Business Application Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Business Application - Assignment Example IT is fundamental in human resource management, firms’ infrastructures, marketing, procurement, technology development, etc. As mining and manufacturing companies extend their operations to the global arena, they have to change operational strategies in order to gain efficiency and competitiveness in the global market. Expansion of operations leads to increase in complexity of operations that pose challenges of managing efficiency of operations.3 Mining industry has unique characteristics distinct from other industries because they are process industries and requires intensive capital investments with heavy plants and equipment.4 Since they are focused on profitability and efficiency, the focus of ERP is to reduce production cost and increase efficiency through maintenance management and effective utilization of production capacity.5 There is a need to avoid idle time by ensuring accurate scheduling and avoidance of the unpredicted breakdown, which can be achieved through scheduling of preventive and predictive maintenance task. The source of raw materials (ore) for the mining industry is obtained internally (from the mine) and involves a lot of uncertainty and an approximation error that are only determined during the production process.6 Furthermore, unlike the manufacturing function mining industry produce for stocking, not for orders. Therefore, the mining and manufacturing companies require the use of ERP for informed decision-making in areas of operation, accounting, human resource, supply chain, marketing, customer, etc. The use of ERP in a mining and manufacturing company helps the organization to integrate information to achieve real time accessibility of information across units and processes using the data created by the company’s technical and operational systems software. Integration of scheduling, material management, production and distribution are the fundamentals of profitability in the mining and