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Tangential question: how do I learn about ERP software? I went to a strong CS school but this wasn't covered. I don't think I even know anyone who knows this st

by turnip1979 13y ago

Tangential question: how do I learn about ERP software? I went to a strong CS school but this wasn't covered. I don't think I even know anyone who knows this stuff. - regular HN reader.

cafard 13y ago
You could have a look at http://www.erp5.com/ http://www.erp5.com/ .
arethuza 13y ago
It's hardly surprising that ERP systems aren't covered in a CS course - they are primarily about business processes and concepts. Having said that, ERPs systems are arguably mainly accounting systems with a lot (and I really do mean a lot) of additional functionality bolted on, so learning the basics of accounting wouldn't do any harm. I count at least 4 different kinds of organizations that work with ERPs: - The vendors who write them (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and loads of others) - Vendors who write packages that integrate with ERP systems (again loads of these - e. for reporting/data warehousing, document management, bar-code handling) - People who work for professional services companies that help customer implement ERP systems - often implementing custom code in the platform for the ERP system (often in programming languages and environments that are specific to that ERP product!) - Customer organizations For a developer, I would aim for one of the first two although the professional services side of things can be pretty lucrative.
- chris_wot 13y ago
  And best of luck getting a demo system to try to learn on if you aren't a part of a big company. SAP has a few demo systems, but you can't put it on your own computer to understand.
  - turnip1979 13y ago
    Is it a licensing issue or that they need a whole bunch of machines to install various components?
    - arethuza 13y ago
      Microsoft can give you a VM with a working instance of Dynamics AX 2012 and the underlying SQL 2012 database - it's quite big and needs a fair bit of RAM (I needed 48GB) but it does work pretty well. Having said that, I think SAP is rather more complex than AX.
    - ProAm 13y ago
      It would be the overall scope of trying to install your own system to learn it. It's a massive base product, you can certainly install it but trying to run your own test environment would be a pain without the knowledge of running a business through an ERP or the necessary test data. Typically you learn the business side of things 'on the job' and come into it with a development back ground.
Tobani 13y ago
It makes sense that it wasn't covered. Its really specific to a non-CS domain (Business). You probably learned image-processing techniques, but not how to use photoshop. You might have learned how to use acid-compliant databases, not how to use quickbooks. Designers might have classes on how to use photoshop. Accountants might have classes on how to use quickbooks. You might find a business-related class that covers ERP-related topics?
- endersshadow 13y ago
  While you may know what ERP stands for, you're missing the bigger picture on what modern ERPs do. They aren't specific to a domain--they do everything from managing manufacturing processes to keeping the books for retailers. I've seen specific ERPs written for dairy distributors used by ice makers. Planning is just one part of an ERP. The General Ledger, WIP, logisitics, customer lists, etc, etc all can and do go into ERPs. Moreover, folks that are experts on an ERP typically are an expert either on (a) one type of ERP (e.g.-SAP), or (b) ERPs for a specific domain (e.g.-manufacturing). You don't typically get somebody who knows many different ERPs across many different businesses. During an ERP implementation, you'll usually hire one of type A, and one of type B, and then a whole team of developers/implementers. Each vendor gives extensive training on all sorts of different aspects of their ERPs, but really, if you'd like to get a handle on what they do, you need to know how enterprises work. And the only way you're going to do that is by working in an enterprise. I've had my exposure to ERPs by building data warehouses that have to read and interact with them. But, my college degree's in management and economics, so things like accounting and business processes were already something I had passing familiarity with. ERPs will make little to no sense if you don't understand how corproate accounting works. ERPs are wildly complex, and each has about 1000 different packages that you can use to do...I don't even know half of what they do. The best way to get some familiarity with ERPs is to get hired in some place where they'll teach you all about it. This includes training in the classroom and on the job. These are typically consulting firms--there are a few big ones, and there are a few boutique ones that do only ERPs. Also, the vendors typically have implementation teams, so you may want to do that, as well. I will note that ERP implementers almost always are required to travel extensively, so if somebody reading this wants to go into it as a career, understand what you're getting into. Travel is insanely lucrative if you don't mind it, but if you have a family or other commitments, it can tear you apart.
davb 13y ago
ERP software is often highly customised for individual businesses and their processes. There are commonalities across packages (JDE, PeopleSoft, SAP, Dynamics, etc) but for the most part they're different for each organisation. That's why ERP consultants can charge such high fees. Your SAP install is quite different from your rival's. They often integrate with external systems (stock management, production equipment, third party accounting platforms, billing, user management), even when the ERP system itself offers functionality in a given area. It's a huge subject area. However, most ERP software itself is just a large CRUD application that calls out to third party services (via APIs, COM, libraries, etc). If you really want to learn about ERP software, try go get a job working with it for a year or two. The technical knowledge you'll require to get such a position is fairly generic (database basics, user experience design, TCP/IP, Unix/Linux server management). What would really make you stand out as a candidate would be having an understanding of business process modelling and reengineering - that's all ERP software is, a mirror of business processes. It's an interesting area to work in (perhaps not long-term unless you're really into the BPR side of things). You'll really understand how businesses work and how they see their processes. And when you're working at the enterprise scale, small improvements in the software people use daily to perform their main functions can make all the difference. Source: I've build ERP software for the last 7+ yrs.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  Full Disclosure - I'm working at company going through a huge ERP change from one vendor to JDE. I was told by our .Net developers that JDE is for business analysts so they can do the same thing as developers without writing any code. I've only done a few minor things in JDE, but it seems very "mouse intensive". Lots of clicking this and that, joining this table to that table, looking up this record, etc. Is this true of most ERP software, or just in the case of JDE?
  - ProAm 13y ago
    It depends on what you are doing in JDE really. There are several development tools, some that are easy for people with no technical experience (you mouse intensive development) but there is also tools that require a strong base of C or Java. It's fairly flexible. (Im a 15+ year JDE developer and sysadmin)
bdcravens 13y ago
Strictly speaking, ERP aligns more with MIS than CS. Moreover, ERP would be challenging to learn in a vendor-independent manner, which good or bad, is the way most CS courses are structured.
dpweb 13y ago
ERP Consultant here - of course experience is key - so to get your foot in the door, couple ways I would approach it. Your pitch ultimately needs to be, I'm THE guy for this single app, very focused and specific skill. I would get hired at a company as a general dev or whatever and then try to transition to to a sys admin role (like "JDE Administrator"). Alot of guys work with me (me too) got in this way. Get a year or two experience and then go be a contractor - just search for JDE contractor jobs. Or, get hired on full-time at one of the many small consulting firms that specialize in the app you're targeting. You can come in with less experience if you can accept less salary, like at a full-time salary at a consulting co. if you can come in at 80-90k salary, that's low. I know guys got on with just minimal experience. Trust me on this, if you're smart, you'll pick up the skills.
pmorici 13y ago
It isn't something you really want to know about. PeopleSoft is horrendous at the last large organization I worked for I'm fairly certain that a number of good employees quit based in part on being forced to use the PeopleSoft implementation for many basic HR and Administrative tasks like performance reviews.
mindcrime 13y ago
At the risk of sounding sarcastic (I don't mean to be, really), the Wikipedia page really is a decent starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning Beyond that, you'll find textbooks on the topic as well. Courses on ERP (and related topics like MRP) are usually found in degree programs with names like "Management Information Systems" or something, not "Computer Science". http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Resource-Planning-Bret-Wagner/dp/1423901797/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396907652&sr=1-1&keywords=enterprise+resource+planning http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Resource-Planning-Bret-Wagn... http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Enterprise-Resource-Planning-Ellen/dp/1111820392/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396907652&sr=1-2&keywords=enterprise+resource+planning http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Enterprise-Resource-Planning-... If you wanted to get your hands dirty, there are some open source ERP systems out there. One well known one is OFBiz, which is now an Apache project: http://ofbiz.apache.org/ http://ofbiz.apache.org/ I'm not 100% sure I'd actually recommend anybody deploy OFBiz for a real business, but if you wanted to play around and get a feel for some of the concepts, it could be a useful starting point. Finally, if you want to drink from a firehose, you could do something like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22enterprise+resource+planning%22+filetype%3Apdf+site%3A.edu https://www.google.com/search?q=%22enterprise+resource+plann...
bsder 13y ago
Go work for a consulting company like Accenture for a year or two. They'll pay you immensely, send you through training, send you around the country/world and burn you out after 24 months. After that, you'll know ERP software.

Tangential question: how do I learn about ERP software? I went to a strong CS school but this wasn't covered. I don't think I even know anyone who knows this stuff. - regular HN reader.

cafard 13y ago

You could have a look at http://www.erp5.com/ http://www.erp5.com/ .

arethuza 13y ago

It's hardly surprising that ERP systems aren't covered in a CS course - they are primarily about business processes and concepts. Having said that, ERPs systems are arguably mainly accounting systems with a lot (and I really do mean a lot) of additional functionality bolted on, so learning the basics of accounting wouldn't do any harm. I count at least 4 different kinds of organizations that work with ERPs: - The vendors who write them (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and loads of others) - Vendors who write packages that integrate with ERP systems (again loads of these - e. for reporting/data warehousing, document management, bar-code handling) - People who work for professional services companies that help customer implement ERP systems - often implementing custom code in the platform for the ERP system (often in programming languages and environments that are specific to that ERP product!) - Customer organizations For a developer, I would aim for one of the first two although the professional services side of things can be pretty lucrative.

chris_wot 13y ago
And best of luck getting a demo system to try to learn on if you aren't a part of a big company. SAP has a few demo systems, but you can't put it on your own computer to understand.
- turnip1979 13y ago
  Is it a licensing issue or that they need a whole bunch of machines to install various components?
  - arethuza 13y ago
    Microsoft can give you a VM with a working instance of Dynamics AX 2012 and the underlying SQL 2012 database - it's quite big and needs a fair bit of RAM (I needed 48GB) but it does work pretty well. Having said that, I think SAP is rather more complex than AX.
  - ProAm 13y ago
    It would be the overall scope of trying to install your own system to learn it. It's a massive base product, you can certainly install it but trying to run your own test environment would be a pain without the knowledge of running a business through an ERP or the necessary test data. Typically you learn the business side of things 'on the job' and come into it with a development back ground.

Tobani 13y ago

It makes sense that it wasn't covered. Its really specific to a non-CS domain (Business). You probably learned image-processing techniques, but not how to use photoshop. You might have learned how to use acid-compliant databases, not how to use quickbooks. Designers might have classes on how to use photoshop. Accountants might have classes on how to use quickbooks. You might find a business-related class that covers ERP-related topics?

endersshadow 13y ago
While you may know what ERP stands for, you're missing the bigger picture on what modern ERPs do. They aren't specific to a domain--they do everything from managing manufacturing processes to keeping the books for retailers. I've seen specific ERPs written for dairy distributors used by ice makers. Planning is just one part of an ERP. The General Ledger, WIP, logisitics, customer lists, etc, etc all can and do go into ERPs. Moreover, folks that are experts on an ERP typically are an expert either on (a) one type of ERP (e.g.-SAP), or (b) ERPs for a specific domain (e.g.-manufacturing). You don't typically get somebody who knows many different ERPs across many different businesses. During an ERP implementation, you'll usually hire one of type A, and one of type B, and then a whole team of developers/implementers. Each vendor gives extensive training on all sorts of different aspects of their ERPs, but really, if you'd like to get a handle on what they do, you need to know how enterprises work. And the only way you're going to do that is by working in an enterprise. I've had my exposure to ERPs by building data warehouses that have to read and interact with them. But, my college degree's in management and economics, so things like accounting and business processes were already something I had passing familiarity with. ERPs will make little to no sense if you don't understand how corproate accounting works. ERPs are wildly complex, and each has about 1000 different packages that you can use to do...I don't even know half of what they do. The best way to get some familiarity with ERPs is to get hired in some place where they'll teach you all about it. This includes training in the classroom and on the job. These are typically consulting firms--there are a few big ones, and there are a few boutique ones that do only ERPs. Also, the vendors typically have implementation teams, so you may want to do that, as well. I will note that ERP implementers almost always are required to travel extensively, so if somebody reading this wants to go into it as a career, understand what you're getting into. Travel is insanely lucrative if you don't mind it, but if you have a family or other commitments, it can tear you apart.

davb 13y ago

ERP software is often highly customised for individual businesses and their processes. There are commonalities across packages (JDE, PeopleSoft, SAP, Dynamics, etc) but for the most part they're different for each organisation. That's why ERP consultants can charge such high fees. Your SAP install is quite different from your rival's. They often integrate with external systems (stock management, production equipment, third party accounting platforms, billing, user management), even when the ERP system itself offers functionality in a given area. It's a huge subject area. However, most ERP software itself is just a large CRUD application that calls out to third party services (via APIs, COM, libraries, etc). If you really want to learn about ERP software, try go get a job working with it for a year or two. The technical knowledge you'll require to get such a position is fairly generic (database basics, user experience design, TCP/IP, Unix/Linux server management). What would really make you stand out as a candidate would be having an understanding of business process modelling and reengineering - that's all ERP software is, a mirror of business processes. It's an interesting area to work in (perhaps not long-term unless you're really into the BPR side of things). You'll really understand how businesses work and how they see their processes. And when you're working at the enterprise scale, small improvements in the software people use daily to perform their main functions can make all the difference. Source: I've build ERP software for the last 7+ yrs.

at-fates-hands 13y ago
Full Disclosure - I'm working at company going through a huge ERP change from one vendor to JDE. I was told by our .Net developers that JDE is for business analysts so they can do the same thing as developers without writing any code. I've only done a few minor things in JDE, but it seems very "mouse intensive". Lots of clicking this and that, joining this table to that table, looking up this record, etc. Is this true of most ERP software, or just in the case of JDE?
- ProAm 13y ago
  It depends on what you are doing in JDE really. There are several development tools, some that are easy for people with no technical experience (you mouse intensive development) but there is also tools that require a strong base of C or Java. It's fairly flexible. (Im a 15+ year JDE developer and sysadmin)

bdcravens 13y ago

Strictly speaking, ERP aligns more with MIS than CS. Moreover, ERP would be challenging to learn in a vendor-independent manner, which good or bad, is the way most CS courses are structured.

dpweb 13y ago

ERP Consultant here - of course experience is key - so to get your foot in the door, couple ways I would approach it. Your pitch ultimately needs to be, I'm THE guy for this single app, very focused and specific skill. I would get hired at a company as a general dev or whatever and then try to transition to to a sys admin role (like "JDE Administrator"). Alot of guys work with me (me too) got in this way. Get a year or two experience and then go be a contractor - just search for JDE contractor jobs. Or, get hired on full-time at one of the many small consulting firms that specialize in the app you're targeting. You can come in with less experience if you can accept less salary, like at a full-time salary at a consulting co. if you can come in at 80-90k salary, that's low. I know guys got on with just minimal experience. Trust me on this, if you're smart, you'll pick up the skills.

pmorici 13y ago

It isn't something you really want to know about. PeopleSoft is horrendous at the last large organization I worked for I'm fairly certain that a number of good employees quit based in part on being forced to use the PeopleSoft implementation for many basic HR and Administrative tasks like performance reviews.

mindcrime 13y ago

At the risk of sounding sarcastic (I don't mean to be, really), the Wikipedia page really is a decent starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning Beyond that, you'll find textbooks on the topic as well. Courses on ERP (and related topics like MRP) are usually found in degree programs with names like "Management Information Systems" or something, not "Computer Science". http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Resource-Planning-Bret-Wagner/dp/1423901797/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396907652&sr=1-1&keywords=enterprise+resource+planning http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Resource-Planning-Bret-Wagn... http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Enterprise-Resource-Planning-Ellen/dp/1111820392/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396907652&sr=1-2&keywords=enterprise+resource+planning http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Enterprise-Resource-Planning-... If you wanted to get your hands dirty, there are some open source ERP systems out there. One well known one is OFBiz, which is now an Apache project: http://ofbiz.apache.org/ http://ofbiz.apache.org/ I'm not 100% sure I'd actually recommend anybody deploy OFBiz for a real business, but if you wanted to play around and get a feel for some of the concepts, it could be a useful starting point. Finally, if you want to drink from a firehose, you could do something like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22enterprise+resource+planning%22+filetype%3Apdf+site%3A.edu https://www.google.com/search?q=%22enterprise+resource+plann...

bsder 13y ago

Go work for a consulting company like Accenture for a year or two. They'll pay you immensely, send you through training, send you around the country/world and burn you out after 24 months. After that, you'll know ERP software.