Techniques and Tools for the Design and Implementation of Enterprise Information Systems Apr 2008

Techniques and Tools for the

Design and Implementation

of Enterprise Information

Systems

Angappa Gunasekaran

University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, USA

Hershey • New York

IGI PublIShInG IGIP

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Techniques and tools for the design and implementation of Enterprise Information Systems / Angappa Gunasek￾aran, editor.

p. cm.

Summary: “This book enables libraries to provide an invaluable resource to academicians and practitioners in

fields such as operations management, Web engineering, information technology, and management information

systems, providing insight into the effective design and implementation of enterprise information systems to

improve communication and integration between partnering firms to achieve an integrated global supply chain”-

-Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-59904-826-0 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-59904-829-1 (e-book)

1. Management information systems. I. Gunasekaran, Angappa.

T58.6.T435 2008

658.4’038--dc22

2007040903

British Cataloguing in Publication Data

A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

All work contributed to this book is originial material. The views expressed in this book are those of the au￾thors, but not necessarily of the publisher.

Advances in Enterprise Information Systems (AEIS) Series

The Advances in Enterprise Information Systems (AEIS) Book Series aims to expand available literature in support of global mar￾kets and the globalized economy surrounding Enterprise Information Systems. The Series provides comprehensive coverage and

understanding of the organizational, people and technological issues of EIS. Design, development, justification and implementation

of EIS including ERP and EC will be discussed. Global markets and competition have forced companies to operate in a physically

distributed environment to take the advantage of benefits of strategic alliances between partnering firms. Earlier, information

systems such as Material Requirements Planning (MRP), Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM)

have widely been used for functional integration within an organization. With global operations in place, there is a need for suit￾able Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and E-Commerce (EC) for the integration

of extended enterprises along the supply chain with the objective of achieving flexibility and responsiveness. Companies all over

the world spend billions of dollars in the design and implementation of EIS in particular ERP systems such as Oracle, Peoplesoft,

SAP, JD Edwards and BAAN with the objective of achieving an integrated global supply chain. Inter-organizational information

systems play a major role in improving communication and integration between partnering firms to achieve an integrated global

supply chain. The Advances in Enterprise Information Systems (AEIS) Book Series endeavors to further this field and address the

growing demand for research and applications that will provide insights into issues, challenges, and solutions related to the suc￾cessful applications and management aspects of EIS.

Techniques and Tools for the Design and Implementation of

Enterprise Information Systems Vol. II

Angappa Gunasekaran, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, USA

IGI Publishing * copyright 2008 * 303pp * H/C (ISBN: 978-1-59904-826-0) * US $89.96 (our price)

Inter-organizational information systems play a major role in improving communication and

integration between partnering firms to achieve an integrated global supply chain. Current

research in enterprise resource planning and electronic commerce is crucial to maintaining

efficient supply chain management and organizational competitiveness.

Techniques and Tools for the Design & Implementation of Enterprise Information Systems

enables libraries to provide an invaluable resource to academicians and practitioners in fields

such as operations management, Web engineering, information technology, and manage￾ment information systems, providing insight into the effective design and implementation

of enterprise information systems to improve communication and integration between

partnering firms to achieve an integrated global supply chain.

Modelling and Analysis of Enterprise Information Systems Vol. I

Angappa Gunasekaran, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth, USA

IGI Publishing * copyright 2007 * 392pp * H/C (ISBN: 978-1-59904-477-4) * US $89.96 (our price)

Insight into issues, challenges, and solutions related to the successful applications and

management aspects of enterprise information systems may provide to be a hardship to

researchers and practitioners. Modelling Analysis of Enterprise Information Systems presents

comprehensive coverage and understanding of the organizational and technological issues

of enterprise information systems.

Modelling Analysis of Enterprise Information Systems covers current trends and issues in

various enterprise information systems such as enterprise resource planning, electronic

commerce, and their implications on supply chain management and organizational com￾petitiveness.

ISBN: 1935-3111

Editor-in-Chief: Angappa Gunasekaran, University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth, USA

Order online at www.igi-global.com or call 717-533-8845 x 10 –

Mon-Fri 8:30 am - 5:00 pm (est) or fax 24 hours a day 717-533-8661

Hershey • New York

Techniques and Tools for the

Design and Implementation of

Enterprise Information Systems

Table of Contents

Preface....................................................................................................vii

Chapter.I

Applying.Collaboration.Theory.for.Improving..

ERP.System-User.Interaction................................................................1

Wendy Lucas, Bentley College,USA

Tamara Babaian, Bentley College,USA

Heikki Topi, Bentley College, USA

Chapter.II

A.Component-Based.Tool.Architecture.for.Performance..

Modeling.and.Optimization.................................................................22

Michael Syrjakow, Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences,

Germany

Elisabeth Syrjakow, SWR Baden-Baden, Germany

Helena Szczerbicka, University of Hanover, Germany

Chapter.III

The.Critical.Success.Factors.Across.ERP.Implementation..

Processes................................................................................................57

Ivan K.W. Lai, Macau University of Science and Technology, China

Chapter.IV

Integrated.Design.System:.An.Information.Processing.Approach..

for.Knowledge-Based.Product.Development......................................86

Quangang Yang, University of New South Wales, Australia

Carl Reidsema, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter.V

Behavioral.Aspects.in.Strategic.Transformation..

of.Organizations..................................................................................122

Purnendu Mandal, Lamar University, USA

Chapter.VI

Decisional.DNA.and.the.Smart.Knowledge.Management.System:..

A.Process.of.Transforming.Information.into.Knowledge...............149

Cesar Sanin, University of Newcastle, Australia

Edward Szczerbicki, University of Newcastle, Australia

Chapter.VII

Organizational.Readiness.to.Adopt.ERP:..

An.Evaluation.Model.for.Manufacturing.SMEs..............................176

Louis Raymond, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada

Suzanne Rivard, HEC Montréal, Canada

Danie Jutras, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada

Chapter.VIII

Design.and.Development.of.ISO.9001:2000—.

Based.Quality.Management.Information.System............................204

M. Sakthivel, Government College of Technology, India

S.R. Devadasan, PSG College of Technology, India

S. Vinodh, PSG College of Technology, India

S. Ragu Raman, R.V.S. College of Engineering & Technology, India

S. Sriram, Arulmigu Kalasalingam College of Engineering, India

Chapter.IX

Motivational.Aspects.of.Legitimate..

Internet.File.Sharing.and.Piracy.......................................................229

Alan D. Smith, Robert Morris University, USA

Chapter.X

The.Next.Generation.of.Customer.Relationship..

Management.(CRM).Metrics.............................................................258

Timothy Shea, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA

Ahern Brown, HDR Inc., USA

D. Steven White, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA

Catharine Curran, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth,USA

Michael Griffin, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA

Chapter.XI

Development.of.Intelligent.Equipment.Diagnosis.and..

Maintenance.System.using.JESS:.Java.Expert.System..

Shell.Technology..................................................................................271

Yin-Ho Yao, Ta Hwa Institute of Technology, Taiwan, ROC

Gilbert Y.P. Lin, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, ROC

Amy J.C. Trappey, National Tsing Hua University and

National Taipe University of Technology, Taiwan, ROC

Chapter.XII

Measuring.of.Web.Performance.as.Perceived.by.End-Users.........293

Leszek Borzemski, Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland

Chapter.XIII

Information.System.Development:.Using.Business.Process..

Simulation.as.a.Requirements.Engineering.Tool.............................326

Tony Elliman, Brunel University, UK

Tally Hatzakis, Brunel University, UK

Alan Serrano, Brunel University, UK

Chapter.XIV

Selfish Users and Distributed MAC Protocols

in.Wireless.Local.Area.Networks.......................................................347

Ratan K. Guha, University of Central Florida, USA

Sudipta Rakshit, University of Central Florida, USA

About.the.Contributors......................................................................382

Index.....................................................................................................393

vii

Preface

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an enterprise-wide information

system. ERP systems automate business processes and provide access to data

from global operations. These systems have been used to integrate business

processes along the supply chain. It is hard to imagine a well-integrated supply

chain without the application of ERP. Techniques and tools play a major role

in the design, development and implementation of enterprise information sys￾tems (EIS). In the past, many companies have reported failures with reference

to the implementation of ERP systems. Most companies had problems with

the design and implementation of ERP due to lack of adequate techniques and

tools to design and implement the EIS. Considering the importance of ERP

in global enterprise environments, and the competitiveness of companies in

global markets, this edited book focuses on the techniques and tools for the

design, development and implementation of EIS.

viii

Effective communication along the supply chain is essential to provide

high-level customer service by delivering the right products, at the right

time and in the right quantity and price. In order to avoid any quality and

delivery problems of materials, a real-time and shared information system

such as ERP is important. The objective of EIS is to facilitate a smooth flow

of information along the supply chain. Many companies have failed in their

attempt to successfully implement ERP due to lack of proper planning and

having the right techniques and tools for the design and implementation of

EIS. Implementation of ERP starts with whether a company needs such a sys￾tem and then selecting the right system considering the nature of its business

and the overall scope of the market. Hence, there is a need to carefully align

the business model with information model or system. For this, companies

need suitable techniques and tools for the development and implementation

of ERP systems. This edited book presents some useful strategies, techniques

and tools for the design, development and implementation of EIS. It is our

hope that both academic researchers and practitioners will benefit from the

strategies, techniques and tools presented for the design and implementation

of EIS. An overview of the chapters is presented hereunder.

Chapter.I,.Applying Collaboration Theory for Improving ERP System-User

Interaction, by Lucas, Babaian, and Topi argues that ERP systems remain

difficult to learn and use, however, despite the vast resources devoted to

employee training and the reams of documentation provided by their manu￾facturers. To enhance the usability, and thereby increase the usefulness of

ERP systems in organizations, it proposes the application of collaboration

theory to ERP system design. Conceptualizing the relationship between the

user and the system as one in which the system works in partnership with

the user provides a development framework targeted at helping users achieve

their system-related goals.

Chapter.II,.A Component-Based Tool Architecture for Performance Model￾ling and Optimization, by Syrjakow, Syrjakow, and Szczerbicka elaborates

on the design of a powerful optimization component and its integration into

existing modelling and simulation tools. For that purpose, it proposes a

hybrid integration approach, being a combination of loose document-based

and tight invocation-based integration concepts. Beside the integration con￾cept for the optimization component, it also gives a detailed insight into the

applied optimization strategies.

Chapter. III, The Critical Success Factors Across ERP Implementation

Processes, by Lai reports a study that consists of two phases: (i) a question￾naire survey among experienced ERP consultants in order to identify the key

ix

successful factors of each step within ERP implementation models and (ii)

experienced ERP consultants are interviewed to examine why these factors

are important at each of the implementation steps and what are the difficulties

of using Western ERP implementation models in China. This study provides

guidance to ERP consultants on how to utilize their limited resources by con￾sidering these factors at each step within the ERP implementation models.

Chapter.IV, Integrated Design System: An Information Processing Approach

for Knowledge-Based Product Development, by Yang and Reidsema discusses

the structure and development of a design information system that can convert

descriptive information into forms that are suitable for embedding within

decision-making algorithms. Information in such a system is sorted in terms

of its nature into three groups: input data information, constraint information

and objective information, all having different representations. Information

is also mapped to the relevant design objectives and ranked in importance to

facilitate the trade-off analysis after a series of processing activities.

Chapter.V, Behavioral Aspects in Strategic Transformation of Organizations,

by Mandal stresses on behavioral issues, particularly how human behavior

impacts on transforming organizations through implementing large IT sys￾tems such as ERP systems. The current business environment is forcing IT

managers to use more and more “collective thinking power,” generated by

team activities, to make strategic decisions, or even to run day–to-day opera￾tions. Here, the chapter focuses on broader issues managed through people’s

cooperation and efforts.

Chapter.VI, Decisional DNA and the Smart Knowledge Management Sys￾tem: A Process of Transforming Information into Knowledge, by Sanin and

Szczerbicki shows how Decisional DNA is constructed through the imple￾mentation of the Smart Knowledge Management System (SKMS). SKMS

is a hybrid knowledge-based decision support system that takes information

and sends it through four macro-processes: diagnosis, prognosis, solution,

and knowledge, in order to build the Decisional DNA of an organization. The

SKMS implements a model for transforming information into knowledge by

using Sets of Experience Knowledge Structure. Fully developed, the SKMS

will improve the quality of decision-making, and could advance the notion

of administering knowledge in the current decision-making environment.

Chapter.VII, Organizational Readiness to Adopt ERP: An Evaluation

Model for Manufacturing SMEs, by Raymond, Rivard, and Jutras presents

the results of a study that proposes and validates a framework for evaluating

the level of readiness for ERP adoption in manufacturing SMEs. The frame￾work conceptualizes readiness to adopt an ERP as including four dimensions:

x

the organizational context, external forces, perception of ERP, and business

processes. A field study of eleven manufacturing SMEs was conducted. The

framework led to the classification of these firms in three clusters: “committed

adopters,” “uncommitted adopters,” and “late adopters.”

Chapter.VIII, Design and Development of ISO 9001:2000-Based Quality

Management Information System, by Sakthivel, Devadasan, Vinodh, Raghu

Raman, and Sriram reports on a quality management information system

(QMIS) that has been designed by referring to clause 4 of ISO 9001:2000.

After designing this QMIS, its development in real-time environment was

examined by conducting a study at an ISO 9001:2000 certified high technol￾ogy oriented company. Also, a validation study was conducted by gathering

the opinions and assessment of the managing partner of the company on

QMIS. These studies revealed the feasibility and possibility of implementing

QMIS in ISO 9001:2000 certified companies.

Chapter.IX, Motivational Aspects of Legitimate Internet File Sharing and

Piracy, by Smith examines potential and active customers’ intrinsic and ex￾trinsic values associated with selected legal, ethical, and economic impacts

of file sharing, especially in relationship to potential impacts on customer

relationship management (CRM). The pros and cons of file sharing are

highlighted in a conceptual model and empirically tested through graphical

and statistical analysis through hypothesis testing, via factor analysis and

principal component analysis (PCA) techniques. Recommendations on the

potential growth of file sharing industry, through the lens of price, competi￾tion, increased selection, and regulation, are included.

Chapter.X, The Next Generation of Customer Relationship Management

(CRM) Metrics, by Shea, Brown, White, Curran, and Griffin contends that the

limitations of mostly internally-focused, marketing-based, efficiency-oriented

CRM metrics has hindered both the understanding of why CRM systems

often fail as well as led to the perception of failed CRM implementations.

Only through the development, application and use of CRM metrics can or￾ganizations hope to better understand CRM implementations or achieve their

CRM goals. To make matters more difficult, the growing capabilities of CRM

applications over the past few years has been raising the expectations and

sophistication of customers. A new generation of CRM metrics is needed—a

generation of relevant, enterprise-wide, and customer-centric metrics.

Chapter.XI,.Development of Intelligent Diagnosis and Maintenance System

using JESS: Java Expert System Shell Technology, by Yao, Lin, and Trappey

describes the development of a rule-based intelligent equipment trouble￾shooting and maintenance system using JAVA Expert System Shell (JESS)

xi

technology. The main modules of the system include diagnosis knowledge

management, project or case management and system administration. Fur￾ther, a Thin-Film Transistor Liquid-Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) production

equipment diagnosis and maintenance system is designed and implemented

to demonstrate the intelligent maintenance capability.

Chapter.XII,.Measuring of Web Performance as Perceived by End-Users,

by Borzemski presents a Wing free service that has been developed for the

purpose of Web transaction visualization. Its Web client that probes a target

Web site is a real Web browser (MS IE), so the user can observe how a par￾ticular browser uses the network. Wing can be a good analysis tool for Web

page and network application developers. It also introduces the MWING

system, which is based on their experiences from Wing project. MWING is

a generic automated distributed multiagent-based measurement framework

for running different measurement, testing and diagnosing tasks related to the

Internet; for example, in Internet topology discovering, Web benchmarking,

or grid services performance studies. One of possible agents can be Wing￾like agents downloading different Web pages in periodic experiments from

many agent locations.

Chapter.XIII, Information System Development: Using Business Process

Simulation as a Requirements Engineering Tool, by Elliman, Hatzakis, and

Serrano discusses the idea that even though information systems development

(ISD) approaches have long advocated the use of integrated organisational

views, the modelling techniques used have not been adapted accordingly

and remain focused on the automated information system (IS) solution. This

chapter uses the findings from three different case studies to illustrate the

ways BPS has been used at different points in the ISD process, especially

in the area of requirements engineering. It compares the results against IS

modelling techniques, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages that

BPS has over the latter. The research necessary to develop appropriate BPS

tools and give guidance on their use in the ISD process is also discussed.

Chapter.XIV, Selfish Users and Distributed MAC Protocols in Wireless Lo￾cal Area Networks, by Guha and Rakshit considers the effect of “selfishness”

on distributed MAC protocols in wireless local area network (WLAN). The

inherently contention-based medium access in distributed systems is modelled

as a non-cooperative game: “access game.” Both quality of service (QoS)

and battery power (BP) are incorporated in modelling the game. It is shown

that the Nash equilibrium (NE) for incomplete information games is usually

inefficient compared to the NE of complete information games. It investi￾gates whether fairness can be achieved by selfish users. Then it computes

the constrained NE (CNE) for the access game.

Applying Collaboration Theory for Improving ERP System-User Interaction 

Copyright © 2008, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission

of IGI Global is prohibited.

Chapter.I

Applying.Collaboration.

Theory.for.Improving.ERP.

System-User.Interaction

Wendy Lucas, Bentley College, USA

Tamara Babaian, Bentley College, USA

Heikki Topi, Bentley College, USA

Abstract

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems automate business processes

and provide access to data from worldwide operations. These systems re￾main difficult to learn and use, however, despite the vast resources devoted

to employee training and the reams of documentation provided by their

manufactures. Oftentimes, even well trained employees will appeal to more

knowledgeable users for help or will augment their system use with other

software, such as spreadsheet or database applications. The need for such

practices has a negative impact on employee performance and the ability of

companies to reap the full benefits afforded by ERP systems. To enhance their

usability, and thereby increase their usefulness to organizations, we propose

the application of collaboration theory to ERP system design. Conceptual-

 Lucas, Babaian, & Topi

Copyright © 2008, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission

of IGI Global is prohibited.

izing the relationship between the user and the system as one in which the

system works in partnership with the user provides a development framework

targeted at helping users achieve their system-related goals.

Introduction

Anecdotal evidence of the problems encountered by users interacting with

enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems abounds, and recent studies

confirm the poor usability characteristics of these systems. A study of ERP

users in one division of a Fortune 500 company identified the following six

categories of usability problems: difficulty in identifying and accessing the

correct functionality, lack of transaction execution support, system output

limitations, inadequate support in error situations, incompatibility between

the users’ and the system’s terminology, and usage-related problems arising

from the overall complexity of the system (Topi, Babaian, & Lucas, 2005).

Although these users had undergone training on the use of the system and

had access to manufacturer-supplied documentation, they relied heavily on

extensive sets of informal notes on system usage prepared by fellow employees

(Topi, Lucas, & Babaian, 2006), sought out “power users” from within the

organization for answers to their questions, and sometimes turned to outside

applications, such as Microsoft Excel®, for meeting unfulfilled reporting

needs (Topi et al., 2005).

Usability issues can have a detrimental effect on business performance and,

in particular, on end-user productivity (Iansiti, 2007). Recent studies from

Forrester Research on enterprise usability (Ragsdale, 2004) and business

application usability (Herbert, 2006) also note the negative effect of poorly

designed user interfaces on the bottom line, with costs arising from increases

in new user training time, decreases in productivity, and poor user adoption

rates. Hamerman (2007) notes that usability is not a strong suit of ERP ap￾plications, with newer versions of the leading packages showing only minor

usability improvements over their predecessors, and includes lack of usability

as one of five major challenges facing ERP customers. It appears that little

progress has been made since an earlier Forrester Research evaluation of

eleven ERP products (Chew, Orlov, & Herbert, 2003), which found that poor

usability characteristics and the unintuitive user interfaces of these systems

contribute to decreased productivity and increased costs for businesses using

Applying Collaboration Theory for Improving ERP System-User Interaction 

Copyright © 2008, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission

of IGI Global is prohibited.

them. The overall conclusion was that “users should demand better usability,”

which, according to Hamerman (2007), is what they are now doing.

The lack of attention paid to addressing the significant usability shortcom￾ings of ERP systems by both manufacturers and the usability community

motivates the research initiative described here. Given the time, effort, and

money expended on implementation and training, it is surprising that so little

attention has been focused on understanding the ways in which users interact

with ERP software and the degree to which the interaction model supports

the tasks being performed. In this chapter, we suggest that applying the prin￾ciples of collaboration (Bratman, 1992) to systems development provides a

means for addressing the gap between the capabilities of the ERP system and

harnessing those capabilities to meet each user’s individual objectives. By

“collaboration,” we refer to the collaboration between the user and the system,

as opposed to collaboration between people that is supported by computing

technology, which is commonly referred to as computer-supported coopera￾tive work (CSCW). The novelty of our research lies in its emphasis on the

relationship between collaborative support, task performance, and satisfaction.

We believe that the more aligned the technology is with the users’ goals, the

better able it will be to respond in a collaborative manner to the users’ needs,

enhancing both user performance and satisfaction with the system.

Our long-term research goal is to improve the usability of enterprise systems

by increasing the collaborative capabilities of their interfaces. This research

currently includes the following components:

• Field studies focusing on the nature of the users’ everyday needs and

interactions with these systems

• Development of enterprise system design guidelines based on collabora￾tion theory

• Development of interface evaluation techniques based on collaboration

theory

• Implementation of prototype ERP interfaces for validating the design

and evaluation methodologies we are developing

In this chapter, we elucidate the role of collaboration theory in our research

and illustrate the benefits gained by applying it to ERP design and evaluation.

In the next section, we discuss the most important approaches that have been

followed to date for usability design and evaluation in the fields of human-