Maximizing Your ERP System: A Practical Guide for Managers [Hardcover]

Scott Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 23, 2002

Bridging the theory and realities of current ERP systems, Maximizing Your ERP System provides practical guidance for managing manufacturing. Illustrated with case studies from the author's firsthand experience in consulting to more than 1,000 firms, it covers common problems and working solutions across all types of environments as it offers contingency-based approaches for how to effectively implement and use ERP systems. The book particularly addresses the issues facing smaller manufacturers and autonomous plants of larger firms.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A Step-by-Step Guidebook for Effectively Using an ERP System to Run Your Manufacturing Business

Manufacturing initiatives, combined with today's ongoing and dramatic IT innovation, are driving the evolution of Enterprise Requirements Planning (ERP). Yet most manufacturers still fall short of getting the most return from their substantial ERP investments. Maximizing Your ERP System is the first commonsense, contingency-based guide to maximizing the benefits of an ERP application. It outlines a contingency ERP systems approach that is flexible, understandable, and designed to work in a variety of industries and environments.

Praise for Scott Hamilton's Maximizing Your ERP System...

"For more than a decade, Dr. Hamilton's mastery has helped our firm deploy ERP applications in new and exciting ways. His advice--embedded throughout this book--represents a valuable resource for those of us charged with making an ERP system sing."--Brad Beagle, IT Manager, Turck

"One of the problems in teaching about ERP has been the complexity of large-scale systems. By covering integrated systems within a single plant, and expanding to variations of larger enterprises, this book provides a straightforward yet comprehensive understanding of ERP."--Gordon B. Davis, Honeywell Professor of Management Information Systems, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota

"Both experienced financial people and those new to ERP systems will benefit from these easy-to-understand concepts and suggestions."--Art Olsen, President, CFO Services

"The starting point of this book [is] that most manufacturers do not effectively use their ERP system to run the business; its central theme [is] to provide practical suggestions for maximizing effective system usage; its target audience [is] the management team responsible for implementation in smaller manufacturers."--Maximizing Your ERP System

Enterprise Requirements Planning (ERP) systems have been proven to positively impact both firm performance and customer satisfaction. Yet the best ERP system is only as good as the knowledge behind it, and all employees and departments must understand how to use the system to realize its maximum effectiveness.

Maximizing Your ERP System supplies the knowledge you need to ensure that your company's ERP system:

• Defines the way each product is really built
• Defines realistic game plans and delivery promises
• Defines explicit sales order requirements impacting supply chain activities
• Provides schedules actually used to coordinate supply chain activities
• Provides correct accounting and useful management information

Written to address the unique issues facing smaller manufacturers and autonomous plants of larger firms, Maximizing Your ERP System explores the distinct areas of ERP information and technical knowledge, from structuring the manufacturing database to a contingency approach for expressing sales and operations game plans. It describes the variations in manufacturing environments and system capabilities affecting system usage, as well as the impact of advanced manufacturing practices and IT developments.

Whether your firm already has an ERP system in place or is just now looking to purchase or upgrade an ERP system, Maximizing Your ERP System will help you get the most from your system by determining how to best apply it to your requirements. Global ERP authority Scott Hamilton's comprehensive book will provide you with the knowledge and information necessary for understanding and using a flexible Enterprise Requirements Planning system, one with the muscle to drive your organization's growth and the flexibility to grow right along with it.

About the Author

Scott Hamilton, Ph.D., has specialized in ERP systems for manufacturing for more than 30 years. A top consultant, developer, user, and researcher, Dr. Hamilton has consulted with more than 1000 firms, conducted more than 200 executive seminars, and designed several influential ERP application software packages. He has published more than 30 articles in professional journals and is coauthor of Managing Information: How Information Systems Impact Organizational Strategy, the APICS CIRM textbook on information systems for manufacturing.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (October 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071406115
• ISBN-13: 978-0071406116
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #976,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good textbook for ERP practitioner, January 30, 2003

By 

Kit Wang (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maximizing Your ERP System: A Practical Guide for Managers (Hardcover)

The book covers most of common components in the implementation of Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP). It's well organized book, which you can learn in step-by-step manner. IT managers can also have a short-cut reference to some major concepts in the process of ERP implementation and the structure of book can provide easy access to relevant part of concerned area. The book has also provided pros-and-cons for different scenario. For example, it indicate the advantages of using specific costing methods used for specific industries or cases.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good guide of manufacturing ops for the outsider, October 3, 2005

By 

Anuradha Aiyer (Sunnyvale, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Maximizing Your ERP System: A Practical Guide for Managers (Hardcover)

The title of the book and the table of contents seem to portray the book as a dry guide into the innards of an ERP system. But this is not the case. The author does a great job of keeping business considerations in plain view (primarily); and then showing how to use an ERP system to support those business considerations (secondarily). He calls this a "contingency-based" approach to the use of the ERP system.

This book is not for everyone, but it was excellent for my particular needs. I am a Product Manager. I had already taken an elementary course on manufacturing in business school. And yet, when I sat in meetings with my colleagues from manufacturing, I had only a hazy understanding of their vocabulary and methods. I was looking for a book to bridge that gap. And this book hit the spot.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Broad coverage, but dry as a bone., June 29, 2006

By 

J. L. Lenhart (Vermont, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Maximizing Your ERP System: A Practical Guide for Managers (Hardcover)

"Maximizing Your ERP System" is broad in its coverage, but skeletal. It is one dry read, like an outline with a lot of repeated boilerplate blown in where the meat was supposed to be. It lays out some details excrutiatingly (like the composition of the manufacturing database) but there's no sense of life or color to hold things together. More of a dictionary than a treatise, I recommend it for the vocabulary you might gain, but don't plan to enjoy it.