This was the first international workshop to address the area of ERPs (Enterprise Resource Planning Systems). This area has grown in importance in industry and is one in which academia has a lot to learn. This workshop brought together some of the key players from industry to discuss issues, experiences, problems and future plans, and those of us in academia who are trying to catch up and learn about this formidable technology.

The venue for the workshop was the Centro Studi San Salvador in Venice, an old monastery, but very well equipped with conferencing facilities that gave every attendee a monitor on their desk and call buttons for flagging to the chair that they wished to ask a question. Of course, this didn’t preclude the use of more traditional communication mechanisms such as raising a hand!

The main business of the workshop, and paper presentations, took place on two days: 25^th and 26^th November. The final morning (on 27^th) was spent discussing the future of the workshop: whether another similar event should be held, what might its focus be, and where should it be hosted.

After the opening session by the workshop sponsors (Telecom Italia, Consiel and SAP Italia), the first keynote speech focussed on a well-known issue of software development: maintenance. Bob Glass presented a paper co-authored with Iris Vessey which described the results of a survey they had conducted of ERP users whose installations had been around long enough for there to have been an issue of maintenance. As you would expect in this new area, there are not many examples of an installation more than a few years old. The conclusions from this study were interesting, implying that there were indeed maintenance issues for ERP systems, but that responsibility for some of the maintenance tasks (principally enhancements) shifted to the users of the system.

Following a coffee break, an invited talk from Mike Brodie entitled ‘Rethinking ERP; the second generation’ told us how ERP vendors are changing their perspectives on what the market requires. Mike Brodie has extensive experience of implementing ERP systems (principally SAP’s R/3 system) and had a lot of interesting experience and insight to offer. Some of the issues raised were the importance of portfolios (ERP enhancements/modifications for a specific industry sector), and the advice that companies should implement ‘vanilla’ ERP modules for core business functions. This last piece of advice is in contrast to the wisdom that ERP systems can (and should) be customised to fit the company’s business. Areas of the business that provide competitive advantage should continue to be supported by proprietary items of software.

The afternoon began with a look at SAP’s new plans for internet education, called ‘mysap.com’, and was followed by a variety of talks on the industrial experience of ERP implementation.

The wonderful thing about having a workshop in Venice is the amazing evening entertainment possible. On this first evening, we enjoyed a buffet in the monastery itself, with some lovely fish dishes and Tiramisu, followed by a classical concert in San Bartolomeo’s Church.

On the second morning, the keynotes were given by two academics: Prof Rolland from the Sorbonne in Paris, who presented an approach to modelling COTS acquisition based on goals; and Prof Sutcliffe from City University who presented a theoretical framework for engineering reusable components. The former highlighted the impact which COTS software can have on the running of the organisation, an issue of particular concern for ERPs, which are known to have a huge impact on the organisation, but understanding and managing that impact is problematic. Prof Rolland suggested an approach that produces a goal-driven impact model which focuses on key change issues and then propagates them through into the business processes.

Following a break, we split into three working groups. This was to encourage closer discussion between attendees with similar interests, and it also allowed shorter papers to be presented in a more informal setting. The three workshops were: Adopting an ERP: usage and impact; Innovative technologies and solutions for ERPs; and Enterprise modelling and knowledge management. I chose to attend the first group, as one of the issues being addressed in this group was the issue of culture. When ERPs are introduced to a company, the company is expected to change its culture to fit the software, and this is having a major impact on the enterprise. Some of the most interesting discussion here arose from a paper looking at how to implement an ERP in a company with multiple cultures across Europe, since the cultural problem was exacerbated under these circumstances. Other issues which were discussed include the need for a better theoretical model for planning adoption of ERPs, the need to model the existing organisational culture in order to track the impact of adoption, and the use of ASAP (SAP’s proprietary ERP implementation method).

The final afternoon began with an invited presentation by Prof Mylopoulos from University of Toronto looking at goal-oriented analysis for customising software, and a session by C. Ronca from Consiel who discussed the key role of change management in ERP implementation. Customisation is of particular concern to ERP systems, since they are very flexibly customisable, but because of this are also very complex. The presentation reviewed goal-oriented analysis research from Requirements Engineering and discussed how it could be used in customisation.

Overall, the conference covered a good mixture of concerns: practical experience versus theoretical issues, industrial versus academic views, business versus technology perspectives. While academics can offer reflection and analysis to help understand ERP systems, their deployment, their impact and their management, we have an awful lot more to learn about their practical implementation and the issues faced by industrialists who wrestle with them every day. On the last morning, support for a repeat workshop was quite strong and a number of people offered to host the event, but no firm plans have yet been made.