Quality and IT executives alike face increasing pressure to implement technological solutions that allow the highest level of holistic control and oversight concerning the quality of their operations. This pressure is compounded by the current economic climate in which companies face constant demand to drive cost out of operations by eliminating redundant technology and supporting infrastructure. It’s imperative that the most effective decisions are made when reviewing alternate solution approaches to ensure that both quality and economic efficiencies are realized to the greatest extent possible.

A topic with which industry professionals have wrestled for a number of years is the extent to which they should repurpose existing software applications to manage quality systems processes. Central to this discussion is the question of how—or if—an organization’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) should be extended for use in the quality systems area.

The customization conundrum

Several trends have been prevalent in recent years that are changing the course of ERP deployments, due to lessons learned and the overwhelming pressures of economic uncertainty.

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