ERP Software has been around from the early development of computers and computer software. After all computers have been invented to increase productivity, they were focused on business needs. First software developed in 1960's was able to manage the demand and ordering. This MRP software was focused only at the need and not at the timing. In the 1970's MRP II could manage the demand, and ordering on a time schedule. This could be used for planning process. Solution for accounting management became more and more popular. MRPII systems evolved into ERP that could offer a complete solution for integrated financial applications, cash, people, resources and inventory management.
In 1960s the first ERP was born as a method for planning and scheduling materials for J. I. Case complex manufactured products.
First MRP solutions were expensive, cumbersome and they required a large of technical staff to support the mainframe computers. In 1972 in Germany emerged SAP from the work of five engineers from Mannheim. This served the purpose of providing integrated business solutions for market standard.
Lowson Software enterprise started in 1975 by John Cerullo, Bill Lawson and Richard Lawson was the first company who put the bases of pre packaged enterprise technology solutions that could be a good alternative to what market already offered as customized business software applications.
Material Requirements Planning (MRP) became a fundamental concept in control and management of production in 1976.
Oracle Corporation begins his activity in 1977. The founder of this corporation was Larry Ellison.
The Baan Corporation who can provide administrative and financial consulting services started in 1978 by Jan Baan
The first commercial SQL relational database management system was released on the market in 1979 by Oracle.
In the early 1980s MRP II starts to be a more effective solution than MRP for distribution management activities.
In 1981 Baan starts using Unix as their main operating system, then a year later Baan delivers its first software product.
The release of MRP II in 1980s on the market led to a new way of coordinating manufacturing processes throughout all the stages from the product planning, purchasing parts, and inventory control and product distribution. Companies could follow better the process of production and distribution thus giving them the ability to better.
Then in the 1990s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) started to be more complex and use multi module application software. This generation of ERP could be used to improve the performance and internal business processes. This system could integrate the business activities across functional departments for every stage of production. The new ERP software systems could include application modules for supporting human resources, marketing, finance and accounting.
Modern ERPs are very complex systems that often are considered by some clients as very hard to use with all their functionality and they need complex setting up of hardware and application software. Every business has its particular needs from such system and that's why a lot of ERPs vendors offer customized solutions.
