Business Planning and Control System (BPCS) is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software designed for an OS/400 system. BPCS is a series of software programs that are the largest software supplier for AS/400.
Contents
- Overview
- BPCS Applications
- Financial 12
- Planning
- Distribution
- Manufacturing
- Systems Applications
- References
BPCS, the acronym for the software, is pronounced as "Bee picks".
Overview
BPCS was developed by Chicago-based System Software Associates (SSA), which later became SSA Global Technologies (which was then acquired by Infor Global Solutions), and is used to control the operations of manufacturing companies. BPCS includes MRP logic to manufacturing operations, provided there are high standards of data validity such as engineering specifications and inventory accuracy. It runs on several systems, with the IBM System i (previously named IBM AS/400 and IBM eServer iSeries), being most popular. It is written in AS/SET CASE tool, RPG, SQL and other IBM languages supported on the System i.
Many of the BPCS modules are stand-alone, in that companies can choose to implement only the financial applications for example, and none of the manufacturing.
SSA began developing BPCS in the early 1980s; by the mid 1990s the BPCS programs were used internationally. Inc. magazine ranked SSA as the 23rd fastest growing small public company in 1988 and Business Week named it as the 25th best small company.
BPCS Applications
BPCS Applications are very dependent on BPCS software version release, because SSA enters into partnerships with different specialty suppliers of applications such as Data Mining, Bar Coding, etc. and suppliers that integrated with a particular version.
The BPCS Application suite includes:
Financial 12
Planning
Most planning functions can be used in either Distribution or Manufacturing.
Distribution
Most planning functions are used in both Distribution and Manufacturing.
Manufacturing
Most planning functions are used in both Distribution and Manufacturing.