In today's fiercely competitive business environment, there has to be much greater interaction between the customers and manufacturers. This means that, in order to produce goods tailored to customer requirements and provide faster deliveries, the enterprise must be closely linked to both suppliers and customers. In order to achieve this improved delivery performance, decreased lead times within the enterprise and improved efficiency and effectiveness, manufacturers need to have efficient planning and control systems that enable very good synchronisation and planning in all the processes of the organisation. Today, however, the challenge is intense and requires a strong integration across the value chain. Enterprise Resource Planning is such a strategic tool, which equips the enterprise with the necessary capabilities to integrate and synchronise the isolated functions into streamlined business processes in order to gain a competitive edge in the turbulent business environment.