Enterprise wide business management using EDEN TM as a platform

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Rapid Product Development Division (RPD) of the Global Competitiveness Centre(GCC) identified the need to automate and integrate their organisational businessprocesses a nd to share common data and practices a cross the entire enterprise in areal-time environment.Different software applications such as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, theUniversity's Financial System and others, are used to complete a single project. Asystem was therefore needed to provide the capabilities to integrate all of theseapplications into one workable system.The most perceived technology to create such an environment, namely EnterpriseResource Planning (ERP), was found to be too sophisticated and expensive. TheKnowledge Management Software Solution, called EDEN™, was identified as the mostappropriate technology that could fulfil the needs of the RPD.Different modern management approaches, such as Theory of Constraints (TOC) andCustomer Relationship Management (CRM), and process modelling tools werecombined to build three roadmaps on the EDEN™ (Enterprise Design Navigator)platform to provide an enterprise wide business solution. A roadmap will aid as a guidethat leads the user through a series of steps in order to create an understanding of themethods to be used when starting a new project or product design. The three roadmapsdeveloped are Project Management, Product Development and Business Functions.The Project Management Roadmap was developed because all the RPD's work forclients is managed in the form of a project. This Roadmap should provide the necessaryguidance and support to manage any project.The most important processes of the RPD are without doubt the product developmentprocesses. The Product Development Roadmap was developed with detailedprocedures to assist with any product design. The business functions of the RPD are functions, such as finance and managementinformation, that support the organisation's operations and the project managementprocesses. The Business Functions identified for the RPD was combined into theBusiness Functions Roadmap.The main 0 bjective 0ft he thesis was toi ntegrate the business p rocesses a nd a II thesoftware applications into one workable system and to share common data in a real-timeenvironment. This was successfully accomplished by making use of the roadmaps andof the EDEN™ Environment.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University