Erp Selection Criteria

Formalising ERP Selection Criteria
Xavier Burgués Illa Univ. Politècnica Catalunya Edifici C6 Campus Nord Jordi Girona Salgado 1- 3 08034 Barcelona. Spain +34 934 017 006 diafebus@lsi.upc.es Abstract
We present a proposal for selecting ERP products from a formal description of their relevant characteristics. The work is based on a previous and successful collaboration with a midsize company in the field of software package selection. An ERP was selected following a systematic methodology called SHERPA. In this past experience, SHERPA relied on natural language descriptions of the application domain, user needs and candidate ERP solutions. In this paper, we show that a formal language may be used for modeling this application domain, translating user needs into requirements over the ERP products, and for reflecting how concrete ERP products adjust to them. Having selection criteria used during ERP acquisition formally modeled, as well as user needs and ERP product descriptions, we expect to obtain more reliable and understandable results in this process. Keywords Software selection, requirements specification, ERP.

Xavier Franch Univ. Politècnica Catalunya Edifici C6 Campus Nord Jordi Girona Salgado 1- 3 08034 Barcelona. Spain +34 934 016 965 franch@lsi.upc.es

Joan Antoni Pastor Univ. Politècnica Catalunya Edifici C6 Campus Nord Jordi Girona Salgado 1- 3 08034 Barcelona. Spain +34 934 017 021 pastor@lsi.upc.es

1. Introduction
Current practices in the software industry give an increasing importance to software procurement [3]. A significant instance of software procurement relevance growth is the clear trend in both private and public companies with regard to their current options for software-based management information systems: the fast and wide proliferation of large packaged ready-made Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, surely among the most extreme examples of current Customisable Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software packages [2]. We have... [continues]

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