ERP is an essential information system(IS) and many companies are operating on the basis of this solution. Since ERP is a very important system that provides quantified information about the efficiency and productivity of the business activities, difference of competitiveness between companies that have successfully implemented ERP and those that do not have is very large.

According to a survey done by a global consulting firm, far less than half of the companies are evaluated as successfully internalizing ERP into their organizations. Therefore, there is a need for an accurate assessment of ERP usage and an improvement of ERP based on the assessment results. However, in reality, there is neither the systematic evaluation methods, nor any significant research about this topic.

This study proposes a framework for evaluating the routinization of ERP throughout the life cycle of the ERP based on both the literature in the enterprise architecture, ERP lifecycle, ERP success areas, and actual experience of the authors in ERP implementation.

The proposed framework intends to satisfy the following functional requirements: 1) the entire lifecycle of ERP should be evaluated; 2) evaluation of ERP should be performed from the enterprise-wide perspective; 3) evaluation should focus on the core activities of the organization; and objective evaluation criteria should be used in the evaluation.

The framework suggests the elements to be evaluated based on the ERP lifecycle and evaluation areas. Evaluation areas and elements are defined based on the Zachman(2002) framework and ERP lifecycle is defined using the Rajagopal(2002)’s 6-stage model.

In addition to the elements to be evaluated, this study proposes the evaluation method and scales and shows an examples of them for several important ERP deliverables. The proposed evaluation framework and the methods are expected to contribute to performing an objective and accurate evaluation of ERP routinization in the organizations. Furthermore, since the evaluation results drived by applying the framework will help organizations to identify the problems related to ERP usage and to suggest the solutions to solve the problem, the framework is expected to be used usefully by the organizations trying to routinize ERP.

However, this study has a few limitations and further research is need to overcome the limitations.

The evaluation elements suggested by this study is measured by ERP deliverables commonly used by the organizations. However, name of the deliverables may differ and every organization may not use the same deliverables. Therefore, appropriate deliverables should be selected in using the framework. In addition, further research is needed to analyze the ERP deliverables comprehensively and to define ERP deliverables in a consistent and uniform way.

With respect to the evaluation methods and scales, this study provides them for limited number of elements only. Therefore, studies to select more elements and to provide evaluation methods and scales for the more needed in the future.

Finally, in case of the evaluation scale adopted by the study, ‘yes or no’, or ‘100% or no’, it is important to set up the accurate goals for the evaluation element. Therefore, studies to establish appropriate goals for each evaluation element is needed. In addition to the above two scales, a scale like ‘A, B, C’ may be useful for the evaluation elements in the advanced stages where goals for evaluation element cannot be determined. Therefore, further research to suggest appropriate evaluation method and scale for each evaluation element is needed in the future.