequential files (processed on application server) are called datasets. They are used for file handling in SAP.

10. How can an ERP such as SAP help a business owner learn more about how business operates?

In order to use an ERP system, a business person must understand the business processes and how they work together from one functional area to the other. This knowledge gives us a much deeper understanding of how a business operates. Using SAP as a tool to learn about ERP systems will require that the
people understand the business processes and how they integrate.

11. Define Master data and Transaction data?

Master Data: Master data is data that remains unchanged over a long period of time. It contains information that is always needed in the same way. With master data you are dealing with attributes, texts or hierarchies.
Transaction data: Data relating to the day-to-day transactions is the Transaction data.

12. Name some drawbacks of SAP?

Interfaces are huge problem, Determine where master data resides, Expensive, very complex, demands highly trained staff, lengthy implementation time.

13. What are variables?

Variables are parameters of a query that are set in the parameter query definition and are not filled with values until the queries are inserted into workbooks. There are different types of variables which are used in different application: Characteristics variables, Hierarchies and hierarchy node.

14. What is AWB? What is its purpose?

AWB stands for Administrator Work Bench AWB is a tool for controlling, monitoring and maintaining all the processes connected with data staging and processing in the CRM system.

15. What are the different types of source system?

SAP R/3 Source Systems, SAP BW, Flat Files and External Systems.

16. What is Extractor?

Extractors is a data retrieval mechanisms in the SAP source system. Which can fill the extract structure of a data source with the data from the SAP source system datasets. The extractor may be able to supply data to more fields than exist in the extract structure.

What is the Purpose of R/3?

The sole purpose of an R/3 system is to provide a suite of tightly integrated, large-scale business applications.
The standard set of applications delivered with each R/3 system are the following:
• PP (Production Planning)
• MM (Materials Management)
• SD (Sales and Distribution)
• FI (Financial Accounting)
• CO (Controlling)
• AM (Fixed Assets Management)
• PS (Project System)
• WF (Workflow)
• IS (Industry Solutions)
• HR (Human Resources)
• PM (Plant Maintenance)
• QM (Quality Management)

These applications are called the functional areas, or application areas, or at times the functional modules of R/3. All of these terms are synonymous with each other.

Traditionally, businesses assemble a suite of data processing applications by evaluating individual products and buying these separate products from multiple software vendors. Interfaces are then needed between them. For example, the materials management system will need links to the sales and distribution and to the financial systems, and the workflow system will need a feed from the HR system. A significant amount of IS time and money is spent in the implementation and maintenance of these interfaces.

R/3 comes prepackaged with the core business applications needed by most large corporations.
These applications coexist in one homogenous environment. They are designed from the ground up to run using a single database and one (very large) set of tables. Current production database sizes range from 12 gigabytes to near 3 terabytes. Around 8,000 database tables are shipped with the standard delivery R/3 product.

SAP Introduction

SAP was founded in 1972 in Walldorf, Germany. It stands for Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing. Over the years, it has grown and evolved to become the world premier provider of client/server business solutions for which it is so well known today. The SAP R/3 enterprise application suite for open client/server systems has established a new standards for providing business information management solutions.

SAP product are consider excellent but not perfect. The main problems with software product is that it can never be perfect.

The main advantage of using SAP as your company ERP system is that SAP have a very high level of integration among its individual applications which guarantee consistency of data throughout the system and the company itself.

In a standard SAP project system, it is divided into three environments, Development, Quality Assurance and Production.

The development system is where most of the implementation work takes place. The quality assurance system is where all the final testing is conducted before moving the transports to the production environment. The production system is where all the daily business activities occur. It is also the client that all the end users use to perform their daily job functions.

To all company, the production system should only contains transport that have passed all the tests.

SAP is a table drive customization software. It allows businesses to make rapid changes in their business requirements with a common set of programs. User-exits are provided for business to add in additional source code. Tools such as screen variants are provided to let you set fields attributes whether to hide, display and make them mandatory fields.

This is what makes ERP system and SAP in particular so flexible. The table driven customization are driving the program functionality instead of those old fashioned hard-coded programs. Therefore, new and changed business requirements can be quickly implemented and tested in the system.

Many other business application software have seen this table driven customization advantage and are now changing their application software based on this table customizing concept.

In order to minimized your upgrading costs, the standard programs and tables should not be changed as far as possible. The main purpose of using a standard business application software like SAP is to reduced the amount of time and money spend on developing and testing all the programs. Therefore, most companies will try to utilized the available tools provided by SAP.