Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Systems that integrate (or attempt to integrate) all data and processes of an organization into a unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is a unified database to store data for the various system modules.

MRP vs. ERP — Manufacturing management systems have evolved in stages over the past 30 years from a simple means of calculating materials requirements to the automation of an entire enterprise. Around 1980, over-frequent changes in sales forecasts, entailing continual readjustments in production, as well as the unsuitability of parameters fixed by the system, led MRP (Material Requirement Planning) to evolve into a new concept: Manufacturing Resource Planning (or MRP2) and finally the generic concept Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

Learn more about implementing or improving your ERP system.