The essential nature and benefits of enterprise resource planning systems have remained the same for a number of years: facilitating the integration of an organization's disparate sources of data within a common database so that this information can be easily accessed and shared from department to department. Such a system is also contains software components that are modular in design, allowing additional programs to be implemented as and when required. However, the ERP space has undoubtedly seen some marked developments in recent times. For example, there has been a movement on the part of ERP suppliers away from providing general discrete manufacturing capabilities towards more vertical-specific functionality. This functionality covers a number of distinct market sectors, including defense, construction, process manufacturing, industrial manufacturing, automotive manufacturing, MRO, CMRO, petro-chemical, utilities, financial services and public sector.
Source: Manufacturing & Logistics IT, http://www.logisticsit.com