A Brief History of Erp

Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 357–363 www.elsevier.com/locate/jom

Enterprise resource planning (ERP)—A brief history

F. Robert Jacobs a,*, F.C. ‘Ted’ Weston Jr.b

a b

Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-1701, United States College of Business, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1277, United States Available online 12 December 2006

Abstract This is a brief history of ERP—enterprise resource planning. Major ERP vendors are discussed as well as the major impact of developments in computer hardware and software on the industry. The industry consolidation that has recently occurred is also discussed. Interviews were conducted with Mr. Ed McVaney, founder of J.D. Edwards, Rick Allen, former VP of Finance and Administration, and Rick Snow, former Chief Legal Counsel of J.D. Edwards. Information was also obtained from Bill Robinson who held the position of ‘‘Industry Consultant’’ with IBM in the mid-1980s. # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: ERP; Industry; Functional enterprise; Data integration

The move beyond MRP that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s was driven by a need for stronger integration between the functional enterprise silos that dominated firms throughout this period. One could argue that software engineers recognized the promise of data integration very early—long before the push towards flatter organizational structures that occurred in the early 1990s. The Eleventh Edition of the APICS Dictionary (Blackstone and Cox, 2005) defines ERP (enterprise resource planning) as a ‘‘framework for organizing, defining, and standardizing the business processes necessary to effectively plan and control an organization so the organization can use its internal knowledge to seek external advantage’’ (page 38). This definition highlights the broad scope of applications that fit under the ERP framework. Manufacturing planning and control (MPC) systems are our primary focus but the...