The EU strives for improving the use of resources in industry and society, a part of this is to turn the economy from a liner, consumption economy, to a circular, reusable economy. In order for this to be achieved industry needs adjust their production to facilitate remanufacturing of used products as well as producing new products. A part of the challenge industry is facing is the increase in complexity and volume in regard for information and material flows, one way of handling this in manufacturing companies is to use ERP- systems to keep track of information and material flows. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate the possibility to implement ERP- systems in remanufacturing industries since the amount of uncertainties and sources of variations shadows those in new product manufacturing. In order to reach a conclusion in regards to the purpose of this thesis three research questions where formed: What production steps are need to complete the remanufacturing process? What are the pros and cons of using ERP- systems within remanufacturing? What are the critical implementation factors that remanufacturing industries need to consider when implementing ERP- systems? In order to answer the research questions a literature study was performed to gain insight in the academic knowledge on the subject. In addition to the literature study a case study was conducted as well at a refurbishing company within the train industry. From the literature and case study it was concluded that the remanufacturing process consist of five phases, receiving the product from the market, dismantling it, repair and restore the components, reassemble the product, return the product to the customer/market. Since ERP- systems are continually being developed and their ability to handle uncertainties and variations improve, they could be used at companies facing increased variations and uncertainties than those found in companies only conducting new product production. The pros of utilizing ERP- systems are: financial gains through reduction of administrative, production and inventory costs, the customer related gains come from improved communication, the positive effects on the internal processes are achieved from increased productivity and efficiency. The final area where positive effects can be found is the knowledge and growth are, where ERP- systems follow up on best practises and makes the information easier to access. The drawbacks of using ERP- systems are that it is costly to purchase and implement them, and the company might need to adjust its methods and processes in order to fit the functions included in the ERP- system. As well as there is a need to educate and train the staff to handle the system in a correct fashion.  In order to succeed in implementing a ERP- system, there is a great need for a vision of what the system is supposed to achieve as well as a clear support from the leadership. The implementation needs an assign leader that makes sure that the right functions and systems are being introduced and the amount of special adjustments are kept to a minimum to reduce the risk of making the implementation slower and costlier. In conclusion, remanufacturing companies could draw great advantage from implementing a ERP- system, if not only for the standardisation of methods and tasks, but also from the more user friendly information system. / Ibland annat EU driver man ett arbete med att bli bättre på att ta tillvara på de resurser och tillgångar som vi har, en del av detta arbete är att företag ska kunna ta emot använda produkter och återvinna materialen och komponenterna för att producera nya produkter, man vill ställa om från en linjär till en cirkulär ekonomi. Denna omställning är en utmaning för nytillverkande företag då dessa har optimerat sin verksamhet för att producera produkter och saknar därför system för att ta emot använda produkter och demonteras dessa. En del i utmaningen är den ökade komplexitet som uppstår vid introduktionen av fler flöden och behovet av ytterligare processer. För att hantera information och materialflöden använder sig företag av integrerade affärssystem, ERP-system, där information centraliseras i företaget och görs tillgängligt för alla funktioner. Följande arbete har fokuserat på att utröna huruvida företag som är aktiva inom reparations- och livstidsförlängande verksamhet kan dra nyttan av att använda ERP-system då dessa typer av verksamheter har stora variationer i processtid, tillgång och kvalitet på returnerade produkter samt att efterfrågan varierar kraftigt. För att uppfylla syftet med arbetet har tre forskningsfrågor upprättats: Hur ser tillverkningsprocesser ut inom reparations- och livstidsförlängande verksamheter? Vilka är fördelar och nackdelar med användning av integrerade affärssystem till reparations- och livstidförlängande verksamheter? Vilka faktorer är viktigt att tänka vid implementeringen och användandet av integrerade affärssystem till reparations- och livstidförlängande verksamheter? För att besvara forskningsfrågorna har en litteraturstudie genomförts för att bestämma den akademiska kunskapen inom området, samt en fallstudie hos ett företag verksamt inom reparation och livstidsförlängande av tåg i syfte att samla in empirisk data. Från litteraturstudien och fallstudien har det konstaterats att tillverkningsprocessen hos reparations- och livstidsförlängande verksamheter består av fem moment; mottagande, demontering, upparbetning, återmontering och återlämning/försäljning. Då ERP-system blir allt mer avancerade har deras förmåga att hantera osäkerheter och förändringar ökat, detta har gjort att verksamheter med korta planeringshorisonter samt många osäkerhetskällor kan tillämpa ERP-system till sin verksamhet. Fördelar med att göra detta återfinns inom fyra kategorier: finansiella (så som reducerade kostnader för administration), produktion och lager, kundrelaterade fördelar (som förbättrad kommunikation och tidshållning), intern verksamhetsfördelar genom ökad produktivitet och effektivitet, kunskap och tillväxtfördelar så som användarvänligare system och ökad effektivitet samt att ERP- system följer upp ”best practis” mönster. Nackdelar med ERP-system är att dessa är kostsamma att införskaffa och implementera, samt att verksamheten kan behöva standardisera sina metoder för att vara kompatibla med systemets funktioner. Även kunskapen inom företaget behöver öka för att hantera systemen. För att lyckas med implementeringen av ERP-system krävs en tydlig vision om vad systemet ska uppnå och stötting i form av ledarskapsfördelning och implementeringsteam som driver på arbetet, samt att mängden specialanpassning hålls till ett minimum då detta riskerar att dra ut på processen vilket driver upp kostnaderna. Slutsatsen är att reparations- och livstidsförlängande verksamheter kan dra stora fördelar av att implementera ERP-system, bland annat genom standardisering av arbetssätt men också tack vare användarvänligare informationssystem. Dock behövs en tydlig vision för att användandet ska lyckas.

by Wong Ching-Ngok. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 37). / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II --- METHODOLOGY --- p.5 / Chapter III --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.7 / Chapter IV --- ANALYSIS --- p.13 / Equator --- p.13 / Data Standards --- p.15 / Supply Standard --- p.15 / Capacity/Tradeoffs --- p.17 / Yield --- p.18 / Cycle Time --- p.18 / Master Data --- p.18 / Stage Process Codes --- p.19 / Planning Device --- p.22 / Demand Standard --- p.23 / Customer --- p.24 / Forecasting Device --- p.26 / Inventory Target --- p.26 / Demand Prioritization --- p.26 / Product --- p.27 / Request for Product --- p.28 / Bill of Material Standards --- p.28 / Chapter V --- CONCLUSION/COMMENTS --- p.32 / Employee Feedback --- p.32 / Customer Comments --- p.33 / Looking Forward --- p.34 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.36

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are information systems that integrate organizational activities across geographical and functional divisions. Being enterprise-wide systems, they are used within an organization in order to standardise its data and streamline its business processes. However, the envisaged benefits of installing an ERP system, such as better control over the company’s operations and seamless integration and data exchange, often fail to materialize. Although the literature has looked into the factors affecting a successful ERP implementation and adoption, it has largely overlooked the actual use of the system. However, as ERP systems have become widespread in many organizations, it is important to examine the use of such systems and their organizational consequences in-situ. This research is particularly concerned with the impact of the use of ERP systems on organizational control and drift. The main argument is that there are contextual factors, in the form of existing organizational control and drift, which influence the use of the ERP system by its users. The actual use of the ERP system can then also lead to organizational control or drift itself. This depends on the way the system is used by its users, as well as the affordances of the system. The former is characterized as human agency in this thesis, while the latter is characterized as machine agency. An interpretive case study approach is adopted to examine those issues. A main case study is examined in depth, aided by four auxiliary case studies. The main contribution of this research is the provision of rich insights regarding the use of ERP systems and their organizational consequences.

To survive and stay ahead in today’s competitive world companies are pushed to their limits in search for organizational skills and technologies. Of those Supply chain Management and Enterprise Resource Planning are the two most primarily used terms. In order to stay and survive in the competition companies are forced to speed up their production, reduce their cost and improve performance. All these three factors go hand in hand and in order to achieve these factors, information exchange from both inside and outside plays the key role. Supply chain management is the term used managing this accurate information’s in and out and ERP is the technology used for achieving the same.The purpose of this research is to continue in this field of study and solve real problems with ERP implementation, and eventually create analytical tools for these systems. With the advent of globalization ERP software has emerged as a major area of interest for many business organizations.There are two main research orientations in these studies which include: first, how to implement ERP system in a corporation and, second, what are the advantages of this system in resolving a variety of problems an organization might encounter.The first area, on which most of the studies have already focused, comprises studies on the fund, timing, economy and success of the implementation of ERP. On the contrary, our study addresses the functions of ERP in strategic and operational levels and also aims at bringing in the major difficulties and disadvantage on implementation of ERP systems into an organization.Our results suggest that ERP systems in its current state have a modest role to play in obtaining supply chain integration and management. With the major development in the field of communication and IT solutions we can expect a time shift where many solutions could be available for better interfacing of ERP systems and in turn which can help in achieving much better supply chain management.Many studies claim that the major advantage of an ERP system is that it is integrated and centralized. An ERP system offers the decision makers the means of enhancing the knowledge about the process which in turn helps to make reliable decisions more rapidly and as well collecting sources to support their decisions. However according to our findings from various studies it is evident that ERP helps to improve the reliability of decision by mutual participation of the participants, improves co-ordination of tasks which makes inter-related decision making easier. As a result it improves the satisfaction of decision process across the participants. / Program: Master’s Program in Industrial Engineering with Specialization in Logistics Management

Thesis (MTech (Business Information Systems))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019. / The main objective of research is to determine how business processes influenced by corporate strategy can be entrenched in an organisation. Organisations rely on business processes to deliver product and services to customers and meet organisational goals. Several process weaknesses prevail in organisations and impede process performance. Organisations merely focus on technical aspects of the transformation to address efficiency and effectiveness in business processes and tend to ignore the social elements attached to the transformation which bring considerable changes in the employees working environment. Human attitude and behaviour can thus impede process change and entrenchment. As a result, the change endeavour fails, and processes are not entrenched. The study thus gave due consideration to the socio-technical elements because process relies on human intervention to progress at some points. The study aimed to understand and interpret how business processes can be entrenched in an organisation and used a selected organisation in the Western Cape, Cape Town as a case study. To address the main research objective three subordinated objectives were developed and a main research question and three sub-research questions were investigated. Given the human element involved in the process transformation, the phenomenon is a socially constructed reality that can be understood and interpreted using a social theory. Actor Network Theory (ANT) was used as a lens through which to understand and interpret the factors influencing the entrenchment of business processes. It is argued that enterprise resource planning (ERP) influences both technical and non-technical factors involved in process entrenchment and that entrenchment emanates from the alignment of interests of social, process and technology actors. An interpretative paradigm applies to the study where qualitative philosophy was followed together with the underpinning theory. The theory and review of literature were used to develop semi-structured interview schedules to collect opinions from participants. The research participants included twenty-one managers at senior, middle and lower level positions from the Finance, HR and IST departments of the studied organisation. Ethical considerations applied to this research relate to the data collection process and the disclosure of the research findings. Data collection was approved by the institution under study to ensure confidentiality and non-violation of organisation policies. In addition, interview questions were reviewed by senior managers to ensure that the information obtained would not hurt the reputation of the organisation. The research findings revealed that actors need to be transformed and supported to accommodate the change and that the principles of ERP can be implemented as a strategy to lead the process transformation and entrenchment. The research generated a general framework to guide the use of technical and non-technical factors to influence process entrenchment. As such, recommendations are made to actors of process transformation to ensure entrenchment.

Organizations become more homogenous when they adapt to the external environment for survival and competitiveness. Institutional theorists call this phenomenon "isomorphism," which is a constraining process that forces organizations---through coercive, mimetic, or normative pressures---to resemble each other when facing the same set of environmental conditions. In recent years, concerns about cost-efficiency and standardization of information technology (IT) have led organizations to rely more heavily on IT to enhance their business operations. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems enable the tight integration of all necessary business functions into a single system. Typically, a database, designed to standardize organizational IT platforms and business processes, is shared throughout an organization. The high adoption rate of ERP systems among the biggest corporations has pressured other organizations to adopt ERP systems. Information system (IS) researchers call this phenomenon "technical isomorphism". / This study examines the effects of ERP implementation on organizational homogeneity from the viewpoint of institutional theory. Through mediating factors, such as the extent of ERP implementation and software adaptation, this study also investigates the effects of organizational homogeneity on the core competencies of user-organizations. It addresses four important issues: (a) whether institutional pressures lead to organizational homogenization; (b) whether institutional pressures affect the extent of ERP implementation in organizations; (c) whether the extent of ERP implementation affects software adaptation and subsequently, homogenization; and (d) whether the core competencies of organizations are ultimately affected by the adoption of technology. / This study's findings contribute to our understanding on the effects of ERP implementation in organizations, particularly on the IT and business activities. They open a whole new arena of research into the impact of technology on organizational abilities, providing a new set of constructs, relationships, antecedents, and dependent variables. Moreover, this study provides the necessary evidence on the occurrence of homogenization, its origins, and its consequences. It also provides valuable guidelines in finding a balance between conformity and retaining the uniqueness of companies, which is regarded as a source of core competencies. Thus, the research findings can help organizations redirect their focus and efforts into ERP implementation, saving millions of dollars in the process. / Liu, Kar Wai Connie. / Adviser: Vincent S. Lai. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-04, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 141-152). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese; appendix 8.3 and 8.4 in Chinese.

Business organizations invest significant resources implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, yet some organizations utilize less than 75% of the ERP system capabilities. The purpose of this single-site case study was to explore ERP utilization strategies implemented by 4 managers in the information technology (IT) department from 1 organization that uses an ERP system in the Midwest region of the United States. The conceptual framework that grounded this study was the user participation theory. Data were collected through participant interviews and analyzed using traditional text analysis. Member checking was used to strengthen the credibility and trustworthiness of the interpretation of the participants' responses. The emergent themes from the study were user participation, user involvement, user attitude, user system satisfaction, and user preparation. The most prominent utilization strategies identified by the participants related to the user participation theme. The implications for positive social change include the potential optimization of benefits from the ERP system that could allow the organization's leaders to direct their resources to causes that can improve the health and welfare of the geographic population in the operational region.

Thesis (MTech (Business Information Systems))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018. / Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integrate business processes (BPs) into one database, facilitate data sharing, and provide real time information to authorised users, leading to an increase in efficiency and effectiveness. However, the implementation of an ERP system is not always a success as some systems turn out to be misaligned with the organisation’s objectives. This misalignment can lead to inadequate controls within the system. ERP systems are designed to improve transactions within the BPs and provide a competitive advantage to organisations. However, this benefit can become a weakness if project implementation fails due to controls in the system not being aligned with the objectives. The aim of the study is to explore how audit functions can contribute to the implementation of ERP projects, and the objective is to propose a guideline that can improve the implementation processes of ERP projects. To address the aim and meet the objective of this study, two main questions are asked: 1) What are the factors to be considered when introducing audit functionality in the implementation of an ERP system? 2) How can audit functions assist organisations in ERP project implementation? A subjectivist philosophical stance is followed and the epistemology lies within the interpretivist paradigm. An inductive research approach is followed and a case study is used as research strategy to conduct the research. The unit of analysis is the Operation Finance and Information Technology departments within the selected organisation, while selected employees (14) within the organisation form the unit of observation. A non-random, purposively selected sampling technique was used. Data were collected by means of semi-structured questionnaires through interviews. Data were analysed by summarising, categorising, and applying thematic analysis. The data analysis shows that audit functions (Operation Finance department, internal and external auditors) bring objectivity and assurance to the project in terms of financial reports, checks and balances, processes, structure, and internal controls. Getting people to cooperate however is a challenge for audit functionalities, and internal and external auditors can be a challenge during project implementation because their practical skills and computer-based knowledge to deal with huge volumes of data is extremely limited. It is highly recommended that the guideline presented in this research is followed, that engagement of audit functions with business processes is introduced and adopted by other role players involved in the project implementation process, and that audit functions should not be seen as a ‘must have’ but rather as support to improve the process. Ethical requirements as requested by CPUT are fulfilled.

<p>The delivery of health care services has been under pressure due to limited funding and increasing demand. This has highlighted the need to increase not only the effectiveness but also the efficiency of health care delivery. Discrete-event simulation has been suggested as an analysis tool in health care management to support the planning of health care resources.</p><p>The overall purpose of this thesis is to investigate the possibilities and requirements for using discrete-event simulation in analyzing and planning the use of hospital resources. This is achieved by three case studies that focus on improvements in patient flow of emergency patients that require a radiology examination, intensive care unit capacity planning and operating room allocation strategies, respectively.</p><p>The first case investigates the current stage of digitization and process orientation in hospital care as a prerequisite for efficient process simulation and analysis. The study reveals an emergency-radiology patient flow process that is not very well measured and uncovers disparate information systems storing incompatible and fragmented data. These results indicate that the current degree of process orientation and the current IT infrastructure does not enable efficient use of quantitative process analysis and management tools like simulation.</p><p>In the second case the possibilities to develop generic hospital unit simulation models by building and validating a generic intensive care unit (ICU) model are explored. The results show that some of the modeling approaches described in literature cannot replicate the actual behavior observed in all studied ICUs. It is important to identify patient groups for different admission priorities, to account for over-utilizations in the model logic, and to discover and properly model dependencies in the input data. The research shows that it is possible to develop a generic ICU simulation model that could realistically describe the performance of different real ICUs in terms of occupancy, coverage and transfers.</p><p>The value of simulation modeling in health care management is examined in the third case through the development and use of a simulation model for optimal resource allocation and patient flow in a hospital operating department. The goal of the simulation modeling in this case was to identify bottlenecks in the patient flow and to try different alternatives for allocation of operating room capacity in order to increase the utilization of operating room resources. The final model was used to evaluate four different proposed changes to operating room time allocation.</p>

The research presented in this dissertation addresses the Multi-Mode Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (MMRCPSP) in the presence of resource unavailability. This research is motivated by the scheduling of engineering design tasks in automotive product development to minimize the project completion time, but addresses a general scheduling situation that is applicable in many contexts. The current body of MMRCPSP research typically assumes that, 1) individual resource units are available at all times when assigning tasks to resources and, 2) before assigning tasks to resources, there must be enough resource availability over time to complete the task without interruption. In many situations such as assigning engineering design tasks to designers, resources are not available over the entire project-planning horizon. In the case of engineering designers and other human resources, unavailability may be due to several reasons such as vacation, training, or being scheduled to do other tasks outside the project. In addition, when tasks are scheduled they are often split to accommodate unavailable resources and are not completed in one continuous time segment. The objectives of this research are to obtain insight into the types of project scheduling situations where task splitting may result in significant makespan improvements, and to develop a fast and effective scheduling heuristic for such situations. A designed computational experiment was used to gain insight into when task splitting may provide significant makespan improvements. Problem instances were randomly generated using a modification of a standard problem generator, and optimally solved with and without task splitting using a branch and bound algorithm. In total 3,880 problem instances were solved with and without task splitting. Statistical analysis of the experimental data reveals that high resource utilization is the most important factor affecting the improvements obtained by task splitting. The analysis also shows that splitting is more helpful when resource unavailability occurs in multiple periods of short duration versus fewer periods of long duration. Another conclusion from the analysis indicates that the project precedence structure and the number (not amount) of resources used by tasks do not significantly affect the improvements due to task splitting. Using the insights from the computational testing, a new heuristic is developed that can be applied to large problems. The heuristic is an implementation of a simple priority rule-based heuristic with a new parameter used to control the number of task splits. It is desirable to obtain the majority of task splitting benefits with the smallest number of split tasks. Computational experiments are conducted to evaluate its performance against known optimal solutions for small sized problems. A deterministic version of the heuristic found optimal solutions for 33% of the problems and a stochastic version found optimal solutions for over 70%. The average percent increase in makespan compared to optimal was 7.58% for the deterministic heuristic and less than 2% for the stochastic versions demonstrating acceptable performance. / Graduation date: 2003