Developing and Customizing Federated ERP Systems

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the most important drivers in many economies. Due to their flexibility and willingness to innovate they can stand up to larger industry players. However, SMEs – as every other company – need to further reduce costs and optimize their business in order to stay...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of enterprise information systems 2009-07, Vol.5 (3), p.47-59
Main Authors: Lubke, Daniel, Gomez, Jorge Marx
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business
Business competition
Cost reduction
Costs
Economics
Enterprise resource planning
Enterprisewide computing
Information systems
Information technology
Logic
Management
Return on investment
Run time (computers)
Small & medium sized enterprises-SME
Small and medium sized companies
Small business
Small firms
Software
User interfaces
Web services
Workflow management systems
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Summary:Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the most important drivers in many economies. Due to their flexibility and willingness to innovate they can stand up to larger industry players. However, SMEs – as every other company – need to further reduce costs and optimize their business in order to stay competitive. Larger enterprises utilize ERP systems and other IT support for reducing costs and time in their business processes. SMEs lack behind because the introduction and maintenance of ERP systems are too expensive, the return on investment is achieved too late and the associated financial risks are too high. However, SMEs would like to have IT support for their business. The research behind the Federated ERP System (FERP) addresses the problems SMEs face with conventional ERP systems and offers reasonable and scalable IT support. This is done by decomposing the whole business logic of the ERP system into Web services, which are linked at run-time. The service composition is realized by a workflow system that is also responsible for creating and managing the user interfaces and the data-flow. By integrating only the Web services that are needed (possibly from third parties) the cost is reduced and the functionality can be scaled to the actual needs. However, not only a technical solution is needed but also the development process must be tailored towards SMEs. Small companies cannot afford highly-skilled staff and often do not have defined business processes.
ISSN:1548-1115
1548-1123
DOI:10.4018/jeis.2009070104