Design of an Enterprise Level Business System - Essay Example

An Enterprise's need for tighter financial controls1, more consistent data2, support for streamlined sourcing and procurement processes3, a single data source for product or services data4, support for closed-loop sales and operations planning processes5, and portfolio approach6 collectively points to the requirement of a software system named Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). It's a comprehensive system capable of breaking down barriers between departments within an enterprise and brings together various pockets such as sales, production, finance, human resources, purchasing and shipping - to unify access to the up-to-date information to produce a consistent, single version of the truth on Talking simply about the organisation and its processes isn't understanding them.

To get a deeper understanding of the processes, one needs the right information for capturing process detail. It's in the heads of the people who, day in and out, are living the process (Ben B Graham, 2004). This is where Ben Graham's process mapping method steals the picture. The symbols are used to call attention to value-added work, non-value-added work, work inspections (controls), movement of work from one location to another and delays (when nothing is happening). No other mapping technique provides such transparency, decision-making support and support for analysis as is provided by Ben Graham Process Map.

Another such is the 'IDEF' methodology (Integrated DEFinition language). It frees the process from arguing about process modelling taxonomies. IDEF suite provides functional, information, data, process, object-oriented and ontology modelling to map business processes. The 'BPMN' (Business Process Modelling Notation) provides a set of graphical elements, Swimlanes is the most popular among them, which facilitates the developers in implementing the technology that will perform those processes. For a close comparison, Graham stands taller than the rest (See figure 1).

Documenting the design requires the right tool. It should provide clarity without being overly simplistic and provide detail without clutter. There are a lot of flowcharting tools which provide symbol sets but unless it's wrapped in a methodology, it's of no use. The 'Process Developer Enterprise Edition' is a mapping tool for internal activity, flowchart mapping and document control. It helps an organization to meet ISO 9000:2000 standards. Another very useful tool is the 'FlowBreeze Flowchart Software'.

It is a 100% MS Office integrated tool for making flow charts faster and easier. It lets you just type the text and converts it into flowchart shapes, adds flow lines, and formats the drawing. It is in accordance with Sarbanes Oxley. The 'Stylus Studio XML' Enterprise Edition is another mapping tool with IDE features, XML Editing, Debugging, Testing, Graham vs IDEF vs BPMNFeaturesGIBDisplays All the Items that are involved in the process / detailed shows step-by-step processing at the task level- the work people do shows processing at a function level Shows relationships between item shows multiple related flow displays single-line flowIdentifies WHO.