9-14 What goals was the ERP system used to achieve at WIM? Critically analyze how these goals helped WIM to overcome obsctacles they had faced earlier. Welding Industries Malaysia (WIM) is the only local Malasian company that manufactures welding machines for commercial use. WIM’s remarkable success story, which includes surviving the 1997/8 financial crisis and the rise of competition from China, is attributable to the very effective enterprise resource planning (ERP) system it has adopted. In the past, WIM was using an materials resource planning (MRP)

system, but this system, while a large advance over paper-based management techniques, nevertheless created many problems as the company’s operations expanded. MRP systems do not integrated information from various divisions within a company, but instead automate processes and information within departments.

For WIM this meant there was no platform with which to integrate data from different departments, there was a prevalence of data duplication and redundancy, and inconsistent data were supplied to managers. In addition to this, the departments within the company were acting as separate entities and information was not being shared. The growing size of the firm and the corresponding increase in the sizes of departments also bogged down the flow of information.