Enterprise resource planning (ERP) has become critical to enhancing the competitiveness of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan by applying information technology to integrate internal information as well as external service capability of an enterprise to increase the flow speed and values and reduce the costs of human and managerial resources, manufacturing, management, and marketing. The success of ERP implementation depends on several factors, such as space, time, location, industry, and the like. It is critically important to collect information on the successful factors of ERP implementation and evaluate the performance of ERP in semiconductor-related industries in Taiwan. A statistical method based on Parasuraman et al. was applied to ERP implementation by providing a pair of performance indices, i.e., action and importance. In addition, a performance evaluation matrix, originally proposed by Lambert and Sharman, was revised to set up a standard by providing performance upper and lower control limits with the emphases of the Taguchi method and Shewhart control charts. Finally, quality function deployment (QFD) was used to remedy the weaknesses and develop corporate strategies to improve the ERP implementation.The major advantage of this proposed integrated approach is to evaluate the success of the implementation for a new system quickly at low cost. More importantly, by examining action and importance indices, the enterprise can decide how the resources should be deployed effectively and efficiently to further improve the ERP implementation.

PurposeFacing the competition pressure of internationalization and diversification, the semiconductor industry of Taiwan has to increase the activation/utilization rate of machines, enhance flow speed and values, cut down delivery and reduce costs in an efficient way in reaction to a shortening product life cycle and the global market requirements. As a result, introduction of ERP has become a critical factor of enhancing competitiveness. The purpose of this study is establish a systematic evaluation and improvement mechanism to locate the risk priority number (RPN) of implementation items via failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) for semiconductor related industries in Taiwan while introducing ERP.Design/methodology/approachA standardized system introduced performance matrix based on the performance evaluation matrix (PEM) will be established in accordance with the locations of severity (S), occurrence (O) and detection (D) and the three RPN indices, in the PEM. Performance levels will be assessed and the performance improvement strategy introduced by the system will be formulated. Finally, items falling within the non‐appropriate performance zone will be specified through the quality function development (QFD) method.FindingsFrom the results of the case study, the proposed systematic evaluation and improvement on the performance of introducing ERP for the semiconductor industry in Taiwan can be conducted in an efficient way.Practical implicationsAll that the management needs to do is to correspond to the positions of these RPN indices of implementation items on the performance matrix. Performance levels will be assessed and the performance improvement strategy introduced by the system will be formulated.Originality/valueThe PEM is demonstrated to be suitable to define the best countermeasure can be sought to serve as a reference for the semiconductor related industries in Taiwan to introduce ERP.