CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS 

VOL. 52, 2016 

A publication of 

The Italian Association 
of Chemical Engineering 
Online at www.aidic.it/cet 

Guest Editors: Petar Sabev Varbanov, Peng-Yen Liew, Jun-Yow Yong, Jiří Jaromír Klemeš, Hon Loong Lam 
Copyright © 2016, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., 

ISBN 978-88-95608-42-6; ISSN 2283-9216 

A Master Plan for the Implementation of Sustainable 

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (Part II): Development 

of a Roadmap 

Abdoulmohammad Gholamzadeh Chofreh*a,Feybi Ariani Goni b,Jiří Jaromír
Klemešc

 
aDepartment of Industrial Engineering, Ahvaz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz, Iran
 
bFaculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia

 
cFaculty of Information Technology and Bionics Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Práter u. 50/a, 1083 Budapest,

Hungary 

mohammad_apmie@yahoo.com 

Advanced organizations require implementing a Sustainable Enterprise Resource Planning (S-ERP) system in 

order to integrate all data, information, and processes across their entire extended value chain. A number of 

vendors such as Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung (SAP), Microsoft, and Oracle have developed the 

system as a holistic solution to support sustainability initiatives. However, the organizations still face the 

problem in implementing the S-ERP system. There is a lack of a master plan, which shows the stages, 

dimensions, and steps to assist them to implement this system. In order to solve this issue a master plan has 

been developed for the implementation of S-ERP system that comprised of a roadmap, a framework, and 

guidelines. This study focuses on the development of the roadmap that shows the stages intended to 

implement the S-ERP system. To attain the research objective, this study employed a conceptual research 

method, which relies primarily on the literature for the development of the roadmap. Various research fields 

including sustainability, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, and project management were 

examined. As a result, the roadmap of the S-ERP system implementation master plan was successfully 

developed by using the conceptual research method.  

1. Introduction

Sustainability turns into a business megatrend (Lubin and Esty, 2010). Numerous organizations have 

incorporated sustainability into their operations and policy (Lam and Lai, 2014), strategy (Küçüksayraç, 2015), 

finance (Lagoarde-Segot, 2015), product design (Seay, 2015), supplier relations (Leppelt et al., 2013), and 

supply chain management (Silvestre, 2015). The sustainability strategy needs to be systematized and 

integrated into daily practices of organizations of all sizes in all sectors (Lubin and Esty, 2010). Sustainability 

has embedded into extended value chain in an organization (Chofreh et al., 2014a). 

An organization needs a holistic vision across the entire extended supply chain for achieving sustainability. 

This requires improved models, indicators for sustainability performance evaluation, and optimization methods 

at the product, process, and system levels (Jayal et al., 2010). To accomplish these processes, information 

systems (IS) represent a potential source of solutions (Elliot, 2011), such as data collection, data analysis and 

conversion, information evaluation, report and communication, monitoring, and controlling (Scipioni et al., 

2008). It has an important role in globalizing world over the past decades (Malhotra et al., 2013).  

During the transformation process of the organization from unsustainable into sustainable, two problems 

emerge: the segregation between business functions (Chofreh et al., 2014a) and lack of holistic plan during 

implementation. Recently sustainability data, information, and processes are managed by using tools, 

processes, and procedures that are isolated from an enterprise system. They were only managed with a 

 

   

DOI: 10.3303/CET1652184 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Please cite this article as: Chofreh A. G., Goni F. A., Klemeš J. J., 2016, A master plan for the implementation of sustainable enterprise 
resource planning systems (part ii): development of a roadmap, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 52, 1099-1104  
DOI:10.3303/CET1652184   

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collection of spreadsheets of varying and uncontrolled quality. It indicates a misalignment between 

sustainability and information systems (Goni, et al., 2013b).  

The majority of organizations leverage existing tools and manual methods to initially collect environmental, 

economic, and social metrics. This approach breaks down when the organizations need to repeat this process 

quarterly, monthly, or more frequent basis and when the data must be audited by a third party. As 

sustainability became a strategic issue, a new generation of technology solutions emerged delivering 

significantly improved functionality and reliability. But with sustainability now a material factor in the strategic 

and operational management of an organization, sustainability process, data management, and reporting must 

be truly integrated into enterprise systems. For those reasons the role of S-ERP system is vital in solving this 

problem. 

Chofreh et al. (2014a) defined S-ERP systems as “an information system driven by sustainability 

consideration that covers all aspects of the value chain”. It is an integrated information system which enables 

an integration of sustainable business functions, units, and processes in an organization. This system is 

designed to capture and manage data of all the sustainability dimensions. As stated by Chofreh et al. (2014a), 

numerous software vendors, such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft, have developed the S-ERP systems in 

order to assist the organization in tackling the segregation issue. However, the organizations face difficulties to 

implement this system due to lack of guidance for implementing this complex system. In academic 

perspective, sustainability has been embedded in various research areas, especially in value chain. However, 

there is no evidence of any work that outlines a master plan, showing the stages, perspectives and steps to 

direct practitioners in implementing the S-ERP systems. In order to solve the problem in real business practice 

and to fill in the knowledge gap the researchers develop a master plan for the implementation of S-ERP 

system that comprised of a roadmap, a framework, and guidelines. The focus of this paper is on the 

development of the S-ERP roadmap. 

2. Literature review

According to Chofreh et al. (2014a), a research on S-ERP systems is still growing. The implementation of S-

ERP systems requires multi-disciplinary skills and studies that involve various disciplines. To perform this 

study, therefore, literature from various research areas including sustainability, ERP system, and project 

management should be examined. 

2.1 Sustainability implementation roadmap 
The road mapping technology is popular and it has been employed at product, technology, company, industry, 

and policy levels (de Laat and McKibbin, 2003). This approach is flexible, scalable, and can be modified to fit 

different strategic and innovation contexts (de Laat and McKibbin, 2003). In their research, Phaal et al. (2004) 

mentioned that road mapping is a flexible technique that was extensively applied in the business to support 

strategic and long-range planning.  

Organizations require a roadmap to transform their business towards sustainability. Ahmed and Sundaram 

(2012) revealed that a coherent sustainability transformation roadmap is an overview of the sustainable 

business management plan process, which contains several high level stages, to guide the decision makers to 

manage a sustainable business lifecycle. Lubin and Esty (2010) mentioned that recently numerous 

organizations have initiated the sustainability transformation, however, they did not have vision or plan to 

execute it. Therefore, there is a need of roadmap to guide organizations in facing their sustainability journey. 

Chofreh et al. (2015) had examined numerous sustainability implementation roadmaps that have been 

proposed for facilitating the organizations in practising sustainability. For instance, Nidumolu et al. (2009) 

developed a roadmap for organizations to becoming sustainable. They claimed that sustainability recently is 

the key driver of innovation, thus, it is necessary for organizations to transform their business and strategies 

towards sustainability in order to attain a sustainable competitive advantage. In another work, Ahmed and 

Sundaram (2012) proposed their sustainable business transformation roadmap, which consists of five phases: 

(1) discover and learn; (2) strategise; (3) design; (4) transform; and (5) monitor and control. They took the 

interactions of business strategies, IT strategies, organizational and information systems infrastructures as a 

philosophical guideline for designing the sustainability roadmap. According to an examination of the literature, 

there were various stages that need to be considered in implementing sustainability. However, it seems to be 

no general technique underlying the formation of the roadmaps as different perspectives and concepts that the 

researchers used in developing the roadmaps.  

The majority of studies in the related topic applied a conceptual research method in order to develop the 

roadmap. This method can be used for answering research questions which are not possible to be responded 

via empirical analysis (Xin et al., 2013). Furthermore, several studies used a case study and peer review 

methods to evaluate the applicability of the roadmaps. An application of the peer review method can be seen 

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in the work of Ahmed and Sundaram (2012) that proposed a roadmap for the implementation of sustainability 

reporting. 

2.2 ERP implementation roadmap 

ERP is a system designed to support the integration between business processes (Goni et al., 2011). In their 

study, Jacobs and Bendoly (2003) stated that ERP concept was subsequently designed to integrate all 

business functions and processes, hence, the decision makers can manage the concurrent resource 

accountability in all business functions. This capability facilitates the practitioners in handling the peripheral 

issues such as the elimination of information conflicts, the reduction of data redundancy, global access, and 

information security (Goni et al., 2013a). 

An ERP system implementation requires a huge commitment from the organization is expensive to implement, 

and takes several years to complete (Sahran et al., 2010). However, when it is integrated successfully, the 

benefits can be enormous (Sadrzadehrafiei et al., 2013). According to Chofreh et al. (2014a), ERP research 

would decline unless new innovation emerges to increase the system extension. In order to amplify the value 

of ERP systems, technology innovation is required for the long-life of these systems.  

A number of ERP implementation roadmaps had been reviewed by Chofreh et al. (2014b) in order to assist 

organizations in implementing ERP systems. For instance, McGinnis and Huang (2007) proposed four-phase 

ERP refinement model that incorporates knowledge management into each phase. This continuous 

improvement model consists of design, construction, deployment, analysis, and support group. In addition, 

Samaranayake and Abeysinghe (2011) developed an integrated roadmap for ERP pre-implementation and 

implementation life cycle. The objective of this roadmap is to improve the ERP implementation results. 

Furthermore, it can be a foundation for a computer-aided tool. The phases in the roadmap include initiation, 

planning, process analysis, realisation, transition, and operations. In another work, Asher (2009) explained a 

standard methodology from SAP, namely Accelerated SAP, to implement an ERP system. This methodology 

aligned with the project management concept and it has been successfully proven by various industries. 

Generally, prior researches adopted project management concept in developing the ERP roadmaps. This can 

be seen in the proposed stages which are aligned with the process groups in project management. However, 

they did not consider the process groups completely. In addition, the majority of the researchers used a 

conceptual research method to develop the roadmaps. For evaluating the roadmaps, however, various 

researchers adopted different methods such as case study and survey. 

2.3 Project management 

This study examines literature in project management as a relevant study that contributes to the development 

of the sustainability implementation roadmap. An application of project management methodology and tools is 

important to improve the organizations’ performance, efficiency, and competitive advantage (Golini et al., 

2015). Shenhar et al. (2001) argued that projects are strategic and they need to be evaluated according to 

long-term and short-time project objectives. This concept can be reflected to an S-ERP system 

implementation. The organizations need to set their strategic goals and objectives before implementing an S-

ERP system. It is a complex project and it should be undertaken at all management levels in an organization. 

Therefore, an organization needs to employ project management as the application of knowledge, skills, tools, 

and techniques to implement S-ERP systems. 

Project management is a methodology for managing the project implementation processes (Chofreh et al., 

2011). According to Project Management Institute (2013), the project implementation processes were guided 

through five process groups and ten knowledge areas. These process groups are initiating, planning, 

executing, monitoring/controlling, and closing. In addition, there are ten major knowledge areas in project 

management. They are integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resource, communications, risk, 

procurement, and stakeholder. These knowledge areas contain of processes that need to be accomplished in 

order to achieve effective project management. 

Project management concept is widely used in sustainability and ERP system implementation areas. 

According to Chofreh et al. (2014b), the use of project management concept becomes one of the best 

practices in sustainability and ERP system implementation. Since an S-ERP system is an extension of ERP 

system (Chofreh et al., 2014a), hence, the project management concept can also be utilized in the S-ERP 

system implementation. 

3. Research methodology 

The nature of this paper presents the need for qualitative studies since this paper seeks to develop a process-

oriented description. Given that S-ERP system research is still at the introductory stage and there is a lack of 

organizations that implement it (Chofreh et al., 2014a), this paper required data that revealed some patterns 

regarding the theoretical development that can be obtained only through qualitative studies. 

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This study used the conceptual research method to develop a master plan for the implementation of S-ERP 

system. The concepts involved in sustainability and ERP system implementation for developing an S-ERP 

system implementation theory were identified. In this case, the stages and the core categories for 

implementing sustainability and ERP systems were examined. 

S-ERP systems research is still in the introductory stages and there is a lack of literature on the topic (Chofreh 

et al., 2014a). Therefore, the development of a roadmap began with an extensive review of recent and 

relevant literature in the field of sustainability and ERP system as these fields are the root S-ERP system. The 

purpose of this analysis was divided into two points. The first point was to observe how the academicians and 

practitioners developed roadmaps for sustainability and ERP implementation. An in depth understanding of 

the pertinent literature contributes to the development of the roadmap. Furthermore, the stages in the 

roadmap from the pertinent literature were reviewed and classified. This process is a part of conceptual 

research method, which was used by Mukhtar (2006) in collecting the variables from the previous studies for 

developing a framework for supply chain management performance analysis. The second point was to expose 

the gaps and inconsistencies in the literature. In this regard, this study highlighted the missing components in 

the existing roadmaps and adapted the necessary components in the proposed roadmap. After the literature 

was reviewed, in the next section this paper explains how to develop the roadmap. 

4. Development of the roadmap 

The development of a roadmap began with an extensive review of recent and relevant literature in the field of 

sustainability and ERP system as these fields are the root S-ERP system. The purpose of this analysis was 

divided into two points. The first point was to observe how the academicians and practitioners developed 

roadmaps for sustainability and ERP implementation. An in depth understanding of the pertinent literature 

contributes to the development of the roadmap. Furthermore, the stages in the roadmap from the pertinent 

literature were reviewed and classified. This process is a part of conceptual research method, which was used 

by Mukhtar (2006) in collecting the variables from the previous studies for developing a framework for supply 

chain management performance analysis. The second point was to expose the gaps and inconsistencies in 

the literature. In this regard, this study highlighted the missing components in the existing roadmaps and 

adapted the necessary components in the proposed roadmap. After the literature was reviewed, in the next 

section this paper explains how to develop the roadmap. 

The S-ERP system implementation roadmap is made-up of three phases: pre-implementation, 

implementation, and post-implementation. Pre-implementation phase consists of initiating and 

monitoring/controlling stages. Implementation phase consists of planning, executing, monitoring/controlling, 

and closing stages. Post-implementation phase consists of initiating, planning, executing, 

monitoring/controlling, and closing stages. The structure of these phases and stages are necessary because 

they reflect the effective and comprehensive flow of the project throughout its life cycle. This idea is 

synonymous with the project management concept. Figure 1 shows the specification of the roadmap. 

 

 

Figure 1: Roadmap for the implementation of S-ERP system (Adapted from Motwani et al., 2005 and PMI, 

2008) 

Pre-implementation phase consists of initiating stage. This stage encapsulates processes performed to obtain 

an authorisation to start the S-ERP implementation project. The main objective of this stage is to align 

stakeholders’ expectations with the S-ERP system implementation objective, provide them visibility about the 

scope and business case, and demonstrate how they contribute to the project. 

Implementation phase consists of three stages including planning, executing, and closing. The planning stage 

refers to the processes undertaken to determine the overall scope of endeavours, define and refine the 

objectives, and develops the course of action required to achieve the objectives. The main objective of this 

stage is to define the strategy, tactics, and path to successfully complete the S-ERP system implementation 

project. In addition, the executing stage encapsulates processes to complete the work defined in the planning 

stage according to the project specifications. Moreover, the closing stage consists of processes performed to 

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conclude all activities across all stages to formally complete the S-ERP system implementation project and 

contractual obligations. 

Post-implementation phase consists of four stages including initiating, planning, executing, and closing. The 

initiating stage includes the processes performed to define strategy and activity for go-live. Furthermore, the 

planning stage covers the processes to develop a plan for the S-ERP system go-live. Moreover, the executing 

stage encapsulates the processes to complete the work defined in the previous stage. In addition to this, the 

closing stage includes the processes to formally conclude all activities in the post-implementation phase. 

Finally, the monitoring and controlling stage consists of processes to follow, evaluate, and coordinate the 

progress and performance of each stage in the pre-implementation, implementation, and post-implementation 

phases. 

5. Conclusions 

Organizations need to attain concurrent improvement of the economic, environmental and social performance 

of the business towards sustainability. In doing so, they need to implement an S-ERP system in order to 

integrate all sustainability data, information, and processes across entire extended value chain. Nevertheless, 

there is no evidence of any work that outlines a master plan, showing the stages, perspectives and steps to 

direct practitioners in implementing the S-ERP systems. Thus, organizations require a comprehensive master 

plan that comprised of a roadmap, a framework, and guidelines in order to assist them in implementing the S-

ERP system. 

The objective of this paper was to develop the roadmap for the implementation of S-ERP system. The 

development of the roadmap had been approached by a variety of ways by various researchers. The use of 

conceptual research method requires the literature revisited and it was shown that this has resulted in the 

uncovering of a project management concept for the development of the roadmap. Further study needs to be 

performed in order to evaluate the usability of the roadmap. In addition, the development and evaluation of a 

framework and guidelines are required in order to complete the formulation of the master plan for the 

implementation of S-ERP system.  

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