Session 2: Enterprise Resource Planning

1. Which departments within the company are integrated within the Order-to-Delivery process ?
2. Which steps are included in the Order-to-Delivery process ?
3. What factors would you consider when deciding whether ERP is suitable or not for a small business ?

Ans.
1. The sale department and warehouse are integrated within the Order-to-Delivery process.

2. The following steps are included in the Order-to-Delivery process in sequence, order received, real time inventory checking, confirmation of sale order, sending order list and delivery details to warehouse, receiving order list and delivery details from sale department, pick and pack for the delivery items, printing of delivery note and packing slip for shipment, delivery, confirmation of delivery.

3. There are many factors we shall concider whether ERP is suitable for small business, such as cost involved with new equipments, maintainance and operational cost, size and manpower consumed with the current business, number of steps and procedures involved in transaction and etc.

Cost involved with new equipments and maintainance and operational cost, are the key factor to concider whether it's suitable for small business in order to start an ERP. The actual effort of using ERP would depends on the size and manpower consumed with the current business, the number of steps and procedures involved in transaction. For example, some small business are involved with as low as 2-5 employees at the same working place, somehow they can get work done even quicker than checking on computer in some cases. However, it's relatively less reliable and effecient in most of the cases, so that whether small business is suitable for ERP, would depends on how much efford it can bring with more compare with resources and costs involved.