Demand for trained enterprise resource planning professionals has motivated a number of universities to join alliances with ERP software vendors such as SAP. The mission of the ERP initiative at Florida International University’s College of Business Administration (CBA) is to educate managers to lead future organizations using skills to model, measure, and improve the performance of integrated business processes. In addition, students are required to obtain hands-on experience with the technical tools that serve to administer and analyze these processes within the enterprise.
Today, management curricula at most universities are generally delivered through courses associated with functional areas: accounting, finance, marketing, information systems, operations, and management. Just as organizations are seeking to reengineer their business processes in part to move away from functional disintegration, management education has also begun to question its functional orientation. To better serve the needs of business, the CBA faculty sees ERP as a vehicle that will enable the change in educational delivery from functionally oriented to business-process oriented, with the ultimate goal of integration of the curriculum across functions [1].
The CBA applied for, and subsequently became a member of the SAP University Alliance in the spring of 1998. At that time, market leader SAP was the only ERP vendor with a university partner program. Project visionary Joyce Elam, Dean of the CBA, viewed a partnership with SAP as a vehicle to gain outside recognition and bring relevance to the classroom. As a member of the SAP University Alliance, the college received a complimentary copy of SAP’s R/3 system, sponsored training, and software installation assistance. This article summarizes the ongoing process followed and challenges encountered by the CBA in order to achieve our vision of integrated curriculum.
ERP in undergraduate and graduate business education. To achieve the goal of integrated curriculum through ERP an incremental approach was taken in order to gain requisite skills with the ERP system while developing new coursework. The first new courses developed became part of the undergraduate Enterprise Resource Management Track (ERM), which places a strong focus on business processes. Students who choose the ERM track satisfy general undergraduate requirements during their first two years. The junior and senior years include the business core functional courses and specific ERM track courses. The specific ERM track courses focus on business processes and data management during the students’ junior year, and on systems, technology infrastructure, project management and strategy in their senior year.
There are few academics that have intimate knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of ERP.
A second new program, the Masters of Science in Management Information Systems (MSMIS), was designed to provide students with both managerial and technical skills for the ERP environment. The MSMIS program consists of 10 courses, and the degree is earned in approximately 12 months. Typically, students enter this program with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, physical sciences, engineering, management information systems, or from related technical fields. Tables 1 and 2 illustrate the relevant coursework in these programs, respectively, along with the software utilized.
The final stage of the curriculum evolution entails the integration of three core courses from the MBA program: Operations Management, Managerial Accounting, and Marketing Management. These courses are combined into a single team-taught set of modules delivered by a team of faculty from three departments. The development of this integrated course is expected to be complete by August of 2000. The ERP system will be integrated throughout the course to demonstrate the power and value of integrated processes and systems.
Challenges in implementing ERP in business education. Approximately 12 faculty members from information systems, operations, accounting, and marketing were part of the initial project team. Significant attrition caused by job changes, other interests, and lack of recognition of the work required to implement ERP in the classroom reduced this group to approximately five members. Lessons learned from this effort reveal that key project team members who will carry the project to completion must first be identified. The system training days must be carefully allocated. Only a few team members should attend introductory courses, and this experience can be utilized to provide in-house training to the faculty at large. This strategy places a greater emphasis on intermediate and advanced training, while increasing understanding and support of the initiative throughout the college.
Acquiring adequate technical knowledge and support is indeed a challenging issue because of the high demand for trained professionals in this area. The CBA decided to train internal support personnel to administer the system, and one full-time graduate student currently supports the system. Professors and systems-support personnel attended 105 days of SAP training during an 18-month period, at a cost to the university of travel and per diem expenses.
To reach our goal of integrated curriculum oriented education through ERP, faculty must develop coursework focusing on core business processes, rather than along functional areas. Traditional departmental structure works against this objective, and there are few academics that have intimate knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of ERP technology. Moreover, there are few, if any, educational resources or guidelines for accomplishing this task. A brief, and by no means exhaustive, list of useful resources can be found in the sidebar appearing at the end of this article.
An effort of this magnitude requires a sizeable resource commitment to software, and hardware. There is a $7,500 annual fee for the CBA to be a member of the University Alliance. In addition to the ERP software, a database management system such as Oracle is required.1 Initially, a dedicated Dell PowerEdge 6100 server with four 250MHz processors and a capacity of 90GB to house the database and the ERP software was purchased at a cost of $20,000. This server has since been upgraded to a Dell PowerEdge 6300 server with four 550MHz processors with 216GBs of storage for an additional $20,000. An ISDN line to allow SAP to monitor and support the system was installed at a cost of $3,700 plus $1,200 per year.
A further challenge for universities is to provide faculty with incentives commensurate with the effort that must be invested. An initiative of this sort, although well aligned with industry needs, may not be in line with standard university incentives such as promotion and tenure. Industry contacts for case writing and potential research has been one major benefit. In general, the administration and faculty associated with this effort must genuinely believe in the project mission to achieve success.
Student surveys have been developed to ensure that the educational objectives for the new programs are being met. Furthermore, favorable reports from the employers and a successful internship program that supports students and faculty are early indicators of success. Like successful ERP implementations in the business world, the presence of strong top-management support will be one of the most important factors in enabling this vision to become a reality. This support is needed to supply adequate financial resources, time for training and development, and the vision to drive the project to fruition.
The future holds several possible scenarios for universities wishing to pursue an ERP initiative. An ERP vendor may selectively choose university partners to be application service providers who will develop, support and provide system and associated coursework to other university partners who will buy Web-based access. This capability will open the opportunity for universities with limited resources to become users of ERP services in the classroom, avoiding the expense of purchasing hardware, supporting the system, and gaining the required expertise. Institutions will be able to decide on their level of involvement with ERP vendors and systems, but at every level of participation the future promises to have ERP in the curriculum.
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