Use of project management information system to initiate the quality gate process for ERP implementation

Non-conformance to quality in a project often can lead to a major reason for project failure resulted in not meeting the triple constraints of project management, scope, time and cost. To prevent it from happening, a quality check against the standard for quality needs to be conducted at the critical stages of ERP implementation project. Proactive quality management by the quality gate process is embedded in the implementation methodology to help secure quality outcomes for the customers. However, getting the schedule of each quality gate timely fixed by the independent quality reviewer with the project manager of a newly started project can often be problematic without having a systematic approach implemented. Recent research has provided an application with the use of project management information systems (PMIS) for such implementations in improvement of quality management systems requirements [1]. This article describes how PMIS was used to implement the project quality gate process for ERP implementation projects conducted by the solution provider for their customers in the various industries in Japan. PMIS was found to be effective in identifying, notifying and influencing the project managers to timely initiate the quality gate process based on the schedule fixed for each quality gate review.