Proposed Solution
Lead Fashion Designers is a medium fashion retailer organization whose headquarter is in London. The company operates stores in UK, France, USA and Germany. It has over 70 stores located in these countries. It also supplies its clothes through other high street stores which it does not considered as its major stores. It orders its materials from China, Morocco and Vietnam. The clothes are mainly sewn under strict guidelines in Brazil, Greece, Mexico and Bulgaria. All the stores make their orders through their head office which is located in London every three months.
The head office then makes appropriate orders from its suppliers. The company has expanded greatly recently and thus experiencing a lot of challenges in maintaining its inventories, accounting, tracking sales as well as in its logistics. The company orders approximately 50,000 men’s shirts, 200,000 pair of men’s trousers, 350,000 dresses and 300,000 skirts every three months. Its high market share has been its main challenge as the company has failed to meet its high demand for clothes. The failure to deliver adequate clothes has made most of its customers to be extremely unhappy.
Lack of appropriate information system is the reason behind the challenges the company is experiencing (Rainer & Cegielski, 2011). Therefore, the company has opted to adopt an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to overcome its shortcomings. An ERP is a solution that integrates all data and processes of an enterprise into a single information system. The adoption of ERP solution will help the company to have function-specific components that will make it possible to track order entry, accounts payable, purchase, accounts receivable as well as distributions and logistics. ERP solutions require different hardware and software to ensure it has a seamless integration (Webmasters, 2012).
Hardware Requirements
When Lead Fashion Designers management will be budgeting for an ERP solution, it is important for them to remember to consider that ERP system is resource intensive as per RAM, processor as well as the disk requirements. It is mainly advisable for ERP users to make sure that they adopt two servers which make it possible to separate database and application processes. The separation of the application server from database server will make it possible for Lead fashion Designers’ customers to access the application server where they can make their queries as well as facilitate them to place their orders accordingly.
Likewise, the database server will help the management to track the procurement processes accordingly in order to make sure that enough clothes are delivered to meet their customers demand. The database server will solely be used for internal purposes. To monitor the sales, orders, inventories as well as in conducting appropriate logistics for forecast purposes (Williamson, 2010). The following are the hardware requirements for the ERP system
The ERP system adopted by Lead Fashion Designers will be enabled to the existing computer system and configured accordingly. The system will require to be supported by an internet connection in order to enable users to access the system from wherever they are in order to facilitate transactions. Connecting the ERP over the internet will help the management at Lead Fashion Designers head office to be able to track orders, delivery, distributions, sales as well as distributions.
In addition, the management will be in a better position to track past sales and execute appropriate logistics in order to predict the future performance of the business. Forecasting will greatly help the company to establish appropriate infrastructure to cope with future business requirements. The management can dedicate the less power server for internal purposes and the more powerful one for application purposes (Webmasters, 2012).).
Software Requirements
Lead Fashion Designers management can either opt to adopt Microsoft or Linux operating systems. They can opt to use Microsoft operating software such as windows XP, Vista or 2000. Alternatively, they can decide to use Linux software such as ubuntu, Gentoo or rpath. The management should also consider adopting appropriate security software in order to make sure unauthorized users are not able to access the database server which contains sensitive company data. Security software will enable Lead Fashion Designers outside users’ to access the application server over the internet, while keeping them from accessing the critical data that is contained in database server. The following are the software requirements for the ERP.
Training and Maintenance
The vendor that will be given the order to supply Lead Fashion Designers with ERP solutions will be responsible for training its employees on how to use the ERP solutions. In addition, the vendor will also provide free maintenance services to Lead Fashion Designers Company for one year. The maintenance services that will be provided will entail sending technicians to the company’s offices or giving Lead Fashion Employees technical supports online.
Reference List
Rainer, R. K., & Cegielski, C. G. (2011). Introduction to Information Systems: Supporting and Transforming Business (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Webmasters. (2012). Enterprise Resource Planning. Web.
Williamson, P. (2010). Hardware Requirements for an ERP. New York: Prentice Hall.