SE Radio 707: Subhajit Paul on ERP Automation and AI

In this episode, Subhajit Paul joins SE Radio host Kanchan Shringi to discuss how enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems work in practice and where machine learning and generative AI are beginning to fit into real-world ERP environments.

Subhajit grounds the conversation in ERP fundamentals, explaining core business flows such as order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, and plan-to-produce, and why ERP systems are central to running large enterprises. He then walks through the realities of ERP implementation, sharing examples of both successful and failed projects and highlighting common challenges around testing, process coverage, integrations, and change management.

The discussion also explores how AI is being applied in ERP today, including practical ML use cases such as inventory optimization and anomaly detection, as well as emerging generative AI and agent-based approaches.

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

In this episode, Subhajit Paul joins SE Radio host Kanchan Shringi to discuss how enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems work in practice and where machine learning and generative AI are beginning to fit into real-world ERP environments.

Subhajit grounds the conversation in ERP fundamentals, explaining core business flows such as order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, and plan-to-produce, and why ERP systems are central to running large enterprises. He then walks through the realities of ERP implementation, sharing examples of both successful and failed projects and highlighting common challenges around testing, process coverage, integrations, and change management.

The discussion also explores how AI is being applied in ERP today, including practical ML use cases such as inventory optimization and anomaly detection, as well as emerging generative AI and agent-based approaches.

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Show Notes

Related Episodes

• SE Radio 698: Srujana Merugu on How to Build an LLM App

• SE Radio 641: Catherine Nelson on Machine Learning in Data Science

• SE Radio 305: Charlie Berger on Predictive Applications

• SE Radio 689: Amey Desai on the Model Context Protocol

Other References

• “Redefining AI in ERP Project Implementation Methodology and Future ERP AI Consultant Role in the Electronics Manufacturing Sector” by Subhajit Paul

• IEEE Article – Integration of Digital Twin and AI-enabled ERP Systems: A Conceptual Framework for Intelligent Electronics Manufacturing Services by Subhajit Paul

• SAP Sapphire session – “Mobile material placement in warehouses with AIML – SCM1661” SAP Sapphire Orlando

• ASUG Florida chapter session – “Unifying Pre-Receiving Processes in SAP: A BTP-Driven Approach to Supply Chain Continuity”

• IEEE Computer Society Professional Development Webinar – “AI in ERP – Smarter Mobile Material Placement in Warehouses“

Transcript

Transcript brought to you by IEEE software magazine.

This transcript was automatically generated. To suggest improvements in the text, please contact [email protected] and include the Episode number and URL.

Kanchan Shringi 00:00:18 Hello everyone. Welcome to Software Engineering Radio. Today we are talking about ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning systems and how they actually work in the real world. We’ll get into how ERP systems are implemented and where they tend to break. We’ll also talk about where Machine Learning and GenAI are starting to show up inside ERP and what people mean when they talk about agent existence. Basically, systems that can decide what to do next instead of just following a fixed workflow. And our guest Subhajit Paul. Subhajit has over two decades of experience leading ERP implementations at large global enterprises, particularly in electronics manufacturing and supply chain. Welcome to the show, Subhajit, great to have you here. Is there anything you’d like to add to your bio before we get started?

Subhajit Paul 00:01:10 Hi everybody. Thank you, Kanchan for having me. It’s a pleasure to join in this podcast. You have covered my introduction very well, so let’s get started.

Kanchan Shringi 00:01:20 Before we start, I would like to point out our listeners that SE Radio has several episodes that go into the background of AI and ML and LLM based apps. I will point to a few of them. A recent one is Episode 698 Srujana Merugu on How to Build an LLM App, also Episode 641, Catherine Nelson on Machine Learning in Data Science and the last one I’ll point to is Episode 305, Charlie Berger on Predictive Applications. With that, let’s start with an introductory question. For someone who’s never worked with ERP, Subhajit, how would you explain what it is and why it’s central to running a business?

Subhajit Paul 00:02:03 Enterprise Resource Planning system. That’s the full form of ERP, so we can see like in the full form al the enterprise is there. This is a total software solution for enterprise to run the business. ERP will integrate from finance to procurement to production, to inventory to sales, to logistics to shipping and each and every business system. Without ERP, all these processes will be running in silos. That will be creating inefficiency, that will be creating a lot of lagging and there will not be visibility of the business processes at any level. That’s the main reason. If you see all the Fortune 500 companies are running in one kind of ERPs or some of the companies will be running in multiple ERPs, I can tell the ERP vendors who are really leaders in ERP industry, like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, and now from the example, I can tell me kind of idea like who have never worked with ERP or who doesn’t know what is ERP?

Subhajit Paul 00:03:09 Let’s say without a total software solution like ERP, sales department got a sales order, so it’ll be in an Excel and then sales department will be sending those sales order requirement to production department in a mail or Excel. And then from that production department they will be requesting to the warehouse for having the components for manufacturing the finish groups. So now we can see here there are a lot of manual processes, there are a lot of manual interaction with different departments. There is a lot of data lagging and inefficiencies. It can happen, but with ERP it’ll never happen because it’ll be a total same software platform, and you can say ERP is the nervous system of an organization to run the business.

Kanchan Shringi 00:03:51 Thanks Subhajit. With that background, can you walk us through a flow how ERP shows up in day-to-day operations? You mentioned it joins multiple departments together; maybe could you talk about how a customer order turns into procurement, production, shipping and finally cash?

Subhajit Paul 00:04:13 Yeah, if we are talking about the basic ERP flows, I would like to mention three basic ERP flows. Order to cash, plan to produce, and procure to pay. Now with order to cash, ERP manages those customer orders like a sales order through delivery to customer invoicing. And then for plan to produce process, it’ll be a demand from sales order. There will be production order to manufacture the finished goods and then we procure to pay process. ERP will create purchase order to external vendors for the components which are required to manufacture the product. I can give one example from electronics manufacturing industry where the products is like laptop, mobile cloud computing, infrastructure like racks, servers, then industrial drones and you name any kind of electronics component. It’ll be a product for electronics manufacturing industry. So now let’s take one example for one familiar product like a laptop.

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