ERP is Going the Smart and Digital Way

By CIOReview | Tuesday, July 7, 2020

ERP is set to go through a tech revolution after 2020, by adopting AI, 3D printing, IoT, and cloud computing.

FREMONT, CA: Technology has fast-forwarded Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which, earlier, used to be relatively slow to change. This will force companies to update themselves soon.

ERP involves the integration of the whole business process management in real-time, now it is majorly mediated by software and tech, giving opportunities, complexity, and also risks.

Single ERP systems led to failures because it only handled back-office functions. Innovative businessmen then created two-tier ERP software, which is leading in the industry. It involves the dual implementation of ERP within a company. Tier one is the “legacy applications,” used by corporates, while tier two is managed by subsidiaries.

Managing data is a problem associated with ERP, such as duplication of work from both tiers while omitting some business-related data/information affects corporate records.

3D Printing and AI

Traditional plastic filament printing is replaced by three-dimensional printers coupled with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Now, engineers can make very quick prototypes and miniatures for testing purposes.

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3D printing is easy, cuts costs while boosting efficiency. It is used to such an extent that even human tissues and vehicle engines are made. Back in 2017, the first 3D-designed parts were created for the military planes in a contract to BAE Systems. Again, the bottleneck is in managing the huge data.

The purpose of AI is for technology to aid and boost human activity and not to replace humans. Problem-solving and learning will allow AI to help the 2020 ERP software by taking tasks like payable accounts and operations research, among others.

Smartphone and IoT

What has smartphone apps not taken over yet? Now it is set to take over ERP too! It allows access to real-time company information and communication with consumers. Such apps let the company send push notifications to employees, schedule events, approve sales orders, and manage expenses while simply sipping coffee.

Internet of Things (IoT) connects computers with machines and many other things. Sensors can be placed on manufacturing machines and can be integrated into ERP software, where the performance can be observed in real-time. The manager can interpret the info to schedule maintenance, among other activities. This can be further integrated to a phone app.

Cloud

Storing secured data in the cloud comes next naturally. Companies are storing massive ERP data on the cloud already. Estimates had predicted that the cloud computing market would be valued at $258 billion starting this year. Almost a third of IT company budgets go to cloud services, as of now.