INTRODUCTION TO ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING.
Information systems to support the functional units of an enterprise are referred to as Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP. Enterprise resource planning software, or ERP, doesn't live up to its acronym. Forget about planning "it doesn't do much of that "and forget about resource, a throwaway term. But remember the enterprise part. This is ERP's true ambition. It attempts to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments' particular needs. .
That is a tall order, building a single software program that serves the needs of people in finance as well as it does the people in human resources and in the warehouse. Each of those departments typically has its own computer system optimized for the particular ways that the department does its work. But ERP combines them all together into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database so that the various departments can more easily share information and communicate with each other. That integrated approach can have a tremendous payback if companies install the software correctly. As per American inventory control corporation (AICC) defined ERP can be :.
"ERP software is a set of applications that automate finance & human resource department. Examples include supply chain management, sales-force automation & data warehousing software. .
While ERP had its roots in manufacturing and production planning systems, the scope of ERP offerings expanded in the mid-1990s to include other "back-office" functions such as order management, financial management, warehousing, distribution production, quality control, asset management and human resources management. The range of functionality of ERP systems has further expanded in recent years to include more "front-office" functions, such as sales force and marketing automation, electronic commerce, and supply chain systems.