AMR Analysts Discuss Role-Based ERP Interfaces – The User-Friendly Enterprise

By Sarah Z. Sleeper, Journalist in Solana Beach, California – November 19, 2004

German Version • This article has also been published in SAP INFO 122

SAP INFO spoke to Bill Swanton, an AMR vice president for research, and his colleague Judy Sweeney, an AMR research director, about how and why ERP systems are morphing from highly complex systems to a user-centric, business process-oriented design.

The good news is that global 2000 companies are focused on improving the performance of their enterprise applications this year. They plan to spend about nine percent more than they did in 2003 as they strive to globalize and consolidate their systems, says Boston-based AMR Research, which tracks and analyzes ERP and other technology trends.

The not-so-good news, says AMR, is that of those companies, just 35 percent are satisfied with the ERP systems they use now. Company executives cite as a key issue the software's failure to map well with business goals.

A major shift is taking place, says Bill Swanton, to "role-based interfaces" in enterprise systems. Companies are demanding that technology work intuitively, based on the specific needs of individual workers and without requiring excessive training. ERP systems that offer such ease of use are on the agenda these days.

SAP is on board with that trend with an array of user-friendly systems, such as the mySAP Business Suite, SAP NetWeaver, and SAP xApps. SAP is committed to providing a high level of user-friendliness. Its new systems offer workflow patterns based on specific business processes that still let users make ad hoc queries and modifications.

 

Interview with Bill Swanton and Judy Sweeney

SAP INFO: What spurred the trend toward user-friendly ERP?

Judy Sweeney: It was users struggling, over the years, to get needed information that resides in multiple modules in an ERP application. For example, a customer service representative (CSR) could enter an order and find out that the customer was on credit hold, so he wants to find out why. The CSR wants to pop over to an account receivable module and look up the credit information. When they resolve the credit problem, they find out the ship date is beyond the customers required date, so they want to drill down to the warehousing module to look at inventory levels in multiple warehouses. In the meantime, the customer might ask, 'When did my last order ship?' So the CSR needs to pull up information on the status of another order. The CSR needs information from lots of different places in order to service the customer. But he doesn't want to leave the original screen. He wants the information to be readily available through a function key or a mouse, for instance.

There could be a similar scenario on the purchasing side when an expeditor needs to be able to access multiple pieces of information. She could find out if a vendor can't fulfill an order, or if other vendors are available. She can access item ID numbers to see if there are any substitutes for the original item. Again, she wants the ability to get things from multiple systems. And planners want workbench capabilities, to be able to see different pieces of information that help them make decisions.

Bill Swanton: The goal with the user interface is to make sure people have the information they need at their fingertips, and that they can get additional information in the context of the task they were doing at any given time, without having the system close down while they navigate it. You have to get those three things together. Among the design sins of the past, one was that user interfaces were designed by programmers for programmers. The system was organized based on functions and transactions. It was a menu tree with artificial divisions between the functionality because different programmers were responsible for different functionality. They were not designed for the sequence of things that individual workers did in the course of a day.

SAP INFO: Has that design approach changed?

Swanton: It is still in a process of changing right now. Some vendors did it better and earlier than others. Today, they are getting closer to a role-based interface. What they are trying to do is think in terms of functions and transactions for the overall information system, but through the eyes of a particular person who has a particular responsibility.

SAP INFO: Isn't all technology, not just ERP, becoming more business process focused?

Sweeney: Absolutely.

Swanton: There are a couple of interesting things that happened. The first step toward this was the concept of each user being able to create his own menu that had only the transactions he wanted on it.

Sweeney: Then they stepped into a window design so they could open up multiple applications. But the data didn't necessarily pass from one window to the next.

Swanton: The idea behind role-based interfaces is that a company doesn't have a single maintenance system, for example. It has a maintenance supervisor, a parts buyer, and a maintenance technician, each with a different view of that maintenance system depending on what they are trying to do. So, the first step is to organize by roles. The second is to streamline for what each particular person does. A classic problem is that some ERP systems had shop floor modules, for example, that had very complex, page-based, multiple-task user interfaces.

The same interface was used by planners as well as people on the shop floor. So, someone does a two-minute operation on a work order, finishes it, and goes up to the ERP screen. He spends three minutes going through 13 tabs to report the completion of that operation. The system was getting in his way. Ideally, the worker would pick up the assembly, run it under a bar code reader, and put it down on the next bench. And that should do whatever it needs to do with the other parts of the system. Only if there's something else needed would the worker have to do any other kind of interaction with the computer.

SAP INFO: What if I were an executive, wanting a broader view of operations?

Swanton: If I have an executive dashboard, I don't want to go through a menu tree of reports to figure out what report I need. I want a little icon that has my scope of responsibility. All I have do is double click to see the report that covers my people and my data.

SAP INFO: What made ERP providers change their user interfaces?

Swanton: Traditional interfaces required a lot of training. Using them effectively required that workers be heads-down most of the time. A planner could type in a screen name and get to the right thing and know how to do the transaction with 14 key clicks. Unless you're sitting there all day staring at that screen you can't do that. The use of ERP has been broadening away from these few transactional specialists. ERP training degrades at a rapid rate. Degradation of training means you have to make these systems really intuitive.

SAP INFO: Do the new online ERP training tools work?

Sweeney: Theoretically, they are absolutely on the right track. That is, they are intuitively built into the application.

Swanton: Whole systems, including the user interface, are going to be organized around business processes. So the training will be organized around the business processes too. Training content will be organized and people will be tested and certified for it based on their roles. What we see happening is that larger companies have training and certification regimes for best work practices. They meld that kind of training with the systems side of the training to make it fairly seamless. Companies are experimenting with all sorts of ways of delivering training, via the Web and video and so on. Everybody's trying to get rid of travel and scheduling issues associated with training, so there's a lot of interest in computer-based training.

SAP INFO: How has the enterprise mindset shifted?

Swanton: What's been happening is automation. There's been a shift from doing a transaction to detect problems and solve them to a portal-alert type of system. That's one that lets you investigate what-ifs through fairly simple, ad hoc queries.

SAP INFO: How do you see user-friendly ERP systems enabling a more mobile workforce?

Sweeney: They can be used by the CSR who goes out to the field and needs CRM information remotely. Or by the maintenance repair person who goes out to repair a unit and needs warranty, parts, and historical information at her fingertips, but remotely.

Swanton: If you look at portable devices, there's a key example in the warehouse business. The systems had transactions for putting things away, for picking them up, and for printing out pick lists. Mobile vendors took information from those transactions and created a user interface for the guy who drove a forklift truck to track his progress as he moved along with an item. With that they have accurate inventory records and can confirm that the order was picked correctly. Those systems have a new user interface layered on top of a basic one that was very role-centric. The new interface enhanced the efficiency of the basic job that the worker was doing and also added a layer of error-proofing. Before, what happened was that workers printed out a pick list and checked it off as they went along. They had no idea if it was the right item. At the end, someone had to key it into the ERP system and they often made mistakes.

Sweeney: Direct store delivery is the next step. For example, I'm a sales person on a route and I'm going to deliver milk. I want to be able to collect money that the customer owes, leave an invoice for the milk I just gave him, take an inventory of what's on his shelf, and create an order. Then companies realized they can make all salespeople remote, regardless of specific function with access to customer service information as they walk in the door to talk to a client.

SAP INFO: Have ERP companies been fast enough to Web-enable their systems?

Swanton: All ERP systems have some basic level of Web-enablement. They are still struggling with workflow and business process management. To a large degree, the third-party ecosystem is much farther ahead. Companies such as data collection vendors do very interesting things with the Web.

SAP INFO: Would you rate SAP's systems as user friendly?

Swanton: They've come a long way. But customers are loathe to upgrade their systems right now. That's one issue that SAP has to face. They are going to have to get people to upgrade in order to relieve some user-interface issues. In general, upgrades are not going to happen until there's some major set of functionality that they would like to turn on but that they find they can't turn on unless they go to a newer version that is much easier to use and train people on.

Sweeney: It's harder to create an ROI for an easier user interface than it is for a major shift in a functional requirement of the company.

SAP INFO: How has the Microsoft Windows model influenced user interfaces?

Sweeney: Cut-and-paste and drag-and-drop technology and its ease of use drove changes in ERP. Customers kept saying, 'I want it to be as easy as a drag and drop or a cut and paste.' They drove us in the ERP world to rethink how people were using systems.

SAP INFO: What other key points should companies remember when assessing the user interfaces of ERP systems?

Swanton: They should look at it from the point of view of each individual role that they have in the company. Walk through a day in the life. Sit down with an inventory planner, for example, and say, 'There's a part shortage,' and then walk through the steps to fix it.

Sweeney: There's nothing better than having developers watch somebody actually try to use the system, particularly if the user is not proficient at it. Watch them try to do their jobs and go through a myriad of screens just to do a simple process.

Swanton: Ideally, as with the self-service applications that are coming out now, users need zero training. If an ERP can be completely intuitive, a company will be better off.

 

Judy Sweeney and Bill Swanton talked to Sarah Sleeper, journalist in Solana Beach, California

 

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