The Adventurous and Practical Journey to a Large-Scale Enterprise Solution

The high failure rate of enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects is a pressing concern for both academic researchers and industrial practitioners. The challenges of an ERP implementation are particularly high when the project involves designing and developing a system from scratch. Organizations often turn to vendors and consultants for handling such projects but, every aspect of an ERP project is opaque for both customers and vendors.

Unlocking the mysteries of building a large-scale ERP system, The Adventurous and Practical Journey to a Large-Scale Enterprise Solution tells the story of implementing an applied enterprise solution. The book covers the field of enterprise resource planning by examining state-of-the-art concepts in software project management methodology, design and development integration policy, and deployment framework, including:

• A hybrid project management methodology using waterfall as well as a customized Scrum-based approach
• A novel multi-tiered software architecture featuring an enhanced flowable process engine
• A unique platform for coding business processes efficiently
• Integration to embed ERP modules in physical devices
• A heuristic-based framework to successfully step into the Go-live period

Written to help ERP project professionals, the book charts the path that they should travel from project ideation to systems implementation. It presents a detailed, real-life case study of implementing a large-scale ERP and uses storytelling to demonstrate incorrect and correct decisions frequently made by vendors and customers. Filled with practical lessons learned, the book explains the ins and outs of adopting project methodologies. It weaves a tale that features both real-world and scholarly aspects of an ERP implementation.

Vahid Hajipour is the Head of FANAP Studies & Research Center serves as the knowledge preservation and dissemination headquarters of the FANAP Co., a giant information and communications technology (ICT) solution provider. To align with the devised mission, the divisional structure of the center encompasses four departments of scientific research, market research, scientific publication, and scientific events. The scientific research department spotlights and documents the groundwork of the valuable applied maneuvers of the company in dealing with real-world business challenges. The market research department puts the knowledge-based ideas into practice by directing the development of high-tech services such as a data annotation platform and an AI-enabled robotic system in the banking sector. The division of the scientific publication also hosts the editorial office of the Journal of Applied Intelligent Systems & Information Sciences (JAISIS) through embracing practical studies on different streams of ICT. Furthermore, the center looks for designing scientific events to learn the target audiences how to cope with novel technological concepts/tools using innovative educational methods like gamified ones. Currently, 15 full-time specialists and a broad network of experts in ICT projects with profound academic and seasoned business backgrounds are interactively pursuing the Center’s mission.

Despite being founded recently (i.e., in 2020), several research works are conducted under the supervision and affiliation of the center (i.e., Research Center, FANAP Co., Tehran, Iran). Notably, the senior scholars of the center who contributes to the present book, i.e., Vahid Hajipour, Sajjad Jalali, Mohammad Amini, and Ali Gharaei have successfully published prolific papers in a significant number of prestigious journals such as Safety Science, Computers & Operations Research, Knowledge-based Systems, Expert Systems with Applications, Computer and Industrial Engineering, IEEE Transaction of Engineering Management, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Applied Soft Computing, International Journal of System Science, Engineering Optimization, Measurement, Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, Reliability Engineering and System Safety, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, among others. To expand interprofessional collaborations, FANAP Studies & Research Center welcomes joint research programs with active scholarly parties all around the globe in the context of cutting-edge topics, including but not limited to, enterprise solutions, artificial intelligence, data science, Internet of Things, cloud computing, blockchain, and robotics.