Critical evaluation on achieving total implementation of ERP in Manufacturing firms

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system has been one of the most popular business management systems, providing benefits of real-time capabilities and seamless communication for business in large organizations. However, not all ERP implementations have been successful. Since ERP implementation affects entire organizations such as process, people, and culture, there are a number of challenges that companies may encounter in implementing ERP systems. This research is the quest to find out the feasibility of implementing an ERP system for the manufacturing sector in Sri Lanka, focusing on the cost benefit of production planning, purchasing, inventory management, and supply management optimization. Literature was reviewed in order to study ERP systems, usage of information technology in manufacturing sector, manufacturing information system and global case studies of ERP system implementations on manufacturing sector and return of investment of from above optimization. Application software systems must be architected in order to deal with the current and future needs of the business organization. Managing optimization of production planning, purchasing, inventory management, and supply management using architecture-centered methodologies must be an intentional step in the process of deploying information systems which not an accidental by product of the software acquisition and integration process