ERP invades households for good

Location : Earth
Year : 2025


Scene 1: Suraj, who just joined “Worldwide Mart” 2 days ago, was in his way to deliver his first order to one of the customers and was apprehensive whether his details are already mapped with customer’s Unit Resource Planning (URP) system or not? He reached customer’s place and found that there is nobody at home. He tried scanning his hand on the door bell scanner and was happy to find that his finger prints matched with information in customer URP and the automatic door of delivery box fixed on the wall opened. He again scanned the ship order & invoice on the scanner in delivery box and kept the goods there. The door closed automatically once the activity was over and Suraj moved to the next customer address.

Scene 2: Krish, gets a mail (delivered on smartphone) containing dashboard from his URP. The dashboard has a set of recommendations and suggestions. The URP recommended that since there is an acute demand supply gap currently in house-keeping services, he should renegotiate the rates of house maid, baby sitter and gardener with the agency. A drilldown facility allowed him to see what the prevailing rates are for this week. The dashboard also highlighted the utility and credit card bills that are due for payment. Krish authorizes URP to pay all bills on due date using intelligent payment system which maximizes interest income in saving accounts & credit cards. The dashboard also provides suggestions for holidaying, eating out and other leisure activities as configured by Krish in his URP. His life is made easy with URP and he is far less stressed than before and family life is as smooth as silk.

 

Scene 3: Jacky, is standing at his home with his family and society caretaker and verified that nothing is missing from his house while it was tried to be ransacked by thieves last night when they were out. The Group Resource Planning (GRP) system installed by the society was subscribed by Jacky, which is integrated with the security system at his house. The security system raised an alarm upon an intrusion and in addition of the alerts that went to prescribed people/groups, information was sent to GRP too which not only closed all possible exits from society but also sent alerts to all subscribing households in society. The thieves were struck inside the house only and were captured by police red-handed.

You must be wondering what is a URP and GRP when this article is for ERP. Well, ERP, over the years have evolved and has expanded its reach from large, medium and small enterprises to households and group housing societies. For a house, it is now called as URP (Unit Resource Planning) and for a Group of units; it is called as GRP (Group Resource Planning). The clouds have taken over and there is no need for people to invest in hardware to take benefits of ERP just they do not have to build a powerhouse for drawing power to run their appliances at home.

Scene 1 showed us how automated deliveries from retail marts to houses will happen with hand/finger scanning systems installed at homes which means that an authorized person will deliver the goods and even when there is nobody at home. The orders will be placed through smart phones and all systems will be integrated to process orders and payments.

Scene2 showed us how our lives will be made comfortable with ERP/URP with an electronic personal assistant taking over and completing all important tasks either by providing recommendations or if authorized, finishing them on their own.

Security is another area (Scene 3) where ERP/GRP will act as our personal watchman which will have less than 0.2% probability of failure (Six Sigma) and people can travel to spend their vacations without worrying about the thefts etc. till the thieves come out with another novel way to intrude.

I am convinced that ERP is here to stay and will be further invading our lives in future. Only software programs like ERPs will be able to control the robots that humans are planning to use for home chores in future. In addition, ERPs also have the potential to educate our children finding their improvement areas when they record their progress in them. The potential is huge and only things like ROI, hunger for more etc. will drive its use among larger population.