Conclusions and future work
In this research, a business–ERP alignment assessment model is proposed and validated through three Japanese companies. As we can see in the results of assessing the five year’s maintenance data in three companies, the chart stays in the Diffusion zone for the first year and rapidly shrinks into the Utilization zone for a relatively long period. When the chart enlarges again, it shows as the chart in the Enhancement zone. According to the real events of three companies, there was an upgrade or new implementation in the same period when the chart shows the Enhancement zone. The above results prove the feasibility of the model and reveal the variation of the ERP alignment in a visualized way. It is also indicated the utilization of the business–ERP alignment assessment model is a more convenient method to help the organizations to pinpoint the status of the ERP alignment. In regular qualitative assessment methods, for instance, the same criterion within different assessment levels is distinguished by “Good […],” “Limited […],” “Some […]” or “Lack of […],” which might cause a very subjective outcome—different people can conclude different results. By using the maintenance documents, the quantitative approach is more objective and reliable than qualitative methods and eases the above problems. The analysis also points out the neglected areas of document management in organizations, such as the importance of recording the potential issues and building the assessment files. In order to be able to improve the accuracy and the efficiency of the method, we have the following recommendations: • build assessment files to record the ERP-related organizational and TIs and the corresponding maintenance activities from the beginning; • build the category of the potential issues into the assessment files; • execute the assessment regularly and continually in every three to six months; and • pay attention to the status in the Decline zone and find out its reasons and make the plan in advance.
