Journal of Enterprise Information Management

Delivering benefits from ERP II is challenging and the purpose of this paper is to investigate the allocation of resources contributing towards benefits realisation.

A case‐study investigation was based on a five‐month placement within the project team of an organisation implementing ERP II. A critical success factors (CSF) phasing model was developed in order to categorise invested resources. Participant observations formed the first stage of the research and two years post implementation the observations were presented back to four key members of the project team to identify which invested resources contributed towards benefits realisation. Subsequently, the findings were presented to seven supplier organisations to validate the CSFs required to deliver benefits realisation from ERP II implementations.

This research has identified 19 CSFs for ERP II, contributing an additional six to those already outlined in literature. A critical pathway for ERP II implementations has been presented, allowing the identified CSFs to be tackled at the appropriate stages of the implementation.

This is the first time CSFs have been allocated to different phases of the implementation lifecycle using a structured model. As a result, resources contributing towards benefits realisation can be more effectively applied, saving the organisation valuable resources.

Although very significant and applicable, there have been no formal justifications for the use of Monte‐Carlo models and Markov chains in evaluating hospital admission decisions or concrete data supporting their use. For these reasons, this research was designed to provide a deeper understanding of these models. The purpose of this paper is to examine the usefulness of a computerized Monte‐Carlo simulation of admission decisions under the constraints of emergency departments.

The authors construct a simple decision tree using the expected utility method to represent the complex admission decision process terms of quality adjusted life years (QALY) then show the advantages of using a Monte‐Carlo simulation in evaluating admission decisions in a cohort simulation, using a decision tree and a Markov chain.

After showing that the Monte‐Carlo simulation outperforms an expected utility method without a simulation, the authors develop a decision tree with such a model. real cohort simulation data are used to demonstrate that the integration of a Monte‐Carlo simulation shows which patients should be admitted.

This paper may encourage researchers to use Monte‐Carlo simulation in evaluating admission decision implications. The authors also propose applying the model when using a computer simulation that deals with various CVD symptoms in clinical cohorts.

Aside from demonstrating the value of a Monte‐Carlo simulation as a powerful analysis tool, the paper's findings may prompt researchers to conduct a decision analysis with a Monte‐Carlo simulation in the healthcare environment.

Aims at providing a classification of the ERP integration concept in a healthcare organization and at presenting a real world example of process integration using SAP R/3.

Research is based on a case study involving in‐depth semi‐structured interviews with key stakeholders and action research conducted in the hospital during the ERP implementation period.

Findings suggest that an apparently simple software implementation of an ordering process can have a considerable impact on stakeholders in a complex environment operating ERP software. Organizational change issues, implementation and integration issues of SAP R/3 with other non‐SAP systems and SCM considerations are discussed.

Analyzes enterprise integration concept specifically in a healthcare environment and describes a real world process integration solution (missing from the literature) achieved by using SAP R/3 software.

This paper seeks to build and validate a typological profile of manufacturing small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in regard to their eventual adoption of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, based on the predisposition of their environmental, organizational, and technological context.

Provides cluster analysis of secondary questionnaire data obtained from a benchmarking database of 356 Canadian manufacturing SMEs.

Three types of SMEs were obtained: 140 “internally predisposed” SMEs, 60 “externally predisposed” SMEs, and 156 “unfavourably disposed” SMEs.

Provides a valid framework for analysis that can serve ERP vendors and consultants, as well as SME owner‐managers, the first to better target their offer of products/services, and the second to better position their firm before contemplating the implementation of an ERP system.

Nhiều nghiên cứu về khám phá tri thức trong cơ sở dữ liệu (KDD) thường chỉ tập trung vào khai thác dữ liệu, một trong nhiều bước tương tác trong quy trình khám phá các mẫu đã biết trước đây và có thể thú vị trong các cơ sở dữ liệu lớn, nhưng lại ít chú ý đến toàn bộ quy trình. Tuy nhiên, những cách tiếp cận như vậy không thể đáp ứng nhu cầu của các ứng dụng thực tế của KDD. Mục đích của công trình này là mở rộng một mô hình quy trình của KDD trong thực tiễn ở quy mô lớn.

Một mô hình mới dựa trên kinh nghiệm nghiên cứu của quy trình khám phá tri thức được hình thức hóa như là một sự mở rộng của mô hình do Fayyad et al đề xuất. Một nghiên cứu trường hợp bằng phương pháp giảm thiểu từ lý thuyết tập thô được sử dụng để minh họa lý do tại sao mô hình quy trình được đề xuất và trong tình huống nào nó có thể được sử dụng trong thực tế.

Mô hình này kết hợp việc thu thập dữ liệu trong quy trình KDD để cung cấp một khung tham chiếu vững chắc nhằm hỗ trợ tốt hơn cho các ứng dụng KDD.

Mô hình này phản ánh bản chất của KDD trong một số trường hợp đã được kiểm tra. Nó có thể cần thêm nghiên cứu để được sử dụng trong tất cả các tình huống khác.

Nó có thể được sử dụng trong lĩnh vực an ninh thông tin, điều trị y tế và các quản lý thông tin khác.

Việc sử dụng mô hình này, người ta có thể trực tiếp thu thập dữ liệu cần thiết và hữu ích cho kết quả khai thác. Nó cũng cung cấp sự hỗ trợ thực tiễn cho các nhà nghiên cứu KDD từ cả ngành công nghiệp và học viện.

This research aims to determine to what extent uncertainties affected manufacturing enterprises' delivery performance, to analyse the performance of their contingency plans in dealing with uncertainties and to explore what technical and organisational factors affected managers' decisions to implement an uncertainty‐diagnosing model.

The methodology included a literature review, postal questionnaire survey and telephone interviews.

A total of 30 companies responded to the questionnaire, 56 per cent of which thought their systems worked well and 80 per cent reported that material shortages were responsible for tardy delivery performance. Tardy delivery was directly or indirectly caused by poor supplier delivery performance in the opinion of 92 per cent of respondents. Seven companies had developed an uncertainty‐diagnosing model. Not all companies needed to adopt the model.

Uncertainty and contingency plans were investigated in UK and Chinese organisations using MRP/MRPII/ERP systems. Therefore, the findings will be directly relevant to the organisations, but may be adapted to other similar organisations.

A detection method was proposed to determine the steps required for organisations to adopt the uncertainty‐diagnosing model.

The paper provides some empirical data on uncertainty and the contingency plans used in ERP‐controlled manufacturing environments in organisations in the UK and China. Data on uncertainty are scarce and this research gives further insights into the ways managers perceive and handle uncertainty.

The purpose of this paper is to further build up the knowledge about reasons for small and mid‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt open source enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

The paper presents and analyses findings in articles about proprietary ERPs and open source ERPs. In addition, a limited investigation of the distribution channel SourceForge for open source is made.

The cost perspective seems to receive a high attention regarding adoption of open source ERPs. This can be questioned and the main conclusion is that costs seem to have a secondary role in adoption or non adoption of open source ERPs.

The paper is mainly a conceptual paper written from a literature review. The ambition is to search support for the findings by doing more research in the area.

The findings presented are of interest both for developers of proprietary ERPs as well as SMEs since it is shown that there are definitely reasons other than costs involved when deciding on proprietary ERPs or open source ERPs.

It can be argued that there is a lack of research conducted and published about why SMEs choose open source ERPs instead of proprietary ERPs. This paper identifies the gap and suggests future research directions about this subject.