ERP Implementation as Design: Looking at participatory design for means to facilitate knowledge integration

ERP system implementations are often problematic leading to numerous problems during and after the introduction. Although user involvement is regarded as an important success factor, the implementation difficulties indicate a lack of understanding of the process as well as methods and tools to mediate it. We argue that ERP implementations have to be understood as design processes requiring knowledge integration across different domains, and that appropriate activities should be performed to facilitate the knowledge integration. We use an in-depth case study of an ERP implementation to support our claim; applying a design perspective shows how knowledge integration problems lead to difficulties in the implementation process. Based on these results we discuss different remedies from the participatory design discourse.