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Elsevier Editorial System(tm) for Journal of Systems and Software Manuscript Draft Manuscript Number: Title: An Integrated System Approach: Toward a Successful Software Development Project Article Type: Research Paper Keywords: Business Process Management; Software System Architecture; Human Recourse Management; Organizational Readiness; Employee Management System; Service Based Approach Corresponding Author: Mr Ehsan Alikhani, Corresponding Author's Institution: Amirkabir University of technology First Author: Ehsan Alikhani Order of Authors: Ehsan Alikhani; Seyed-Vahid Moosavi; Abbas Seifi Abstract: Electronic Human Resource Management Systems (E-HRM) are one of the most widely accepted choices for organizations who want to obtain the competitive advantages and efficiency. Despite of spending considerable resources to electronic support of organizational business processes, previous researches show many problems and high failure rates in process automation's efforts. Even comprehensive solutions like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, are going to fail specially in growing organizations. The lack of organizational readiness can be considered as the main problem. In this paper, we developed the system architecture of an IT based solution for managing the human resources that is suitable for organizations in rapid growth stage. The proposed system, which is a single window system does not require professional transaction processing systems, but can support all of employee's services in an integrated approach. Service-Based design creates a simple and inexpensive solution; the system can improve the organizational readiness for implementation of the more professional softwares. ERP literature that utilized in this paper, offered us a holistic view to accomplish more objective design and methodical validation. As the case study, the system has been implemented in Iran Health ministry to demonstrate and analyze its capability to enhance the organizational standards, toward a successful software project.
Cover Letter for Paper
Enhancement is the main consideration of Organization’s manager. Managers of Iran’s health
ministry were seeking to new methods to have more efficient official processes. So they assigned
a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) project to us. As a long term goal they want to install
an ERP software package in their organization but according to the consultants, the ERP
readiness in the mentioned organization is not enough for ERP implementation. What is the
solution? We designed and proposed a single window system in the platform of Microsoft Share
point software. The proposed portal integrates the Transactional Processing Systems (TPSs) in to
a single window system (an organizational portal).
Before the development of the proposed system, there were some separated systems in the
organization such as time and attendance system, training system, and personnel information
system and so on. When these systems are disconnected it is confusing for staffs to manage their
official affairs.
Therefore first of all, a standardized Human Resource (HR) process model has been created
based on the scientific materials. After that we extracted the services from these processes (this is
the main contribution that has been done in this paper) and then we classified and rearranged
them. The front office level and user interface are similar to popular ERP softwares in their
human resource modules because we utilized Oracle human resource software and Microsoft
Dynamics as our benchmark. Because of this similarity, as a side benefit employees in the future
will be more familiar with the ERP software package and this can reduce the resistance to change
and in addition has positive impacts on ERP the readiness of the adopted organization. So we
provide software that may bring efficiency besides readiness for more professional softwares.
Ehsan Alikhani
24-Oct-10
Cover Letter
An Integrated System Approach:
Toward a Successful Software Development Project
Ehsan Alikhani, Seyed-Vahid Moosavi, Abbas Seifi
Abstract
Electronic Human Resource Management Systems (E-HRM) are one of the most widely
accepted choices for organizations to obtain the competitive advantages and efficiency.
Despite of spending considerable resources to electronic support of organizational business
processes, previous researches show many problems and high failure rates in process
automation‟s efforts. Even comprehensive solutions like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
systems, are going to fail specially in growing organizations. The lack of organizational
readiness can be considered as the main problem. In this paper, we developed the system
architecture of an IT based solution for managing the human resources that is suitable for
organizations in rapid growth stage. The proposed system, which is a single window system
does not require professional transaction processing systems, but can support all of
employee‟s services in an integrated approach. Service-Based design creates a simple and
inexpensive solution; the system can improve the organizational readiness for implementation
of the more professional softwares. ERP literature that utilized in this paper, offered us a
holistic view to accomplish more objective design and methodical validation. As the case
study, the system has been implemented in Iran Health ministry to demonstrate and analyze
its capability to enhance the organizational standards, toward a successful software project.
Keywords: Business Process Management, Software System Architecture, Human Recourse
Management, Organizational Readiness, Employee Management System, Service Based
Approach
1- Introduction
Today, organizations have to cope themselves with their rapidly changing market, by seeking
new business opportunities to maintain their competitive advantages. In this situation,
advanced Information technologies like ERP can helps organizations to act swiftly in this
dynamic environment. ERP-systems are commercial software packages that facilitate the
integration of data and business processes throughout an organization (Klaus, Rosemann, &
Gable, 2000). By offering integrated solutions (Markus ML, 2000) organization capabilities
will improve to manage many aspects of business (Malhotra, 2009). Although, ERP
implementation is a costly and complex project, many organizations make plan for having
ERP systems as a final goal instead of a milestone. Consequently, many ERP projects have
been failed after they were „successfully‟ implemented (Nonaka, Takeuchi, & Umemoto,
1996). Identification of key success and failure factors of ERP projects as complex social-
*ManuscriptClick here to view linked References
technical systems have always been subject of a lot of intensive researches (Botta-Genoulaz,
Millet, & Grabot, 2005). As a commonly accepted rule, success requires a process of mutual
adaptation between the IT and organizational environments (Markus, Tannis, & Van Fenems,
2000) and also supporting the system after implementation (Law, Chen, & Wu, 2010). On the
other hand the most critical reason for the failure of ERP systems after successful technical
implementation is potential user resistance to change (Lapointe & Rivard, 2005). If users are
not willing to use it as a result of their negative attitude toward change, the ERP system
would not pass the expected benefits to the organization (Kwahk & Kim, 2008). The other
important failure reason is the absence of enough technical knowledge and computer self
efficacy (Lee & Lee, 2004). In addition, pre-implementation involvement is another critical
issue to make the positive attitude in employees (Abdinnour-Helm, Lengnick-Hall, &
Lengnick-Hall, 2003).
Considering these problems, it is necessary to launch some plans in organization, in order to
increase the maturity and standards beside personnel involvement. The plans shall be in
different aspects from finance and sales to human resource management. Among the different
solutions to improve and organizational standards, there are human resource management
(HRM) systems (Lawler & Mohrman, 2003). HRM systems can enhance the organizational
efficiency (Stone, Stone-Romero, & Lukaszewski, 2006) especially when they designed
based on popular ERP software packages (as the propose system in this paper).
According to the literature, it is possible to identify a set of high performance HR processes
(Pfeffer, 1994) which are universally effective across firms. Using information systems to
support HR processes bring about a major change in organizations around the world
(Mayfield, Mayfield, & Lunce, 2003). Recently, the number of organizations adopting e-
HRM and its applications is increasing rapidly (Strohmeier, 2007). HRM system can increase
the organizational effectiveness by changing the culture and environment of the organization
(Ferris, Arthur, Berkson, Kaplan, Harrel-Cook, & Frink, 1998). However, empirical studies
have found that high performance firms use a combination of different HR practices which
are suited for their firms (Becker & Gerhart, 1996).
In the proposed system in this paper, a combination of different best practiced HR processes
have been utilized which are consistent with the processes of developing organizations.
Although the proposed HRM system is independent from ERP, in this article we used ERP
literature because of three reasons:
1. Human resource development is one the critical factors for ERP implementation and the
system can bring us required development (Madsen & Ehie, 2005).
2. Process adaption is a key variable in successful ERP projects (Hong & Kim, 2002). The
services of our system have been designed according to ERP popular softwares.
3. Assuming a successful ERP as an ultimate goal enables us to validate the system.
This article suggests a solution that locally has been implemented at Iran‟s health ministry.
2- Problem Definition
2-1- Theoretical Background
ERP implementation is often accompanied by a Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
project that changes the way the enterprise operates. Here, there is an open question in ERP
researches area: BPR (Business Processes Reengineering) or ERP - What Comes First?
(Kock, 2001) In this dilemma, Organizations have the following two alternatives
1. Doing BPR before selecting and implementing an ERP system;
2. Implementing ERP without carrying BPR in advance.
If an organization starts BPR first, the reengineered processes may not be the best in the
class, as the organization may not have access to the world-class practices. There is a
difficulty to reengineering the processes that adjust with ERP software. On the other hand if
we directly implement the ERP, All the processes in a company should conform to the ERP
model. Sometimes organizations may have to reengineer their processes after ERP
implementation because most of the ERP softwares have standards that are inaccessible for
immature organizations (participants, 2002). Before implementation phase, users should be
trained on the new processes, procedures, and use of the ERP system features and functions
(Soffer, Golany, & Dori, 2005).
The major problem can be defines as this: What can we do for immature organizations, when
they want to jump? There is no guarantee to successful ERP because a huge IT-gap there
exists. Furthermore creating a single computer system with a centralized database in these
organizations seems to be a so difficult action. The solution can be finding in a new breed of
middleware technology, Enterprise Application Integration. Process Broker typed
architecture (Johannesson & Perjons, 2001), can support applications without need to
integrated databases. The proposed solution is not claimed to completely solve this problem,
but could be taken into account as a recommended solution. In this paper, we use some
standard processes extracted from the ones that are built in ERP software packages by taking
a benchmarking approach. Organizations can directly employ the proposed processes and
launch BPR or ERP afterwards.
2-2- Empirical Issues
We started the change toward expected maturity from human recourse management area,
according to its importance, especially in health related and governmental organizations.
However, the proposed system architecture can be generalized in the other organization areas
like physical resources management section. The possibilities of generalization will not
discuss in this paper. In empirical level, we are going to design a human recourse
management system in a self service suit.
Before launching the solution, we need to have a preliminary assessment of organizational
state in relation to readiness for ERP and maturity. It can help us to validate the solution and
its efficacy.
In order to achieve a holistic view about the situation of organization, a numerical assessment
model (Nanayakkara & Soysa, 2006) has been utilized. This model has emerged 37 weighted
critical factors for successful ERP implementation like process orientation, data integrity,
flexible workforce, IT maturity and so on. Then, the paper classifies factors into for dominant
dimensions as Org-ware, Info-ware, Human-ware and Techno-ware. There is a gap between
required state and current state that should convict by some improvement plans. We utilized
this model, before deployment of our solution to evaluate the impact on the organizational
readiness for ERP. The result of using this model in our case has shown in figure 2.
Figure 1 - ERP Readiness Assessment Model.
As it is shown in Radar diagram, the Organizational Readiness is low, but the importance of
using a quantitative assessment model is the possibility of assessing the ERP readiness
situation after deployment of the solution and it can help us to validate the advantages of the
proposed solution.
At last, the purpose is to develop an inexpensive system without integrating the databases in
human resource section, while the interface in front office is like Popular ERP interfaces (in
human recourse module). By this action, organization will become more efficient by a
processes oriented solution focused on general users, data integration and IT based services.
Also, organization will become more ready for TPS integration as a midterm goal and really
more mature in order to achieve successful professional software projects as a long term goal.
3- Analysis and Design Methodology In order to achieve a comprehensive solution, every project should follow a validated
methodology. The popular methodology for system analysis and development usually follows
three steps, which are shown in Figure 3. In this paper, we focused on the first phase, in
which we explain that how we achieve a holistic recognition of organization by using an
accepted methodology. Besides, one of the main parts of the methodology of building the
solution is based on the benchmarking process. The two other phases about system
development and system implementation are out of scope of this paper.
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After
Figure 2- The general methodology for system analysis and development.
As Figure 3 illustrates, the system analysis and design phase consists of four main sub-
processes:
In Macro Analysis process, we should analyze total condition (Including As-Is and To-Be
states) of the organization including macro analysis of current processes, service delivery
channels, supporting software, organizational units as owners of processes and services,
quality of services, and determining the most necessary needs of organization.
Benchmarking process will be done in a way that the system front office is significantly
similar to prevalent softwares to satisfy our requirements. So we developed the system based
on the best known softwares in the market by benchmarking techniques. There is a pre-
assumption that says each country and software wanting to “catch up” will have to adopt
Popular-style management practices and most popular softwares (Brewster, 2004).
As the first step, we study some well-known software packages of human resource
management (HRM) such as Oracle, Microsoft and some others from the self service point of
view. Self service approach is increasingly prevalent and is becoming a critical component of
software features. Self service technology can increase productivity and efficiency beside
better meeting demands and organizational satisfaction (Liljander, Gillberg, Gummerus, &
Riel, 2006).
In the next step we study other organizational requirements that the mentioned benchmark
softwares do not cover them because those corporations cover these needs in their other
software modules.
And the final step was classifying services based on organizational standardized processes
and by these action, we could expand the service tree more comprehensive and provable to
satisfaction of all human resource needs.
Process modeling and service modeling, are the main parts of the applied methodology. This
part of modeling and design which is performed iteratively is adopted from the systems
methodology developed in (Gharajedaghi, 2004).
Figure 3- The elements of the proposed system design methodology
As the figure 4 shows, in order to analyze a system, it is necessary to consider different
aspects of the subject in a holistic manner. The details of these phases will be discussed in the
next section.
3-1- Building the System Architecture
Since, our solution is based on services, which are directly related to personnel of
organization, our methodology for analysis and design of the systems are around analysis of
the HR services and processes. The Figure 5 shows the methodology of building the system
architecture in detail. The main outputs of each step are represented in the boxes connected to
each one.
Figure 4- The proposed holistic system analysis and design methodology.
Process Hierarchy Diagram
Detailed Process Models
Service classification
Direct and Indirect outputs of each Process as a service
General users
Employees
Managers
HR Expert Users
System Administrator
Possible functionalities of existing HR related
softwares
Existing Data in the Enterprise, stored in
databases
Importance of the service
Determining TO-BE HR Process
Model
Categorizing different users
Extracting HR Services from
Processes
Data and Software Readiness
Assessment
Determining the presentation and integration Portal
Planning for implementation
Process Automation (Fully mechanized services)
Data transaction (two way services)
Report and Information (one way services)
Supporting organizational units
In the first step in accordance with the results of benchmarking and macro analysis phases,
Human Resource Processes Model (HRPM) will be determined. In this phase, there is a
popular debate that if it is better to analyze only the existing processes or To-Be processes. In
this case, at first we want to design the To-Be condition. Comparing the existing and
benchmarked processes at this step, there are possible choices as follows:
New organizational processes will be designed.
Unnecessary processes will be eliminated from the organization.
Some processes will be outsourced.
Some processes will be improved in part and some will be reengineered totally.
Then, To-Be processes will be standardized. In other words, new Process Hierarchy Diagram
(PHD) will be developed consistent with the To-Be condition. Based on the developed PHD,
human resource process model (HRPM), including all of required roles and responsibilities,
forms and data and supporting softwares will be developed in details. This diagram will be
explained in section 4-1. The recommended process modeling notation is BPMN1. Besides
the process modeling, it is necessary to determine the process owners. This concern is
important in system implementation planning phase. Because it is better to start system
implementation in those organizational units, that have less resistant to change.
As the second phase, simultaneously to process modeling, different users of this system
should be classified as follows:
HR Expert Users
System Administrator
General Users
o Managers
o Employees
This categorization is useful in the next step for extracting services from human resource
process model (HRPM).
Third step is the main step of the proposed methodology. In this step, in order to extract the
services from processes, the following logical algorithm will be run iteratively:
For each user category (according to users classification)
For each process (according to HRPM)
View the detailed process model and extract direct and indirect process
outputs and necessary intermediary transactions for this user as a new
service.
The extracted services are classified into three categories:
Reports, Information sharing and simple views (one way services)
1 Business Process Modeling Notation
Data transactions (two way services)
Process Automation (Fully mechanized services)
Software readiness assessment are the forth step. It is necessary for the team to have related
skills of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). EAI is unrestricted sharing of information
and processes among all information systems in the enterprise (Erasala, Yen, & Rajkumar,
2003). Based on the macro analysis and state of data and software in the organization, we will
determine the feasibilities of development of each service by means of existing softwares and
data bases. Usually, new services will be delivered in the selected organizational portal via
Web-Services. In this step, the problem of user authentication and authorization is a
challenging issue.
Finally, after extracting the initial possible HR services, they should be prioritized based on
different criteria such as service importance, effectiveness, and attractiveness among different
stakeholders. This step will be useful in implementation planning phase. So, according to a
priority table, the services that have more effectiveness in proportion of their risks should be
implemented first. So we will select those services that have maximum attractiveness and
make minimum resistance to change. The conceptual framework is shown in figure 6.
Figure 5- The conceptual framework for service implementation planning
These five steps was the utilized methodology to achieve a comprehensive HR solution that
will be explained in this paper. Figure 7 summarize these explained steps of utilized
methodology:
Human Resource Processes Model
Different users classification
Conditional algorithm
Software readiness assessment
Establish the priorities
Figure 6- The Methodology of building the system
3-2- The Proposed Conceptual System Architecture Since the proposed solution is based on HR services, the architecture of the proposed system
is service-based. Service-based Technology is relatively a new paradigm (Demirkan,
Kauffman, Vayghan, Fill, Karagiannis, & Maglio, 2008) for utilizing the distributed
capabilities under the control of different ownership (OASIS, 2006). Therefore Service-Based
Architecture can provide an insight to tackling the enterprise integration problems by
dynamic mechanisms that can integrate different technologies independent of the systems
platform (Sen, Shuangxi, & Yushun, 2009). For the next characteristics, the proposed system
is a self-service system to offer customers direct access to services via new and suitable
channels (Meuter, Ostrom, Bitner, & Roundtree, 2003). Here the customers of services are
employees. In addition, the end user has a single window and single sign on interface.
Considering these characteristics, and according to our objectives to have simple and
inexpensive system, which can motivate organization to work in an integrated environment
and to increase organizational maturity and ERP readiness, the conceptual architecture of the
proposed solution is illustrated in figure 8. As the main point, we are not going to connect
TPSs, because they are in different formats and versions. By force to keep the distributed
information structure (Hsieh & Lin, 2002/2003) every service have been represented
independently in the single window.
Figure 7- The Proposed Conceptual System Architecture.
All users have been classified into tree classes:
General users
In this level, single window is accessible. End users including managers and
employees have access to services in a user-friendly view. All of services should be
rearranged in a comprehensible order.
Authorized users
Manager position in the system is a little complex because each manager may be
considered from different perspectives:
TPS 1
TPS 2
TPS 3
DB3
DB2
DB1
System Administrator
HR Expert Users
General users
First, they are employees of organization. For example they should save their personal
information and training courses in the system. From this perspective they are General
Users.
Second, they have some responsibilities that are common between all of managers.
There is no difference between human resources manager and financial manager and
the others. For example they can create survey and interact with their subordinates.
From this perspective they are Expert Users.
Third, managers have some special responsibilities. Financial manager needs sale
statistics and human resource manager needs training data. In this system architecture,
there are no services to offer managers from this perspective. We didn‟t study the
special duties of managers in organization.
System administrator
Like every other systems in the area of organizational software, there should be an
authority for managing the system.
4- The Proposed Solution
The solution has been developed in service-oriented (SO) environment. (SO) is a relatively
new paradigm for soft-ware development: systems are no longer developed, integrated, and
released in a centrally synchronized way, but services are developed and deployed
independently and separately in a networked situation, as well as composed as late as at
runtime (Lee, Muthig, & Naab, 2010). We extracted services as a service tree based on
standardized processes and implemented them -independently- in network situation. In the
following sub-sections we explained the procedure.
4-1- Human Resource Management Process Model
As it is mentioned in the methodology (section 3-1), in the first step of the proposed
methodology, we should develop the desired To-Be HR process model. This model is the
base for detailed process modeling and service extraction. To develop the To-Be HR process
model, we studied several reference HR models. As a result of benchmarking and our
analysis, the following HR process model is developed as our reference Human Resource
Management Process Model.
Figure 8- The Human Resource Process Model.
4-2- Modeling the Human Resource Services
As it is discussed before, we can classify organizational staffs into three sections according
their requirements: general users, expert users and system administrators. General users are
organizational staffs including managers and employees. General users have permission to
observe only front office of system and their access levels are restricted by administrator.
Expert users including those experts in HR department can change the back office based on a
limited access. Administrator manages all access levels and identifies who has what
authorization in the system.
4-2-1- Service Trees
One of the most recent approaches to managing human recourse information systems is self
service suit. It means that every staff, on a predefined access level, can Create, Read, Update
and Delete (are popular as “crud”) (Brown, 2002) information and also can create request for
change and completion of forms. According to mentioned methodology in section 4-1, based
on standardized human resource management process model, service tree has been extracted
for general users.
We ignored two major processes: recruitment and retirement because they are usually out of
the organizational boundary. Next, all of services are extracted and classified into four major
branches.
1. Personnel information
2. Job information
3. Human resource retention
4. Human resource development information
The access levels are defined for every service. For example every general user has authority
only for reading the job history, while he can create and read the task assignment reports.
There are five actions in this service tree: Creating, Reading, Updating and Deleting. Beside
that users can create request for changes. The last action means that personnel can send a
request for the system admin to correct the possible errors.
4-2-1-1-Employee service Tree
The employee service tree is as follows.
1. Personnel information
a. Personal information reading and request for change
2. Job information
a. Reading the job history
b. Reading the job statement
c. Reading the position duty explanation
d. Reading the career plan
e. Creating, reading, updating and deleting the personal experience of job
f. Reading and competing the surveys about job
3. HR retention
3.1. Payments
3.1.1. Vacations and missions
a. Reading the remained allowable vacation
b. Reading, creating and deleting vacation request
c. Reading the vacation request status
3.1.2. Task management
a. Reading the previously assigned tasks
b. Creating and reading task assignment report
c. Reading the task status
3.1.3. Payroll processing
a. Reading the E-payrolls
3.1.4. Time and attendance
a. Reading and requesting for changing the attendance time
3.2. Public services
3.2.1. Welfare services
a. Reading the welfares announcements
b. Reading massages
c. Reading organizational information and background
3.2.2. Insurance
a. Reading and requesting for changing insurance information
3.2.3. HR official equipment and properties management
a. Reading and creating request for official equipment maintenance and
replacement.
4. HR development
4.1. HR Training
4.1.1. Skills and certificates
a. Creating, Reading and requesting for changing skills and certificates
information
4.1.2. HR educational background
a. Reading and requesting for changing educational background
4.1.3. Training courses
a. Creating training course request
b. Creating, reading and deleting course registration
c. Completing the form of courses surveys
4-2-1-2- Managers Service Tree
Managers are general users such as every staff. But they need more requirements to direct
their special tasks. The manager‟s service tree includes the following tasks.
1. Observing employee personal information
2. Accepting/Rejecting vacation requests
3. Assigning tasks for employee and report acceptance
4. Creating surveys
5. Sending message to employees
6. Observing employee presentation status at workplace
7. Answering to the questions
8. Observing training information
9. Accepting/rejecting training course request
10. Completing the evaluation forms
Access level for every manager is restricted to his direct employees in his office zone. In
addition, by using organizational chart and process model that explained in section 4-1, these
services should be customized for every manager.
In this paper, because our aim is to show a sample result of our work, we do not present the
expert users service tree.
4-3- Rearranging the Processes/Services
In developing organizations that are the focus of this paper, human resource systems are
existed, but are outspread and in diverse formats. In order to develop a single window HR
system, the integration of these systems is indispensable. But where would the start point be
in case that not all of TPS are available and no preference for implementation exists? Table 1
has been designed to answer this question. Next, we explain the columns of Table 1.
Table 1- Remodeling the services/processes table
Service description Related Process
Service
Code
Service
Name
Service
Importance
Service
performance
Software and
Data Bases
Related Process
Name
Existence:
Y/N
Process
Owner
Service Code: The code of every service according to service tree for general users
Service Name: The name of service
Service Importance: How much the service is important for its stakeholders? We
classify them in low, medium and high importance groups.
Service Performance: The performance of the service will be scored according to its
quality from poor quality services to high quality services. Software and database: the
name of software and its related database if it is available.
Related Process Name: We should determine the related processes to every service.
Existence: Does the related process of the service exist in the organization or it should
be implemented for the first time?
Process owner: which organizational unit is the owner of related process to the
service?
The table 1 is the final solution. After creating this table, the project experts should launch the
planning for implementation of the services. As it is mentioned before in methodology
section, they should establish priorities and implement services step by step. The technical
guidance was explained in the next section.
4-5- Implementation Planning
The proposed system can be implemented in the enterprise portals with ability to generate
workflows and to have good capability of data conversion. In this study we used Microsoft
SharePoint portal. Technical infrastructures of the organization should support single-window
architecture.
The services will be developed and implemented independently in the system regarding to
their priorities. Next, in order to maintain the system simplicity, all of services should be
rearranged in a user-interface. The suggested order may construct the conceptual design of
the user interfaces as follows.
Figure 91- Final System User Interface
Each button, includes the related services and this order seems to be user-friendly, enough to
attract the employees interest.
5- Conclusions
Successful ERP implementation projects, needs some necessary considerations. First,
contractors should assess organizational readiness for ERP project. In continue if the
organization can not satisfy critical success factors, the overall question is how they can
provide the organization against this problem. As a general answer, there are various
multistage models that have been proposed for organizational evolution and IT maturity over
time (Earl, 2000; King & Teo, 1997). But in this study, we have suggested a comprehensive
system, that in front office level works like popular ERP software packages because the
service tree has been extracted from this software packages (Benchmarked from some well-
known software packages such as Oracle and Microsoft products). The proposed solution is
in human recourse section but the main idea can generalize into the other process domains.
The final solution is a self service Human Resource Management (HRM) system. By using
this system, all staffs can create, read, update and/or delete the data according to their access
levels. The processes of the proposed system are designed based on a validated Human
Resources Processes Model (HRPM) and the services are extracted from them. After that, we
remodeled the services/processes in relation to their possible users and after establishing the
priorities we start to implement the services in the platform of SharePoint software. It is
necessary to restate that this system has no dependency with ERP implementation. ERP
literature has been applied only for achieving a validated solution.
A numerical model has been used to demonstrate the conclusion after installing the system.
The result was satisfying and has demonstrated a significant enhancement in human resource
section at our case study; health ministry. As the further research we may generalize the main
idea of TPS‟s integration into other organizational areas. Although we cannot expect a giant
change and fundamental enhancement, HRS portal can provide a simple solution in short
period of time that may bring some long-term positive impacts that helps us to move toward a
successful software development project.
References
Abdinnour-Helm, S., Lengnick-Hall, M. L., & Lengnick-Hall, C. A. (2003). Pre-implementation
attitudes and organizational readiness for implementing an enterprise resource planning system.
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