Enterprise System introduction with Controlling Enabled Configurative Information Models

Seel C, Delfmann P, Rieke T

Abstract
Customization of Enterprise Systems (ES) is often a time and cost consuming task. Therefore many of these ES, such as SAP R/3, are provided with preconfigured processes and data objects that can be regarded as best-practice and which are documented by reference information models. Customizing can be accelerated if these models are used for the customization process. This requires profound configuration and adaptation mechanisms that encompass variants due to specific customer needs. To ensure continuous improvement towards a shorter customization time and reduced cost, controlling of the adaptation process becomes a crucial task. This controlling aims at improving the reference model basis and their configuration mechanisms. Therefore we introduce configuration mechanisms that can be used to adapt reference information models due to company characteristics. Afterwards the configuration mechanisms are interpreted by the ES to perform the necessary customization steps.