ERP is the core of management thinking

ERP is the core management philosophy is to supply chain management. Supply chain Supply Chain by the original literal translation is "supply chain", but in fact every aspect of the chain contains "for" and "need" two aspects of the double meaning of "for" and "need" is always relative, attendant, also known abroad Demand / Supply Chain. In a market economy, the supply is always only occur because of demand, there is no demand, so what is the supply? Therefore, more precise translation supply chain. As the supply system, usually refers to the Logis tics (logistics system) the content, logistics system "from procurement to sales", and supply chain "from the market to supply market demand."
With integrated management and information technology known American Production and Inventory Management Association (APICS) since 1997, will be eligible for production and inventory management (CPIM) exam increased supply chain management, content, and in seven themes as the first one (the other topics were: inventory management, JIT, master scheduling, material requirements planning, production job control, systems and technology), indicating its importance. Supply Chain Management exam content has four aspects:
1 business scope of the concept: supply chain elements; operating environment; financial base; manufacturing resource planning (MRP Ⅱ); in-time production (JIT); total quality management (TQM); MRP Ⅱ, JIT and TQM relationship.
2 requirements planning: market-driven; the definition of customer expectations and value; customer relationship; demand management.
3 Demand and Supply of conversion: design; capacity management; plan; implementation and control; performance evaluation.
4 Supply: inventory; procurement; materials distribution and distribution system.
As can be seen from the above examination content focus of supply chain management thinking, it is both "for" and "need" two aspects of the environment.
Enterprises in order to maintain and expand market share, you have to have relatively stable sales channels and customers, in order to ensure product quality and technical content, there must be relatively stable raw materials and accessories and parts supplier collaboration. Companies with their sales agents, customers and supplier relationships, is no longer simply a business object, but the benefit-sharing partnership, which is a major shift in the modern management concepts. This partnership formed a company's supply chain is "lean production (Lean Production)" The core idea. When confronted with a specific market and product demand, the basic business partners may not be able to meet these new product development and production requirements. At this time, companies will organize a specific supply and distribution channels consisting of short-term or one-time supply chain, to form a "dynamic coalition" (or "virtual factory"), the supply and coordination units (including product research and development) as is an integral part of business, the use of "simultaneous engineering", with the shortest possible time to bring new products into the market, this is the "Agile Manufacturing (Agile Manufacturing)" The core idea. At present, the competition among enterprises is no longer a business of an enterprise competition, but has developed into an enterprise supply chain competing with the competition between supply chains. ERP system is to adapt to the needs of this competitive situation developed.
In addition to the people in the supply chain are already familiar with "logistics" "cash flow", "information flow", there are easy for people to ignore the "value-added flow" and "workflow." That is, supply chain, there are five basic "flow" in mobility. From the formal point of view, the customer is buying goods or services, but in essence, the customer is buying goods or services can benefit from the value. Various materials in the supply chain moving, is a constant increase its technical value-added content or value-added process, in the process, but also pay attention to the elimination of all inefficiencies and waste. Therefore, the supply chain there are value-added chain (Value-Ad ded Chain) meaning. It goes without saying, only when the product can be sold, only value-added significance. Enterprises rely on cost, productivity or production scale advantage is not enough price competition, innovation depends on the value of the advantage of playing war, this is the real way to compete, and analysis of ERP systems to provide value-added business process functions.
Information, materials, funds are not their own flow, the value of the material will not be automatically added to rely on human labor to achieve, to rely on a company's business activities ─ ─ workflow (Work Flow) or business processes (Business Process), they can flow together. Workflow determines the velocity of flow and flow, the enterprise business process reengineering (BPR) the object of study. ERP systems provide a variety of industry proven business processes, and can follow the development of the situation of competition, as the business workflow (business processes) reforms in the operation of the application to make the appropriate adjustments.
In short, ERP is included in management thinking is very broad and deep, these advanced management ideas have been able to achieve, but also with the development and application of information technology inseparable. ERP not only for the supply chain, reflecting the lean manufacturing, agile manufacturing, concurrent engineering spirit, and must be combined with Total Quality Management (TQM) to ensure quality and customer satisfaction; combination of in-time production (JIT) to eliminate all inefficiencies and waste, reduce inventory and shorten the delivery time; its association with Theory of Constraints (TOC, Theory of Constraint, is to optimize the development of production technology OPT) to define the supply chain bottlenecks, remove constraints to the expansion of enterprise supply chain effective output.
As information technology and the development of modern management thinking, ERP content will continue to expand. Let us explore the significance of the ERP system has profound meaning of the cross-century, China's enterprises to improve competitiveness in the global market to provide comprehensive enterprise management solutions to contribute.