Designing ERP-based planning systems for efficient supplier coordination and inventory control

ERP systems can no longer be understood merely as transactional back-office platforms; they increasingly function as digitally interconnected planning systems that shape supplier coordination and inventory management. This review examines ERP-based planning systems as coordination structures, decision environments, and control systems that must balance availability, responsiveness, and inventory efficiency. The review focuses on recent studies of digital supply chain integration, planning visibility, disruption management, reconfigurable network design, digital twins, and analytics-enabled decision support that bear directly on ERP-centered planning design. The review concludes that the strongest contributions no longer treat ERP as a stand-alone software package, but as a coordination hub linking master-data governance, supplier information exchange, planning logic, and exception-response routines. The literature also reveals persistent weaknesses, including limited multi-tier visibility, weak alignment between transactional data structures and advanced planning models, inconsistent performance metrics, and insufficient evidence on human-algorithm interaction in decision making. Accordingly, the review develops a conceptual interpretation showing that ERP-based planning systems enhance supplier coordination and inventory control only when architectural integration, governance discipline, and event-driven replanning are designed together. This field remains important because volatility, shorter planning cycles, and fragile supplier networks continue to make ERP-enabled planning intelligence strategically important.