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British industry suffers collectively from a reputation for poor delivery. What constitutes poor delivery has been examined in a number of studies. Turnbull and Cunningham researched four delivery factors with European buyers of industrial products. Out of five European countries, British suppliers were perceived as having the lowest ratings for speed of delivery, punctuality of delivery, integration with the buyer's production and provision of delivery information. Their work also indicated that British companies had different views on the importance of individual factors to those held elsewhere in Europe.

Provides a framework for understanding some social and cognitive implementation processes that accompany technological change. Gives a brief overview of MRPII. Highlights its practical benefits and reviews the difficulties of achieving a successful implementation. Makes a case for re‐thinking technological change paying closer attention to social and cognitive phenomena, using material drawn from a detailed study of 13 MRPII implementations. Finally, draws some conclusions concerning the nature of technological change and the merits and deficiencies of the framework.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate critical success factors (CSFs) for the implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from a user perspective.

The research was conducted in two successive steps. First, a literature review was conducted to derive CSFs for ERP system implementation. Second, a survey was conducted to evaluate the importance of these CSFs from a user perspective. Data were collected through a questionnaire that was distributed within a German manufacturer and was developed based on the CSFs found in the literature. Gray relational analysis (GRA) was used to rank the CSFs in order of importance from a user perspective.

The findings reveal that users regard 11 of the 13 CSFs found in the literature as important for ERP system implementation. Seven of the CFSs were classified as the most important from a user perspective, namely, project team, technical possibilities, strategic decision-making, training and education, minimum customization, software testing and performance measurement. Users regarded 2 of the 13 CSFs as not important when implementing an ERP system, including organizational change management and top management involvement.

One limitation of this study is that the respondents originate from one organization, industry and country. The findings may differ in other contexts, and thus, future research should be expanded to include more organizations, industries and countries. Another limitation is that this study only evaluates existing CSFs from a user perspective rather than identifying new ones and/or the underlying reasons using more qualitative research.

A better understanding of the user perspective toward CSFs for ERP system implementation promises to contribute to the design of more effective ERP systems, a more successful implementation and a more effective operation. When trying to successfully implement an ERP system, the project team may use the insights from the user perspective.

Even though researchers highlight the important role users play during ERP system implementation, their perspective toward the widely discussed CSFs for ERP system implementation has not been investigated comprehensively. This study aims to fill this gap by evaluating CSFs derived from the literature from a user perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to explore enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation project performance of successful and unsuccessful implementations; critical elements (CEs) that are conducive to success; and whether implementation project performance and CEs vary across the number of modules implemented, product type, and number of employees affected by the ERP.

Survey research methodology was used and data collected from 74 ERP implementation projects in Sri Lanka. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, independent sample t‐test, one‐way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and logistic regression.

ERP implementation project performance significantly differs between successful and unsuccessful implementations. The importance given to CEs of training and education, user involvement, managing user expectations, interdepartmental cooperation, ERP teamwork and team composition, software development, testing and troubleshooting, project management, project champion, BPR and customisation, change management programme and culture, and effective communication significantly differ between successful and unsuccessful implementations. Although ERP implementation project performance does not vary by the number of ERP modules implemented, product type, and number of employees affected by the ERP, several CEs were found to vary by these three contextual variables.

Despite extensive literature on ERP implementations, empirical studies are needed for a better understanding of CEs that are conducive to success. In the context of globalisation of business operations and interlocking supply chains, research on CEs that are conducive to success in Sri Lanka is interesting, relevant and timely, since there is an increasing interest in understanding the work environment in Asia.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have emerged as the core of successful information management and the enterprise backbone of organizations. The difficulties of ERP implementations have been widely cited in the literature but research on the critical factors for initial and ongoing ERP implementation success is rare and fragmented. Through a comprehensive review of the literature, 11 factors were found to be critical to ERP implementation success – ERP teamwork and composition; change management program and culture; top management support; business plan and vision; business process reengineering with minimum customization; project management; monitoring and evaluation of performance; effective communication; software development, testing and troubleshooting; project champion; appropriate business and IT legacy systems. The classification of these factors into the respective phases (chartering, project, shakedown, onward and upward) in Markus and Tanis’ ERP life cycle model is presented and the importance of each factor is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of automate for effective strategy execution.

Both exploratory and confirmatory modes of research using exploratory factor analysis, total interpretive structure modeling, and t-test techniques have been conducted.

In the context of effective strategy execution, the organization support system has most driving power affecting appropriateness of other automate systems. On the other hand, the effective design and deployment of control and monitoring system dependent on other systems. The control and monitoring directly affects the success of strategy execution while the other systems affect execution through structural mediation suggested by the proposed model.

Though this study adopts multiple research methods, a comparatively large sample size would be more useful. The study also faces subjective limitation of the research context. There is possibility of participant’s biases while responding to five-point scale questionnaire.

The driving-dependence linkages among the automate systems helps in developing appropriate managerial action plan to convert strategic goals into the results. The model helps in institutionalizing the systems as well as making them effective while linking them in structured relationship. Additionally, the integrated understanding of the automate systems helps promote a sense of purpose and shared meaning of systems among the key stakeholders, which smoothen the execution process.

This study reviews and factorize different automate systems and identifies structured linkages among them to demonstrate the relative criticality of each systems and how effective development of one system leads to the effectiveness of other system. This study also adds methodological value extending triangulation along with the interpretative tool.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the success factors for implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) at Indian small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and to provide a comparative study with the trend in Indian large organizations and the global trend.

In this paper, the authors propose a hypothetical success factors model to address the research questions and validated the hypotheses using large‐scale survey‐based methodology. In this research the authors evaluated the success factors for implementation of ERP in Indian SMEs and then compared them with large Indian organizations and the global trends. In this paper, the authors have also tried to give some intuitive explanation to the possible reasons of difference between factors for SMEs compared to large organizations and global trends.

It was found that four of the five hypothesized technological factors are significantly related to the success of ERP implementation. They are: comprehensiveness of software development/process integration plan; significance of age of IT infrastructure; comprehensiveness of data migration plan; and extensiveness of system testing. Also, four of the nine hypotheses/sub‐hypotheses amongst the people factors are significantly related to the success of ERP implementation. They are: blend of cross‐functional employees in the team; extent of empowerment of decision‐making team; significance of morale of the implementation team; and exhaustiveness of user training. The authors have found that ten of the 11 hypothesized organizational factors are significantly related to the success of ERP implementation. They are: organisation's adaptability to changes; involvement of top management; degree of customization; efficiency of business process re‐engineering; exhaustiveness of contingency plans; clarity in definition of milestones; clarity in evaluation of milestones; alignment of ERP package with business processes; comprehensiveness of implementation strategy; involvement of consultant in implementation strategy; clarity of project status disclosure; and appraisal of clients about ERP strategy.

Though enough work has been done on implementing ERP systems in large organizations across the globe, the small and medium‐sized firms of India are largely left untouched. Through this paper, the authors aim to find out the various critical factors that any of these SMEs should keep in mind when planning the implementation of an ERP system.

Many retailers in India have decided to adopt one or another enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to improve their businesses, but implementing an ERP system can be a demanding venture. ERP implementation has always been an intricate process and is one of the challenges of the retail sector. There have been many obstacles seen in implementing ERP successfully. According to Standish Group's report, around 75 per cent of the ERP projects are classified as failures. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the process of identifying, analyzing and prioritizing the failure factors of ERP implementation using cause‐effect and Pareto analysis.

Empirical data were collected via a survey questionnaire/interview technique. The questionnaires were distributed to practitioners like project sponsors, project managers, implementation consultants and team members who had been involved/implementing/using ERP in retail sector.

Results suggest that 9 critical failure items namely Inadequate resources, Poor User involvement, Users' resistance to change, High Attrition rate of project team members, Lack of top management commitment, Poor project management, Inadequate project team composition, Ineffective organizational change management and Unrealistic project scheduling have a high impact on ERP implementation and therefore deserve serious attention in the process of ERP implementation.

This paper identifies and prioritizes the critical failure factors of ERP implementation in Indian retail sector. The awareness about these critical failure items may help the decision makers in formulating a better strategy for ERP implementation in Indian retail.

Even in a relatively routine international transaction fifteen or more separate parties can be involved. Information has to be supplied at the right time for up to fifty commercial and official procedures. This information is normally exchanged using paper documentation.

The paper seeks to describe the state‐of‐the‐art, reasons for selecting various material planning methods, and modes of applying methods for initiating inventory replenishment of purchased items. It also identifies trends from 1993 to 2005.

Empirical survey data are collected from Swedish manufacturing companies in 1993, 1999 and 2005. The MRP, re‐order point, fixed interval ordering, run‐out time, and Kanban methods are studied.

MRP is the most commonly used method and its position has strengthened since 1993. A common way of determining parameters such as order quantities and safety stocks is to use judgment and experience. Parameters used in material planning methods are reviewed relatively infrequently. The planning frequency has increased, with daily planning now being typical.

The major limitation is that different data collection techniques were used in 1993 compared with 1999 and 2005. An important research implication is that the state‐of‐the‐art applications differ from theoretically appropriate application modes. The trends are towards less appropriate modes among the most widespread applications.

The frequency of reviewing planning variables is relatively low in industry, and should in most situations be increased. The paper implies that more user‐friendly software applications need to be developed and implemented. It could serve as guidelines when designing and developing training and education programs and function as a benchmark.

The paper provides a longitudinal state‐of‐the‐art description of materials planning usage and identifies application modes with positive and negative performance impact.