Strategically Substituting the E-Resource for the P-Resource: An Australian Public Company's Use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software within its Forestry and Forest Products Divisions

Abstract

This paper examines the progressive deployment of the enterprise resource planning software package, MFG/PR0 by the Australian manufacturing and distribution conglomerate CSR Ltd. within its forestry and forest products divisions. Reasons for initial deployment and the ostensible range of benefits obtained subsequent to initial deployment were investigated, as was the recent sale of the majority of the primary productive resources of the same divisions. It was found that initial reasons for deployment included the expected financial and operational benefits allowing from installing material requirements planning (MRP) software, such deployment integrating the production and inventory management of a range of interrelated forest products. These benefits were realised. Most recently, following a strategic decision by management to narrow CSR's business portfolio, all of the forest resource and much of the infrastructure was divested. Control of the formerly owned forest products based supply chain of the building materials division is being achieved however through the strategic information systems application of cross-organisational enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.