Secondary Development makes ERP "more appealing": A curse caused by demanding personality

Almost the CEOs of every ERP manufacturer have such feelings: it is clear that after several months of initial discussions and project analysis, the ERP system has been completed with the user's approval, as a result, due to the "Secondary Development" required by the enterprise, the system becomes more and more complex, and the expected effect is getting farther and farther. Finally, the system is completely changed.

Today, many enterprises are using information systems, but many of them need to be developed for the second time before they can be truly suitable for enterprises. So, how can we tap the potential of Information-based software in secondary development to make enterprises more affordable?

Moving closer to the actual situation of enterprises or universal

"When selecting custom development or using a general system, we should first check whether there is a suitable general system ." Qu Yichun, Deputy Director of the Information Department of Shanghai Institute of accounting, gave an example. For example, in terms of document processing, workbooks, and financial systems, the market has mature software such as Word, Excel, and yonyou and Kingdee. Therefore, no enterprise is willing to invest heavily in its own development.

"Currently, most of the accounting information software, such as yongyou in China, only meets the national accounting requirements. However, from the perspective of enterprise management, in addition to public information, the ERP system also needs to provide internal management information of the enterprise ." Zhou baolai, Deputy Director of Finance of Yangzhou Yaxing passenger car [11.82 1.72%] Co., Ltd., said in an interview that ERP systems are more developed by industry and modules, although various parameters are provided during system initialization for the enterprise to set according to the actual situation. However, even different enterprises in the same industry may focus on different information in terms of development scale, development cycle, and market segments, as a result, the requirements for information may be either rough or fine, and enterprises may have their own demands in addition to the generalization of financial accounting, therefore, secondary development will better meet your own needs.

"Our secondary development is based on the database of the existing ERP system and other management software, combined with the needs of the enterprise's own financial management. For example, in a passenger car, the product belongs to 'small batches and multiple species ', and the traditional cost accounting method can no longer meet the enterprise's own management needs, therefore, the data table 'production materials receiving checklist 'is classified by five aspects, including orders, product models, production workshops, main auxiliary materials, normal and abnormal losses, in order to answer which orders are profitable and wasted, and which links are subject to abnormal losses, the manager's sight can be quickly focused." Weekly warranty.

Do not overemphasize the characteristics of the enterprise.

"During secondary development, we should not emphasize the characteristics of the enterprise too much. The management process in ERP software is extracted from many enterprises and advanced ." Qu Yichun said that many enterprises' "special characteristics" are caused by unreasonable processes. They should optimize or restructure their business processes through ERP implementation, instead of simply modifying the software to adapt to unreasonable processes.

Because ERP has its own system, if the system cannot meet the needs of enterprises, it will also "do not modify the coreCodeAs the basic principle. Data should be exported from ERP, and the secondary developmentProgramAnd then import it to the system. In this way, we can achieve the greatest gains with minimal changes. However, if you directly modify the core code, it will be very difficult to upgrade later.

"Our secondary development is to make full use of the existing database under the guidance of the technical staff of the ERP manufacturer to expand the scope of data use or increase the value of data use ." Zhou baolai further explained to reporters that expanding the scope of data use means to provide data in the ERP system to other personnel who do not use the ERP system through the system developed by the company in a planned manner, expand the sharing scope. For example, we provide a login window for the supplier through secondary development of the payable data in the ERP system, through an account, each supplier can complete reconciliation or query the delivery status of the products it supplies in real time through the network; to improve the value of data usage, you can connect the data in the ERP system with the databases of other management software through secondary development to achieve more functions, for example, you can associate the raw material unit price of the ERP system with the material list in the PDM software used by the Technical Department to obtain the material quota of each product in real time, this greatly simplifies the workload of enterprises with obvious order differentiation.

During secondary development, too many modifications are not recommended. Because ERP software is a very complex large software, from the software engineering point of view, developers should maintain traceability to the project. If too many modifications are made, such traceable traceability will become blurred, resulting in uncontrollable projects.

Professional System Technicians are required

"People engaged in secondary development should be familiar with the functions of the software and the structure of tables in the corresponding database, and fully understand the special business processes of users. This requires a certain amount of time and work, it may even delay the project; in addition, the system may be unstable after the software is modified, affecting the version upgrade." A software regional manager told reporters.

If secondary development is required, the functional modules made by secondary development should be made independent of the original ERP system. In this way, when the ERP system version is updated, the modules developed after the secondary development can be applied to the ERP system of the later version without modification or modification.

"Our company has an information center. This is a professional team responsible for our enterprise informatization. They have had professional training on the information system, and each person has a detailed division of labor ." Weekly warranty.

We recommend that you set up the project owner by Zhou baolai. The project owner plays a role in grasping the overall situation, coordinating various departments to complete the work, and ultimately ensuring the successful implementation of the secondary development project. It is best for the project owner to be a senior leader of an enterprise that understands both technology and management. The project owner must have the right to make decisions for the entire project and spend enough time on secondary development projects, so as to ensure that it can follow up the development staff and the enterprise's internal implementation personnel throughout the process, and ultimately ensure that the project is delivered on time.

Secondary Development of ERP projects should be regarded as a "top-notch Project", which requires sufficient attention from enterprise leaders and sufficient attention from software providers and relevant internal personnel. Only those three aspects of the power are valued, strict control, the project can be delivered on schedule and with quality and quantity.