Energy Management Enhanced ERP: Use Cases, Technical Considerations, and a Sample Implementation Approach

During recent years, energy management has evolved to be an important corporate work area. Despite the new business opportunities for software vendors and user companies that arise from this work area, most ERP systems still only offer limited functionality for energy management. This article attempts to demonstrate these opportunities by a description of corresponding use-cases. Also, technical considerations for the integration of energy management functionalities into an ERP system are described with a focus on a system coupling approach. The intended extension is achieved by coupling a dedicated energy management information system to the ERP system. The coupling approach is exemplified through a demonstration that consists of an extended version of the abas ERP system which has been on the market for more than 30 years.