INF20030 Critical Factors for ERP Selection and Implementation in Manufacturing

(Gill et al., 2020).

1. Clear goals, strategic plan, and change management: For successful implementation of a new ERP system, the company is required to formulate a clear vision and mission and adopt the right strategies to serve as the blueprint (Vayyavur, 2015). Moreover, successful ERP implementation requires the company to design effective change management strategies to ensure that employees adapt to new processes and systems. Also, to make the employees understand that the new system will help to increase their capabilities and quality of work. Where, factors including: an effective communication system, flexible organizational structure, knowledge transfer, etc., will help the company implement new systems and simplify the whole change process (Vayyavur, 2015).
2. Organizational culture and Business re-engineering model: According to Vayyavur, (2015), the successful implementation of ERP in most firms is affected by the organizational culture. Where, organization culture gives shared assumptions to integrate internal areas to solve external problems. Additionally, a new business process reengineering model provides a radical redesign road map for areas that require dramatic improvements. This enables the successful implementation of ERP to improve performance, increase profit, reduce cost, and increase the productivity of manufacturing firms (Vayyavur, 2015).
3. Inter-Organizational Factors: This includes two main areas: management involvement in the implementation process of ERP (Gill et al., 2020). Top management plays a crucial role in carrying out smooth adoption, boosting employee morale, and facilitating resources during the transition period of ERP systems. Furthermore, the company needs to provide proper training. It is essential for end users, especially in firms, where employees use traditional and manual methods and are not technically sound.
4. Technological Factors: The company needs to analyze the technological readiness when implementing new technology. Manufacturing companies require a robust IT infrastructure for the successful implementation of ERP systems (Gill et al., 2020). Because ERP software requires sophisticated IT resources and support systems. additionally, the organization must have skilled personnel to manage the issues of data transfer, etc. during the implementation process of ERP.
5. Individual Factors: According to Gill et al., (2020), self-efficacy and user involvement are key individual factors that make the implementation of the ERP system, successful. Where, self-efficacy is the ability of the individual to complete a task by using the new technology. Therefore, if employees and senior managers believe that the new ERP system will facilitate their jobs, they will support the implementation process (Lutfi, 2022).

All the critical factors discussed for both ERP selection and implementation have a direct impact on the performance and sustainability of large manufacturing enterprises and research has proved their importance.

Part 2: Research on Cloud migration and the suitability of multi-tenant public cloud versus single-tenant private cloud options.

Implementation of an ERP system is said to be a strategic capital investment. But, the demand of more better IT solutions keeps on evolving. In the post-modern ERP era, companies are abandoning the traditional practice of using single, monolithic ERP platforms and preparing to adopt a collection of individual standalone programs. This is a type of decentralized system, where large enterprises are taking benefits from transitioning some or all of their applications to cloud computing technology (Nakkeeran et al. 2021). Migrating from on-premises ERP systems to cloud-based ERP solutions is found as a common strategy among large manufacturing enterprises to optimize their operations and increase scalability.