A Semi-Structured Tailoring-Driven Approach for ERP Selection

It has been widely reported that selecting an inappropriate system is a major reason for ERP implementation failures. The selection of an ERP system is therefore critical. While the number of papers related to ERP implementation is substantial, ERP evaluation and selection approaches have received few attention. Motivated by the adaptation concept of the ERP systems, we propose in this paper a semi-structured approach for ERP system selection that has a more holistic focus by simultaneously evaluating candidate products according to both functional and non-functional requirements and considering the anticipated fitness of ERP solutions after the optimal resolution, within limited resources, of a set of the identified mismatches. The approach consists of an iterative selection process and an evaluation methodology that combines a 0-1 linear programming model to determine functional measurement metrics with MACBETH cardinal scales to elaborate multi-criteria performance expressions.