If there are two complementary solutions to any business, they are the enterprise resource planning and facilities management solutions, here at ERP:FM we are the first in the world to marry, fuse and join the two sectors together to produce what can only be considered a huge advantage to any business deploying the software and subsequent mindset of that deployment.

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

Enterprise resource planning is the business management component that integrates different modules and helps an organization store, collect, manage and interpret data. It integrates different business activities and includes: human resource management, inventory management, shipping and payment, manufacturing, project management, and marketing and sales.

This gives a wholesome view of the main business operations. The ERP displays information real time and uses a database to manage the data. ERPs are particularly important at tracking materials, cash, orders, payroll and production capacity. With the modules in the ERP sharing data from different departments such as purchasing, sales, manufacturing, and accounting, making the information shared among the ERP applications and helps to manage stakeholders (permission dependant).

The enterprise system software is also a multibillion-dollar sector that supports business functions through the production of components to track the operations. ERPs have been major in the large companies but are also catching on in the smaller enterprises. ERP is now more critical than ever for a business with tools to organizations and consolidate varied systems, it starts and ends with enabling the processing of error-free transactions and highly automates routine tasks.

Enterprise Resource Planning systems naturally include the following features:

– A shared database that hold the information for all the applications
– A similar look and feel for the user interface for each of the modules
– An unified system that runs real time transactions which do not rely on periodic updates
– Installation of the system with detailed data integration which is normally a major step

The major purposeful areas that make up an ERP include the following modules:

a) Financial accounting: This module mainly handles the general ledger, payable, fixed asset, payment, cash management, receivables and financial consolidation

b) Management accounting: This is the area that handles costing, activity based costing, budgeting, costing and cost management

c) Human resources: This module manages areas that touch on employees such as leave management, recruiting, training, benefits, payroll, 401K, diversity management, separation and retirement

d) Manufacturing module handles engineering, work orders, bill of materials, capacity,scheduling, quality control, workflow management, manufacturing projects, manufacturing process, manufacturing flow and product life cycle management

e) Order Processing: This handles all the procedures that affect orders such as order to cash, credit checking, pricing, order entry, pricing, available to promise, shipping,inventory, sales analysis and reporting, and sales commissioning

f) Supply chain management: This module is for supply chain planning, product configuration,supplier scheduling, purchasing,order to cash, claim processing, inventory and warehousing

g) Project management: This module helps to document the project planning, work breakdown structure, billing,resource planning, project costing,performance units, time and expense and activity management

h) Customer relationship management: This module assists with sales and marketing, customer contact, commissions, call center support, service

i) Data services module enables customers, suppliers and employees to initiate important business activities that are particular to each of them

Facility Management

Facility management services helps to keep the customers happy by bridging that gap and supplying the customer with an on going knowledge of current tasks. It is set out to makes everything run smooth for the organization and its customers by mapping all assets and producing a geography tree that runs through every part of the system. Facilities management appeals to the customer experience and is an addition to the required transaction activities.

FM touches on all industries with a commercial establishment. It is not an easy task either. The company needs to manage the disengagement between payroll and operations, service stability, attrition, accurate and timely billing. Proper management of facilities accelerates success and helps transform the business processes.

The main features of a facility management solution include:

– Improving operational efficiency
– Provide the necessary information to decision makers at the click of a button
– Boost profitability and issue correct bills on time
– Give quality services that delight customers
– Combine the back-office departments and main operations
– It creates an innovative way of doing business and arranges activities to achieve optimal output

Facilities management caters for different industry sectors and includes the following.

a) Asset management: This involves the inspection of assets and their conditions using a formal procedure. The results from this analysis then feeds into the capital and maintenance plans

b) Emergency management: This includes documented plans to deal with emergencies, issues, disasters, accidents and business recovery.

c) Energy management: This is the proactive and formal management of energy consumption through studies, project standards and communications

d) Environmental management: The plans here include issues to do with spills, hazardous waste and fluorescent tubes in order to lessen the impact on the environment

e) Lease management: This process involves the analysis of the lease charges from property tax and landlords

f) Fleet management: On top of our fusion of ERP and FM we have introduced GPS fleet management where we match customers with hardware and stream the results within our software so you never lose sight of a fleet asset ever again.
Bottom Line

The fusion of enterprise resource planning and facility management is what optimizes all aspects of an organization. The ERP takes care of the core business operations while the FM handles the supportive functions. The condition of the facilities affects depreciation, comfort and has a cost implication. However, when these two systems are implemented, they increase efficiency and help solve on cost. In addition, they help make all the stakeholders comfortable.