ERP just a label

As students, we should always take some time in the afternoon to remind what we learn during the day. And we do not want this freaky answer: nothing. Hopefully, even we are in day 1, we can watch behind and say that there is some stuff to summarize.
Remember that this morning, I started with nothing in mind.

Enterprise Resource Planning
Enterprise Resource Planning is a useful tool for (big) companies. SAP and Oracle as the major player (MP) in this area. And as in every software sector, there are open source programs. (OP) We can discuss about pros and cons of each solution but we mainly find the classical advantages and disadvantages. (support for MP, community of programmors for OP, problems of security breaches, data integrity etc...)

ERP just a label?
Well, before ERP, there was MRP (Material Requirements Planning) and later on MRP-II. (Material Resource Planning) I think that the second one is just a evolution of MRP. First, it includes MRP. Second, it brings some new posibilities. ERP is, like MRP-II, a evolution more complete. The label we put of one program does not matter. It is common in IT to change labels over time (and fashion?) but this does not change fundamentally the software itself.

Modularity and avoidance of data redundancy
SAP is one of the MP. The interesting point of ERP is the modularity they have. You can pick only the module you want and add it on a basic program. But the most important point of ERP is the fact that it has one database only. If you can take the one database you have for each departement and change it for one database for you company, imagine the time you save the data integrity you gain.

To be continued tomorrow...