By Ned Lilly
Replacing an aging enterprise resource planning/manufacturing resource planning (ERP/MRP) system to stay competitive brings with it a host of questions. Will the system have the necessary visibility into manufacturing processes, particularly costs? Will it give customers and partners direct data exchange through the supply chain? Many companies facing this decision are still running old-style character-based terminal sessions, without the intuitive graphical user interface that the rest of the world is using.