Development of an ERP Requirements Specification Method by Applying Rapid Contextual Design : A Case Study of a Medium-sized Enterprise

Abstract: The purpose of this Master thesis is to further develop the Customer-Centered ERPImplementation (C-CEI) method such that it can be applied by small andmedium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to produce requirements for an EnterpriseResource Planning (ERP) system. This entails developing a method that is less timeconsuming and resource demanding than the original method. In order to evaluate thefeasibility of the developed method, a case study of an SME enterprise was executed.The enterprise is Svenska infra och anläggningsbyggarna AB, SIAAB, a land andconstruction enterprise in need of a new ERP system. By applying the concepts ofRapid Contextual Design to the Contextual analysis phase of C-CEI, a team of twoindividuals was able to produce ERP requirements using the further developedmethod. The requirements were used to initiate the acquisition process of a new ERPsystem for SIAAB, where three possible ERP vendors with three different ERPsystems were selected and evaluated. In the meetings with possible ERP vendors, therequirements were proven to be valuable for SIAAB to select between potential ERPsystems. The conclusion of the evaluation is that the further developed method isfeasible and can be utilized by an SME, which generally lack resources to hire a fullContextual Design team, for producing ERP requirements that can be used foracquisition. In order to test generalizability of the developed method, further studiesof the application of the method are necessary.