The scope of ERP implementation encompasses what is often referred to as the entire value chain of the enterprise, from prospect and customer management through order fulfillment and delivery.
The term Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) was coined in the early 1990s as the successor to MRP II, itself a successor to the Materials Requirement Planning (MRP) software that resulted from requirements for greater control and efficiency in manufacturing systems. .
Unlike BPR, ERP does not seem to have a well-documented and accepted definition. However, one formal definition according to a professional organization APICS is: "An accounting oriented Information System for identifying and planning the enterprise wide resources to take, make, ship account for Customer Orders-. .
The key words involved here are the Information System', which indicates that ERP is primarily an information technology oriented system which provides immense help in planning the enterprise wide resources (which may also mean multi-location manufacturing units, multi-location warehouses besides multi-location procurement sources covering main resources of man, machine, material & money). .
ERP is primarily an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) driven philosophy. In the past, most of the poor decision-making process (which led to low utilization of men, machine, material & money resources) was due to non-availability of information at the right time and inaccuracy (or multiple sources) of information. .
ERP provides a technology platform to bridge this gap. Information is accurate, available in time and is cheap. Thus, the business objectives of the organization (profits, customer satisfaction etc.) are achieved by sharing the accurate and instant information throughout the enterprise. This was possible due to innovation in information and communication technology (e.g. Client/server technology, object-oriented programming-OOP, Internet & Intranet etc.
