This semester the School of Information Technology (IT) began offering an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) course as an elective in the undergraduate and graduate curricula.
The course provides students with a comprehensive overview of the SAP ERP solution from business process and technical perspectives. IT professionals with hands-on SAP ERP experience are in high demand with 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies running this business management software.
Throughout the course, students apply the concept of business process re-engineering to implement SAP to support a hypothetical global company. Students learn how SAP-specific modules support accounting, procurement, fulfillment, production, inventory and warehouse management, and material planning processes. In addition to the textbook, online components available through WileyPlus and the SAP University Alliance Program provide online readings and course materials, SAP ERP demonstrations, and hands-on exercises in a Live SAP environment.
In addition, numerous guest lecturers with real-world experience are invited to present topics such as program management, enterprise application integration, ERP security, data management, and business intelligence. Mastery of the concepts in the textbook and additional online materials will prepare students to take the TERP10 SAP certification exam, “SAP Certified Associate – Business Process Integration with SAP ERP.”
The inaugural course is being taught by Lance Rogers ’91. He oversees a program management office (PMO) at Caterpillar that supports an initiative to deploy an SAP ERP solution to more than 100 manufacturing facilities. Rogers graduated magna cum laude from Illinois State as a Bone Scholar and Presidential Scholar with a B.S. in applied computer science and French. He later earned an M.B.A. from Bradley University. He is a PMI (Project Management Institute) certified project management professional (PMP) and an IMA certified management accountant (CMA). Rogers serves as the chair of the Illinois State University IT Business and Industry Advisory Council and is a member of the College of Applied Science and Technology Hall of Fame.
