ERP software is becoming a mature industry. Although MRP concepts were developed in the 1960's, they never quite took hold until the early 1980's when computers became affordable for manufacturing companies. The late 1970's and early 1980's gave birth to a new industry, computerized manufacturing systems. 

Software was becoming king!  DP Managers of manufacturing companies were buying prepackaged software to replace and complement in-house written programs.

Think about the paradigm in 1980. 1980 seems like yesterday to many of us; however, a large portion of our workforce was still in grade school then. They have not seen the changes we have over the last twenty-five years.

The software industry was immature:

· Many manufacturing packages either lacked financials or only had shell modules

· Interfaces were suspect

· Software often was alpha or beta when sold

· Major functionality was missing (lot control)

· Documentation was nonexistent or abbreviated

· Classroom manuals were unheard of

· Consultants did not know the inner workings of the software

· DASD was at a premium and expensive

· The most common cause of failure was lack of management commitment

· Users were unaware of data entry as most DP departments did all keypunching

· Users did not have access to running reports or inquiries

· PC's were nonexistent and typewriters were on every desk

· Most systems were manual

· Implementation methodologies were unheard of

· Project planning was something taught in industrial engineering college courses
 
· Customers accepted poor quality, service, and partnership in order to be "state of the art"

Fortunes were made as software companies ruled the manufacturing world in the 1980's, as dinosaurs ruled the earth millions of years ago. Their sales forces could sell anything and often did. 

Satisfaction with the software purchase did not rest on dependability of the code, but on just owning it. It was viewed as a competitive advantage. 

Forget that you may never implement it. Forget that it may not work. Forget it may not do what you were told in the sales cycle. You were state of the art. You had what others did not. Your perception was your reality.

I looked at a listing of the Pansophic User Group officers in 1991 the other day and it triggered a cascade of memories that was almost overwhelming. In the late 1980's and early 1990's we were beginning to "get it" or so we thought. 

· There were more successes than failures in manufacturing software implementations, although interfaces (Shop Floor and GL) and major functionality (Multi-plant) were still not understood or implemented. Often these functionalities and interfaces was not used because of fear by the user and lack of understanding by the consultant.

· Software vendors began purchasing other modules/applications to interface with their base package. More often than not these either didn't work as advertised (Buyer Center) or were never supported properly by the vendor (PowerBench)

· Software still had bugs when released and clients stated their fear about being the first to go to a new release.

· Most major functionality was placed into the major manufacturing

Continued Next Page

Click to Download a 
Word file of this report

Systems Conversion, Ltd. -- 202 S. Erwin St. -- Cartersville, Georgia 30120 -- Phone: (770) 606-9615 -- Fax: (770) 606-9720
©2001 Systems Conversion, Ltd.