ERP Integration

A Systematic Mapping Study

Tommi Kähkönen and Kari Smolander

Software Engineering and Information Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology,

P.O. Box 20, 53851 Lappeenranta, Finland

Keywords: Enterprise Resource Planning, Integration, Systematic Mapping Study, Literature Review.

Abstract: Companies have been adopting Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems for decades in order to

integrate business functions to increase their competitiveness. The original goal of ERP was to provide an

all-in-one integrated suite for the enterprise. However, in a modern business environment, ERPs are

integrated externally with customers, suppliers and business partners and internally with continuously

changing system landscape of the enterprise. In this paper we present a systematic mapping study that

investigates how ERP integration-related issues have been studied by the academia between 1998 and 2012.

Studies about technological issues are mostly dealing with systems inside a company whereas studies on

methodological issues focus on the integration of the supply chain management and e-business. However,

these studies are often either carried out without a rigorous research method or they are based on single

cases only. Quantitative methods have been mainly used to investigate quality attributes of ERPs. It is still

unclear, how integration issues are effectively solved by a network of stakeholders in an ERP project. This

requires more research in the future.

1 INTRODUCTION

ERP systems are integrated computer information

systems that aim to integrate the core business

processes in a company, previously automated by

monolithic legacy applications (Alshawi et al., 2004;

Yusuf et al., 2004). They are designed to automate

the flow of information, material and financial

resources of these processes to a single database,

which can be accessed to get real-time enterprise

data whenever needed (Somers and Nelson, 2003;

Su and Yang, 2010). The rationale for adopting an

ERP system is that the enterprise can enhance its

business performance, financial predictability, and

decision making by business process automation

with timely access to management information

(Yusuf et al., 2004). ERP can also increase the

productivity as well as improve the quality of

customer service and knowledge management

(Berchet and Habchi, 2005). Adopting an ERP

system means that a company usually chooses an

ERP product from a certain vendor (e.g. SAP,

Oracle or Microsoft) and either re-engineers its

business processes to match those offered by the

ERP product, or customizes the ERP product to

match the existing processes (Somers and Nelson,

2003; Themistocleous and Corbitt, 2006).

The origin of ERP systems can be traced back

prior to 1960s when inventory control systems were

introduced (Metaxiotis et al., 2003). MPR (Material

Requirements Planning) systems emerged in 1970s

to convert production plans into raw material

requirements and in late 1980s, mainframe-based

MPR2 systems were to optimize the production

process of the plant (Cardoso et al., 2004; Hwang

and Grant, 2011). Later, more functional areas

including accounting and finance could be served by

one unified system called ERP (Cardoso et al.,

2004).

Originally designed to integrate only the internal

business functions, it was soon realized that ERPs

could not meet all integration requirements of the

changing business environment. It became necessary

to integrate operations across national borders and

coordinate business processes with partners in

strategic alliances (Barki and Pinsonneault, 2002).

Business collaboration has become a key strategy for

companies and it needs cooperation among

organizations, integration of business processes and

enterprise systems (Wang et al., 2005). In a modern

Kähkönen T. and Smolander K..

ERP Integration - A Systematic Mapping Study.

DOI: 10.5220/0004419900230035

In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-2013), pages 23-35

ISBN: 978-989-8565-59-4

 2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

business environment, a single organization is a part

of the network of delivering and supporting

organizations – a part of the supply chain (Su and

Yang, 2010). Even though it is challenging to

accomplish, organizational integration is needed to

interconnect customers, distributors and suppliers

via integrated supply chains (Barki and

Pinsonneault, 2002). Implementing an ERP system

is seen as the first step in the process of enterprise-

wide supply chain integration. (Downing, 2010;

Yusuf et al., 2004). There is a need to manage the

integration among different businesses and systems

(Eckartz et al., 2009).

Currently, an ERP system is just one of the many

information systems used in organizations (Oman,

2011).The scope of ERP has advanced to Extended

ERP or ERPII, in which the traditional ERP is

integrated with other operational systems such as

SCM (Supply Chain Management) and CRM

(Customer Relationship Management)

(Vathanophas, 2007). During the years, different

technological solutions, including EAI (Enterprise

Application Integration) and SOA (Service Oriented

Architecture) have been introduced to solve the

integration issues between these systems (Margaria

et al., 2010; Wang and Zhang, 2005). A modern

ERP is often accessed by mobile devices from

different locations (Frank and Kumar, 2012;

Jankowska and Kurbel, 2005). It also provides

access for customers via web interfaces

(Vathanophas, 2007).

Even though significant amount or research has

been conducted on ERP systems during the last 15

years, we can still read from the news about ERP

disasters: for example US Air Force spent over one

billion dollars to an ERP project and cancelled the

unsuccessful project after 8 years (CXO Media Inc.,

2013a). Also, IBM was recently sued because of

disastrous mismatch between an ERP product with a

manufacturing company (CXO Media Inc., 2013b).

As modern ERP implementations are becoming

more complex and challenging, we believe that

integration has a key role in ERP projects. Therefore

this study takes the first step in a research project

that aims to investigate integration issues in modern

ERP projects. This paper maps systematically the

existing literature and investigates how ERP

integration has been studied in the academia in order

to provide a solid baseline for ERP integration

research.

The next section provides the definition for the

concept integration and discusses other literature

reviews performed on ERPs. Section 3 explains how

the process of this mapping study was carried out.

Results are presented in section 4. Section 5

discusses about the future directions of ERP

integration research and section 6 provides the

conclusions.

2 BACKGROUND

2.1

Definition of Integration

Integration is an ambiguous term that has many

interpretations in different domains. For example, in

strategy, it means “coordination of activities and

management of dependencies between them”

(Glouberman and Mintzberg, 2001). In production

and logistics, it is “coordinated management of

information, material flows, plant operations and

logistics through a common sets of principles,

strategies, policies and performance metrics” (Barki

and Pinsonneault, 2002). The dictionary also

provides multiple definitions for integration, for

example “the act of combining or adding parts to

make a unified whole” (Farlex Inc., 2013). In the

domain of information technology, integration is

often associated with different perspectives. For

example, Barki and Pinsonneault (2002) list the

following perspectives:

 Technical perspective sees at least two

interconnected systems exchanging data

 Business Process perspective views

standardized business processes among

organizations coupled through information

technologies

 Strategic perspective views integration as

coordination and cooperation between human

actors

Application integration and organizational

integration are often referred with internal and

external perspectives. Application integration is a

strategic approach to bind information systems

together (Linthicum, 2004). According to Linthicum

(2004), application integration can be both internal

and external (business-to-business, B2B). Moreover,

integrating information systems inside a single

company is often referred as Enterprise Application

Integration (EAI). Organizational integration is “the

extent to which all processes and technologies of the

entire value chain of an organization constitute a

unified whole” which can be happening internally

within an organization or externally across different

organizations (Barki and Pinsonneault, 2002). Also,

it is stated that internal integration deals with

interrelationships and trade-offs within a firm while

ICEIS2013-15thInternationalConferenceonEnterpriseInformationSystems

external integration refers to coordination with

customers and/or suppliers (Welker et al., 2008).

The evolution of the Internet and web technologies

have changed the focus of integration, to consider

also external stakeholders, to connect customers and

suppliers through CRM and SCM to the ERP system

(Búrca et al., 2005; Turner and Chung, 2005).

Instead of being just a technical activity,

Information sharing and cooperation are tasks that

are closely related especially to external integration,

where business partners integrate their systems

(Barki and Pinsonneault, 2002). We also see

integration as an activity which aims at blending

elements of systems inside and outside the company

to a unified whole, not only by means of technical

solutions but also by information sharing and

collaboration between human actors.

2.2 Existing Literature Reviews on

ERPs

Since the end of 1990s, ERP systems have been a

major interest of researchers. Seven systematic

literature reviews to map all the conducted research

on ERP systems have been done (Addo-Tenkorang

and Helo, 2011; Botta-Genoulaz et al., 2005;

Esteves and Pastor, 2001; Esteves and Bohorquez,

2007; Moon, 2007; Schlichter and Kraemmergaard,

2010; Shehab et al., 2004).

These literature reviews address the integration

issues only partly. Shehab et al. (2004) did not point

out categories related to integration issues in their

study. Botta-Genoulaz et al. (2005) used the

category “ERP for supply chain management,”

which views an ERP as a platform for other

applications, including CRM and SCM. The authors

found five articles that deal with integration of ERP

and other systems. Esteves and Bohorquez (2007)

identified 21 integration-related articles and

categorized these articles as “Evolution.” Moon

(2007) identified 37 articles dealing with extending

the functionality of ERPs whereas Addo-Tenkorang

and Helo, (2011) found 15 articles related to this

category. Schlichter and Krammergaard (2010)

identified studies related to “ERP tool” and “ERP

and supply chain management,” but the authors only

pointed out few examples related to these categories.

Rather than examining all the ERP related

research we aim at finding out the ERP integration

issues from the literature in order to provide a

comprehensive view to this topic. We wanted to

investigate how internal and external information

systems are being integrated with ERPs and by what

means integration issues have been studied. Only

Schlichter and Krammergaard (2010) identified the

research approaches of the studies, but they did not

highlight what approaches have been used to

investigate integration issues.

For this study, we have set the following

research questions: 1) How have the number of

publications related to ERP integration been

evolved between 1998 and 2012? 2) What aspects of

integration have been investigated? 3) What

research methods have been used in these studies?

and 4) What topics need to be investigated further?

3 RESEARCH METHOD

A systematic literature review (SLR) is a secondary

study which aims to gather and evaluate all the

evidence on a selected research topic (De Almeida

Biolchini et al., 2007; Kitchenham et al., 2009). It

aims at identifying gaps in current research to point

out the potential areas of further research and it can

also provide background to position new research

activities (Kitchenham and Charters, 2007).

Systematic mapping study (SMS, sometimes

called as scoping review) is a study complementary

to SLR (Kitchenham and Charters, 2007; Petersen et

al., 2008). Kitchenham and Charters (2007)

highlight qualitative differences between SLR and

SMS. Petersen et al. (2007) provide more

comprehensive comparison by stating that there are

similarities and differences in goals and process as

well as in breadth and depth of these studies. Unlike

SLR, SMS does not aim at establishing the state of

evidence and identifying the best practices based on

empirical evidence. Mapping studies do not study

articles in detail but aim at classification and

thematic analysis. The goal of both types of studies

is to identify the research gaps with the aim to

influence the future direction of primary research.

An SMS aims to classify and structure a certain field

of interest, often by analysing the categories and

frequencies of publications (Petersen et al., 2008).

An SMS analyses the literature to find out what kind

of studies related to research question have been

done, what is their publication forum and what kind

of outcomes have been produced (Bailey et al.,

2007). The process for SMS in software engineering

has been defined by Petersen et al. (2008). Figure 1

presents this process.

First, the research questions are defined for the

SMS. Search strings are selected and they are used

to search articles from scientific databases to

identify the primary studies, by manually browsing

and handling the results of the search. Screening

ERPIntegration-ASystematicMappingStudy

Figure 1: A process of systematic mapping study.

of papers for inclusion and exclusion is used to filter

out the papers that do not answer the research

questions. In keywording of abstracts, the context

and contribution of research is identified. This can

be done by identifying a set of keywords and

combining them to form a high-level understanding

of research area. Based on keywording, the

population of related papers can be classified and

categorized. Finally, the data is extracted from

studies and presented in form of a systematic map

that visualizes the results with graphs and tables or

other graphical representations (Petersen et al.,

2008).

In our study, keywords and databases were

selected after defining the research questions.

Searches were made by using the advanced search

functionality offered by the databases. A set of

related articles was identified from the search results

by using inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Categorization was made iteratively by handling the

set of related articles that were not excluded. Finally,

the results were presented, a systematic map was

produced and the meaning of results was interpreted.

3.1 Selecting Keywords and Databases

First, a pilot search from different databases was

made to estimate how feasible the chosen area of

interest is for performing a systematic mapping

study. It appeared that the number of search results

varied from 20 to 260 depending on the database by

using keywords “ERP” AND “integration”. We

decided that this number of articles is possible for

closer investigation.

Rather than choosing specific journals or

conferences, we selected six databases for review:

ACM, CiteSeer, IEEEXplore, Sciverse,

SpringerLink and EBSCO. These databases target a

wide range of the most important conferences and

journals in computer science, software engineering,

and information systems. Moreover, they all offer an

advanced search functionality that allows searching

from different parts of the article, like from titles,

abstracts, and keywords.

We decided to search the terms “ERP” AND

“integration” from the metadata (titles, keywords

and abstracts) of articles. The time period was set

from 1998 to 2012. From ACM, CiteSeer and

EBSCO we had to perform two searches, because

the search engines allowed only searching from titles

or from abstracts instead of from all the metadata.

Filtering was used in searching to crop the unrelated

topics in Sciverse and EBSCO. Table 1 shows the

results from actual search.

Table 1: Results from actual search.

Source Search criteria and filtering

Accepted /

Total

ACM

1) ERP and integration from

abstracts,

published in 1998-2012

2) ERP and integration from

titles, published in 1998-2012

5/21

1/1

CiteSeer

1) ERP and integration from

abstracts, published in 1998-

2012

2) ERP and integration from

titles, published in 1998-2012

25/66

5/7

IEEEXplore

ERP and integration from

metadata, published in 1998-

2013

141/239

Sciverse

ERP and integration from

titles, abstracts and keywords

limiting to Computers in

Industry, European Journal of

Operational Research, Expert

Systems with Applications,

Information & Management,

International Journal of

Production Economics

18/26

SpringerLink

ERP and integration from titles

and abstracts since 1.1.1998,

no book chapters

12/42

EBSCO

1) ERP and integration from

abstracts, source type:

academic journals, published

in 1998-2012, filtering out

evoked potentials from

thesaurus terms

2) ERP and integration from

titles, source type: academic

journals

88/261

15/58

TOTAL

310/721

3.2 Handling the Related Articles

In total of 721 search results were first reviewed by

reading the title, keywords and abstract. This was

done to decide if the article meets the criteria. At this

point, articles focusing on completely different

Definition

Research

Question

Review

Scope

Conduct

All Papers

Screening

of Papers

Relevant

Papers

Keywording

using

Abstracts

Classification

Scheme

Data

Extraction

and

Mapping

Process

Systematic

Map

Process Steps

Outcomes

ICEIS2013-15thInternationalConferenceonEnterpriseInformationSystems

topics such as Event Related Potentials, or articles

written in other language than English were dropped

out. We also removed duplicate articles. In total 310

articles were identified as potentially interesting, and

they were reviewed in more detail.

3.2.1 Exclusion Criteria

During the further analysis of the remaining 310

articles, filtering was performed to drop out

unrelated articles. An article was excluded if it was

not related to integration issues. For example, many

articles mentioned the used keywords in the abstract,

but focused on other issues than the integration with

other systems. The term “Integration” usually

appears in a definition of ERP, which is often

presented in the abstract to introduce the research

area. Also, if it occurred that the article just briefly

mentioned ERP and mainly focused on some other

subject, the article was left out. This filtering

reduced the total number of articles from 310 to 140.

In addition, for this report, due to the limited space

of a conference article, we chose to focus only on

journal articles, to reduce the number of articles to

be reported. This reduced the number from 140 to

56. The full data is available in

http://enact.lut.fi/erp_sms.

3.2.2 Categorization of Articles

The categorization was made by iteratively

analysing the 56 selected journal articles. The data

recorded from the related articles is shown in Table

Table 2: Data collected from articles.

Article Data Categorization Data

Publication Name

Publication Type

(journal, conference or

other)

Publication Forum (if

available)

Publication Year (1998-

2012)

Keywords (if available)

Author’s Home Country

Scope of Integration

(internal, external or

internal & external)

Sub Category

(technological issues,

methodological issues,

quality issues, or extension

to ERP)

Research Method (systems

dynamics, literature study,

focus group, survey, delphi

study, constructive research,

case study, multiple case

study)

From each publication, publication name,

publication type, name of the publication forum,

year and country were recorded. The categorization

was made by dividing articles to classes based on

their scope of integration: Internal, External or both

Internal and External. “Internal” deals with the

integration of applications, systems and devices

inside a company with no involvement of business

partners, or with no relation to business partners.

“External” means that ERP integrates with

information systems outside the organization or that

the integration aims at collaboration of business

partners or external stakeholders. If the article

discussed about both aspects, it was categorized

under “Internal & External.” In cases where the

specific target of integration (e. g. Advanced

Planning and Scheduling (APS) or the supply chain

management system) was mentioned, it was also

recorded. Furthermore, the related sub-categories

were identified. The sub-categories were created

inductively, by labeling conceptually the most

essential topic of interest of the article. The list of

sub-categories included Technological Issues,

Methodological Issues, Quality Issues, and

Extending ERP.

The research method used in the article was

recorded. It was not always clearly defined in the

article. In these cases the method was set either to

“literature study” in cases where article just

presented some ideas by relying on literature or

“constructive research” in cases where the article

proposed a construct based on the literature.

Figure 2: The number of journal publications on ERP

integration.

4 RESULTS

Figure 2 shows the number of ERP integration

related journal publications yearly. The year 2006

had the biggest number of publications. Since there

are no published articles in years 1998 and 1999, it

ERPIntegration-ASystematicMappingStudy

seems that the time period used as the search

constraint is suitable.

About half (28) of the publications address

methodological issues. These articles discuss about

processes and approaches of how integration was

carried out in a certain case. They also discuss about

critical success factors, challenges, management and

information sharing in ERP integration. Some of

these articles also proposed a conceptual research

framework. The second biggest subset (12 articles)

deals with technological issues. These articles

propose a technological approach to integration

typically by presenting an architectural solution or

by discussing about certain technologies used in

integration. 7 publications discuss about extending

ERP by identifying additional functionality that

could be provided by the ERP system, or by

proposing a new architecture for the ERP system.

Quality issues was selected as a sub-category if

the article addressed measureable characteristics of

ERP systems or benefits provided by the ERP

system related to integration. 9 articles addressed

this sub-category.

Table 4 lists the applied research methods used

in these articles. It is notable that most of the articles

are case studies, use constructive approach or are

based on literature only. In addition, a common

qualitative approach such as ethnography is

Table 3: A systematic map of ERP integration.

Internal External Internal & External ERP Characteristics

Technological

Issues

(Huang, 2002) CR

(Wiers, 2002) CS

(Wang et al., 2005) CR

(Ou-Yang and Hon, 2006) CR

(Hu and Wang, 2008) CR

(Wei et al., 2008) CR

(Oman, 2011) CR

(Siau and Messersmith, 2002)

(Margaria et al., 2010) CS

(Shafiei et al., 2012) CR

(Tao et al., 2004) CR

(Wang and Zhang,

2005) CR

Methodological

Issues

Processes and Approaches:

(Soliman et al., 2001) GT

(Alshawi et al., 2004) CS

(Gayialis and Tatsiopoulos,

2004) CS

(Lam, 2005) CS

(Stefanou and Revanoglou,

2006) CS

(Xu et al., 2006) CR

(Metaxiotis, 2009) LS

(Lee et al., 2010) CS

Challenges:

(Worley et al., 2002) CR

(Yusuf et al., 2004) CS

(Zhu, 2006) S

(Momoh et al., 2010) LS

Processes and Approaches:

(Tarn et al., 2002) LS

(Ash and Burn, 2003) CS

(Búrca et al., 2005) CS

(Themistocleous and Corbitt,

2006) CS

(Koh et al., 2006) CS

(Toloie–Eshlaghi et al., 2011)

Information sharing:

(Kelle and Akbulut, 2005) LS

Challenges:

(Akkermans et al., 2003) DS

(Themistocleous, 2004) CS

(Bose et al., 2008) CS

Processes and

Approaches:

(Lee et al., 2003) LS

(Vathanophas, 2007)

(Akyuz and Rehan,

2009) LS

(Hvolby and

Trienekens, 2010) LS

(Cagliano et al., 2006)

Information sharing:

(Welker et al., 2008)

MCS

Quality Issues

Benefits:

(Kang et al., 2008) S

(Uwizeyemungu and Raymond,

2012) MCS

(Ranganathan and Brown,

2006) S

Benefits:

(Zheng et al., 2000) CS

(Ghani et al., 2009) CS

(Chung et al., 2011) LS

Benefits:

(Hwang and Grant,

2011) S

Characteristics of

ERP:

(Turner and Chung,

2005) CR

(Baki and Çakar, 2005)

ERP Extension

New Functionality to

ERP:

(Cardoso et al., 2004) LS

(Rom and Rohde, 2006)

(Koslowski and Strüker,

2011) SD

New Architecture for

ERP:

(Metaxiotis et al., 2003)

(Frank, 2004) CR

(Ip et al., 2004) CR

(Lea et al., 2005) CR

ICEIS2013-15thInternationalConferenceonEnterpriseInformationSystems

completely missing from this population of journal

articles and grounded theory is applied only in one

article.

Table 4: Applied research methods.

Applied Research Method

Number of

Publications

Systems Dynamics (SD) 1

Literature Study (LS) 11

Focus Group (FG) 1

Survey (S) 7

Delphi Study (DS) 1

Constructive Research (CR) 16

Case Study (CS), Multiple-case

study (MCS)

16, 2

Grounded Theory (GT) 1

The systematic map of ERP integration is

presented in table 3. The scope of integration,

related sub-category and applied research methods

of the articles are presented in the map. For research

methods, abbreviations from table 4 are used. The

next chapters walk through the main findings from

the found articles and interprets the systematic map

of ERP integration.

4.1 Technological Issues

A fair number of articles deal with technical issues

of integration. This is not surprising, as integration is

often seen as a technical matter. Articles addressing

technological issues aim at building flexible

solutions and architectures for integrating ERP with

other systems. Specific technologies such as SOA

and EAI are often used to aid the integration effort

(Margaria et al., 2010; Wang and Zhang, 2005).

Systems targeted by these implementation

frameworks include other information management

systems such as APS (Advanced Planning and

Scheduling), DSS (Design Support Systems) or

Product Data Management (PDM) (Hu and Wang,

2008; Ou-Yang and Hon, 2006; Wei et al., 2008).

The process of integrating ERP with APS is

presented, problems encountered, best practices in

integration as well as a functional architecture is

presented (Wiers, 2002). Also, an architecture to

integrate the DSS over SCMs and ERPs of multiple

organizations is proposed (Shafiei et al., 2012). In

manufacturing companies, there is often a need to

integrate ERP with robots on the execution level

through a MES (Manufacturing Execution System).

An approach to develop a distributed MES that

integrates ERP with operational systems at the lower

level is proposed (Huang, 2002). A process and

technology for ERP and MES integration is

presented (Oman, 2011).

Sometimes ERP integration targets both

manufacturing and planning systems. An approach

where data exchange is made internally and

externally between ERP, APS and MES is proposed

(Tao et al., 2004). Enabling technologies for ERP

and E-commerce technologies are briefly discussed

(Siau and Messersmith, 2002). Integration can also

target legacy systems and other systems of business

partners (Margaria et al., 2010; Wang and Zhang,

2005). Also, an approach for integrating distributed

relational database systems with different enterprise

systems is described (Wang et al., 2005).

The articles related to technological issues are

often made with no systematic research approach.

Instead, they are mostly relying on literature or they

are based on specific cases. Because of this, they

may not be fully applicable to other organizations.

In addition, the studies related to implementation do

not generally cover the systems accessed by external

stakeholders, such as SCM and e-commerce systems.

Moreover, mobile and web interfaces which are

important in modern ERPs are not discussed in

these articles at all.

4.2 Methodological Issues

Several studies address the integration challenges

caused by ERP systems that are generally seen as

difficulties in the integration with other applications.

There are challenges when interconnecting specific

ERP modules with other subsystems internally (Zhu,

2006). Also, implementing the interfaces between

systems and connecting ERP with non-ERP systems

can sometimes be a complex effort (Bose et al.,

2008; Momoh et al., 2010). Retrieving data from

legacy systems by building temporal interfaces can

be challenging (Yusuf et al., 2004). It has also been

identified that ERP systems sometimes prohibit the

building of additional systems that communicate

with it (Worley et al., 2002). It is argued that ERP

systems are not designed to cross organizational

boundaries, and additional technologies, such as EAI

are needed to cross-organizational integration

(Themistocleous, 2004). Because of the non-

modular and closed system architecture, insufficient

for an extended enterprise functionality, the current

ERP solutions cannot support SCM integration

efficiently (Akkermans et al., 2003).

Many studies report processes and approaches to

integrate ERP with different systems. The critical

success factors when integrating ERP with

computer-aided design and manufacturing

ERPIntegration-ASystematicMappingStudy

(CAD/CAM) systems has been evaluated (Soliman

et al., 2001). A process of building a decision

support system by integrating carefully selected

functions from SCM, GIS (Geographic Information

System) and ERP is presented (Gayialis and

Tatsiopoulos, 2004). In a case study of an ERP

project in healthcare, integration with various

different internal systems such as non-ERP

applications, web applications and mobile devices

was needed (Stefanou and Revanoglou, 2006). Two

literature-based studies discuss the integration of

ERPs and Knowledge Management (KM) systems

(Metaxiotis, 2009; Xu et al., 2006). An integration

methodology for PDM and ERP integration by

digital manufacturing is proposed (Lee et al., 2010).

EAI is sometimes used to integrate ERP with

other systems and ERP modules. A case study of an

EAI project where ERP was integrated with several

other internal systems is made (Lam, 2005). It is also

suggested that processes can be easily integrated

when combining ERP with EAI (Themistocleous

and Corbitt, 2006). An approach to integrate ERP

modules from different vendors by using EAI to

minimize the need of customization of ERP

packages is made (Alshawi et al., 2004). A high-

level comparison between ERP and EAI as means

for enterprise integration is proposed (Lee et al.,

2003).

ERP is strongly related to Supply Chain

Management and e-business. Relationships of ERP

and SCM have been studied (Cagliano et al., 2006;

Toloie–Eshlaghi et al., 2011). The integration

methods and strategies of ERP and SCM are

discussed (Koh et al., 2006; Tarn et al., 2002). An

approach for SMEs to extend their ERP system

across the supply chain is also presented (Búrca et

al., 2005). Requirements for an electronic supply

chain are studied and it is pointed out that ERP

should be first integrated with other internal

applications before forming an e-supply chain

(Akyuz and Rehan, 2009). ERP is also seen as a

backend system for e-business and an inter-

organizational ERP process model has been

constructed (Vathanophas, 2007). Existing e-

business frameworks and their relationships to

enterprise applications such as ERP and CRM is

made and a prediction of their future state and

challenges is proposed (Hvolby and Trienekens,

2010). A framework for E-business change is

proposed by stating that there are other than

technological matters, such as cultural and change

management issues that affect the integration in E-

business projects (Ash and Burn, 2003).

Two studies address information sharing and

cooperation. Internal and external information

sharing as an integrative practice to enable better

collaboration in supply chain planning is examined

(Welker et al., 2008). Also, a framework of

cooperation for supply chain partners is provided by

analyzing both enablers and obstacles in ERP

systems that facilitate supply chain information

sharing and cooperation (Kelle and Akbulut, 2005).

The studies addressing methodological issues

mainly focus on external integration of SCM and e-

business. Information sharing and collaboration

practices are not studied broadly. In addition, tools

used to aid integration efforts have not been

investigated widely. Many studies are based on a

single case study only. It could be useful to know

more about general challenges and success factors

that can be adopted in other situations as well.

Therefore, besides qualitative studies, there is a

need for industry-wide quantitative studies.

Moreover, the use of tools to aid integration efforts

is unrecognized by these studies.

4.3 Quality Issues

A number of studies that investigate certain quality

attributes of ERP systems or evaluate the

relationships between ERP benefits and integration

have been conducted from different viewpoints. A

framework is proposed to evaluate the potential of

ERP to e-business by considering flexibility,

modularity and integration of an ERP system

(Turner and Chung, 2005).

A linkage between ERP and SCM is studied.

Chung et al. (2011) suggest a framework to evaluate

ERPs capabilities to support SCM initiatives. Also,

benefits of integrating ERP with SCM is discussed

(Ghani et al., 2009; Zheng et al., 2000).

The effect of integration on performance is

examined. Kang et al. (2008) investigate how non-IS

integration (people, standardization and

centralization) affects performance. A multi-level

view of integration and its influence on ERP

performance is studied (Hwang and Grant, 2011).

Also, the benefits of ERPs with a greater physical

scope have been investigated (Ranganathan and

Brown, 2006).

The ERP package selection criteria is studied

with a conclusion that the system’s fit with partners’

systems, cross-module integration and compatibility

between other systems are the top criteria when

selecting ERP systems (Baki and Çakar, 2005).

This category contains the most quantitative

studies conducted on ERP integration issues in the

ICEIS2013-15thInternationalConferenceonEnterpriseInformationSystems

population. Integration is generally considered as

beneficial to enterprises. These studies also suggest

the role of ERP as a backbone of an extended

business system. The non-IS perspective of

integration proposed by Kang et al. (2008) could be

studied also with qualitative methods, such as

grounded theory and case studies.

4.4 Extending ERP

This category of articles discusses the need for

additional functionality for ERP systems and

completely new approaches for ERP system

architecture.

The similarities and differences of ERP and

workflow management systems are identified and it

is noted that ERP vendors have been starting to add

workflow capabilities on their products (Cardoso et

al., 2004). The relationships between ERP and

Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM) systems are

investigated and their integration is proposed (Rom

and Rohde, 2006). A knowledge-based system for

production-scheduling as an ERP module is

proposed (Metaxiotis et al., 2003). It has been

suggested that an on-demand ERP could provide a

sustainability benchmarking service and also other

services based on the ERP data (Koslowski and

Strüker, 2011).

An ERP system architecture, based on re-

configurable characteristics of material objects and

financial objects, and having the advantage of

workflow re-configurability and re-usability is

proposed (Ip et al., 2004). An architecture for

integrating distributed ERP systems with e-

commerce systems is presented (Frank, 2004). Also,

a prototype based on a multi-agent ERP to achieve

enterprise wide integration is suggested (Lea et al.,

2005).

These articles address diverse topics, but they all

identify the need of extending the functionality of

ERPs. New architectures for ERP systems are

proposed because of the need for more flexible ERP

system architecture where other systems can easily

be integrated. ERP as an on-demand service is

addressed by one article only (Koslowski and

Strüker, 2011). The future studies could investigate

how the requirement for on-demand ERP integration

affects integration.

5 DISCUSSION

When comparing the results of this study with the

previous literature reviews of ERP systems, some

evolution in ERP integration research can be

identified.

Esteves and Pastor (2001) found out a set of

articles dealing with connecting ERPs with other

systems and identified that these articles were

mainly technology-oriented by focusing on

development of interfaces with other systems, web

technologies and integration of CRM modules. In

their updated literature review, the authors

highlighted the need the need of more research on

ERP and SCM integration and saw mobile

technologies, on-demand and open source ERPs as

future trends (Esteves and Bohorquez, 2007). If

comparing our findings with these observations, it

can be seen that methodological issues have been

increasingly targeted, even more than technical

issues. Moreover, there are studies that address ERP

and SCM integration approaches. However, our

study did not find examples of using mobile

technologies in integration. Also, how open source

and on-demand ERPs affect integration issues

remains unclear.

Botta-genoultaz et al. (2005) identified only few

articles dealing with the relationship and integration

between ERP and SCM. Our study pointed out the

lack of technological solutions regarding this

integration, but instead methodological issues have

been investigated to some extent.

Moon (2007) identified a set of articles dealing

with ERP extension and observed a further

expansion of ERP’s scope as a future trend.

According to authors, companies are considering

extensions to their ERP systems towards e-business,

SCM, CRM, MES, supplier relationship

management, and business intelligence systems. The

authors also found some articles explaining enabling

technologies and how to expand the functionalities

of ERP. Our study brings out a more detailed

viewpoint of how integration issues with these

systems have been studied.

Addo-Tenkorang and Helo (2011) also identified

the extended nature of ERP and proposed that future

ERPs are based on more advanced technologies,

such as SOA, web services, Web 2.0 and they state

that future ERPs will be delivered in SaaS (Software

as a Service) model. There is no doubt that ERP

products will be enhanced with more advanced

technologies. However, we believe that instead of

technical issues, methods, tools, and coordination to

manage the integration in future ERP systems will

become more relevant than technological matters.

ERPIntegration-ASystematicMappingStudy

5.1 Limitations of Study

This study has some limitations. First, because the

study focused only on journal articles, conference

articles and their contribution to this area have been

left out. We have, however, collected and analyzed

also all conferences articles that met the query

criteria. The full data table is available in

http://enact.lut.fi/erp_sms. Second, because of the

general nature of the term “integration”, some

studies may have been filtered out, if authors have

used some other terms, such as “interconnecting

systems.” Integration is a commonly used term

which is often not well-defined. Third, the set of

related articles may not be fully complete. Some

databases such as Google Scholar were left out

because of the limitations of their search

functionality. However, we believe that the selected

databases and their query results provide a very

representative view of previous research.

5.2 Future Research

As ERP systems are becoming more complex, there

is also a more urgent need to solve the integration

issues in ERP projects. The concept of an ERP

community has been defined as a tactical group

consisting of an ERP vendor, an ERP consultant and

the implementing organization (Sammon and Adam,

2002). We believe that this community is more

complex, consisting of multiple stakeholders,

including vendors of existing and interfacing

systems, customers, business partners and also other

project-specific groups. There is a need to study

ERP projects from the ERP stakeholder network

perspective to investigate how integration issues are

effectively solved in this network; what kind of

tools, methods, and processes are used to aid the

integration and how are the people collaborating. By

examining these networks it is possible to uncover

new research knowledge of ERP integration, its

issues and their solutions. Both qualitative and

quantitative research is needed, first to find out the

emerging issues and then to validate the

presumptions. This area of research is also very

suitable for design science (Peffers et al., 2007) and

action research (Iivari and Venable, 2009)

methodologies, currently not systematically applied

by the studies in the population.

6 CONCLUSIONS

ERP is adopted by many enterprises today. A

modern ERP system not only integrates the core

internal functions of one company but also integrates

to the business network and is accessed by multiple

stakeholders, including customers and business

partners.

This paper mapped the existing literature of ERP

integration by searching articles from scientific

literature databases. We searched journal articles

related to ERP integration issues. A total of 56

articles were analyzed further. The articles were

categorized based on their scope of integration

(internal, external or both) and also by using four

sub-categories: technological issues, methodological

Issues, quality issues and extending ERP.

Although it is often difficult, ERP integration is

necessary due to ERP’s role as a backbone of the

enterprise business system. According to our

analysis, the research that aims at solving

technological issues is often conducted with no

rigorous and well-defined research method.

Moreover, the observed research on technology

deals mostly with internal manufacturing and

decision making systems, and lacks the focus on

SCM and e-commerce that are accessed by external

parties. The device aspect with mobility and Internet

has not been widely considered either. The

methodological issues that have been investigated

focus mostly on e-business and SCM integration, but

mainly with single cases only. The use of tools and

collaboration practices are quite unrecognized by the

current studies. The most comprehensive research on

ERP integration has been done on quality issues by

examining the ERP characteristics and benefits of

integration.

Even though ERP products have improved over

the years, there still seems to be significant issues

with ERP projects. A fair amount of research has

been conducted on ERP systems, so this makes us

wonder why – with better products and a huge

knowledge base – these projects still fail frequently.

One reason for this could be the more complex

environment and unrecognized area of research – the

ERP stakeholder network. The future research

should consider various stakeholders in the ERP

development network and study how integration

issues are solved within this network.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was funded by Academy of Finland grant

#259454. We would like to thank our colleague

Andrey Maglyas for his constructive comments on

this paper.

ICEIS2013-15thInternationalConferenceonEnterpriseInformationSystems

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