When it comes to current production and inventory control related software, you don’t have to be Chef Boyardee to know you’re swimming in Alphabet Soup. Just think of all the “hot” acronyms: ERP, MRP, DRP, JIT, CRP, and FCS.

Enterprise resource planning, or erp project charter, is a phrase first coined by The Gartner Group of Stamford, Connecticut. It is not a revolutionary conceptual breakthrough. It is not a major technological advance, nor is it even a truly new idea. It is, however, a pretty useful paradigm, and it stems from the recognition that you can’t make good decisions in a vacuum.

Essentially, ERP is concemed with making sure that a firm’s manufacturing decisions are not made without taking into account their impact on the supply chain, both upstream and downstream. Taken further, production decisions are affected by and affect all of the other major areas in the business, including engineering, accounting, and marketing. To make better decisions, you need to take into account all of these important interactions within the business.