Information Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-15-2023

Abstract

Large parts of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) processes are automated. One example is the item values in the sales order process. To execute a sales order, the ERP system applies a specific “find” strategy on a wide variety of data sources such as customer master, material master, and customer price-specific data tables, and extracts information such as customer class, discounts, and dates for computations of line items, namely, prices, discounts, and taxes. While completing their ERP assignments on the sales order process, students often see only the final sales order amount and ignore—and thereby fail to appreciate and understand—the intricacies of the automated method that executes “behind the scenes” to achieve the sales order numbers. This leaves a gap in students’ learning process, as they treat the ERP automation mechanism as a black box and do not appreciate the finer details of the business process that come into play. To illustrate the general method involved in a business automation process, we have developed a teaching technique where students—without the use of ERP software—complete a sales order by manually searching for values in a sequence based on the business processing logic. This task helps students understand and appreciate the internal processes of business automation in ERP systems.

Comments

Original published version available at https://aisel.aisnet.org/jise/vol34/iss1/2

Publication Title

Journal of Information Systems Education

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.