Enterprise Resource Planning, Research Paper Example

Deploying the system is a crucial step in the system life cycle. The most common implementation strategies include rolling the system out to one department at a time, rolling out the system to everyone at once, or breaking the system into its module components and rolling them out individually. Rolling out the system to everyone at once (the ‘the big bang’) and breaking the system into its module components and rolling them out individually (phased-roll out approach) are the two most commonly used approaches (Umble, Haft & Umble 2003).

Rolling out the system to everyone at once is achieved through a single big action that involves all the system users to migrate to a new system within a given period of time in the course of implementation. This approach has been associated with some drawbacks since users are usually hurt by this strategy.

The ‘phased-roll out’ approach that entails breaking the system into its module components and rolling them out individually involves intermittent execution of changes over an extended  period of time and involves a prearranged plan of sequential steps to give room for  smooth transition from the old system to the new one. The organization is given time to address issues associated with implementation over time and make proper use of information that is acquired in one stage to make improvements in future stages (Weerd, I., (2005). This reduces the problems associated with implementation in progressive stages. The end user also derives substantial benefits because they can adjust comfortably and gradually to the new system. The confusion associated with quality issues of data is also minimized when the system is broken into its module components and rolled out individually.

References

Umble, E.J., Haft, R.R., & Umble, M.M., (2003) Enterprise resource planning: Implementation procedures and critical success factors, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 146, pp. 241–257.

Weerd, I., (2005). WEM: A Design Method for CMSbased Web Implementations, institute of information and computing sciences, utrecht university, technical report UU-CS-2005-043.