Demantra 12.2.6 Release Features

Oracle Demantra 12.2.6 release has couple of sought after features besides few more useful functionality enhancements. For all Demantra users who had been complaining about the java applet dependency tagged with web browser limitation issues, now you have ability to use a desktop based local application which eliminates web browser from the mix. Here is a quick summary of what becomes available to customers with 12.2.6 Demantra.

• Local Application - Removes applet dependency: Users can download a local application(one time activity) supported on Windows & Mac OS. Version are automatically updated. This tool allows for offline work, as well as can be single sign on enabled. Local application provides same functionality as earlier web based tool.

• Enhanced Demantra Anywhere & BLE: Users have more regular worksheet like features now available with Demantra Anywhere. One can do a SAVE AS on an existing worksheet, but still can not create a new worksheet from scratch. User can login to Demantra Anywhere and Local application concurrently.  BLE enhancements provided for CDP module earlier are now available for all modules of Demantra. Users can kick off BLE to update data using a user method or simple save of worksheet data. BLE can now run multi-threaded, multi-process mode, using BLE clusters. Distributed BLE run requires and can only improve performance with supporting hardware though. Potential improvement in performance to data loading, proport and rolling data profile runs can be expected with BLE clusters. 

• Daily Data View in Weekly/Monthly System: New enhancement to provide capability to review some of the data at daily view in a Demantra weekly or monthly data model. The feature is enabled using General level concept which can be now defined to carry a daily level data.

VCP Cloud - Planning Central

Oracle Supply Chain Planning Cloud - "Planning Central" surely seems impressive with the new simpler GUI, in-memory planning engine and pre-integrated cloud. Release 11 is first release for Fusion Planning Central. 

Planning Central provides demand planning, inventory planning and supply planning capabilities all in one application with linkage to execution systems. 

• Demand Management: Forecast based of shipment/booking history with sales orders consuming forecast. Stat engine supporting causal factors with NPI capabilities inbuild
• Inventory Planning: Stat safety stock derivation based of demand volatility & stocking goals. 
• Supply Planning:  Material and Resource requirement calculation based of SS and customer demand with lead times, calendars, availability etc. in consideration.

Planning Central key features:

• Unified Data model with common set of dimensions for supply & demand plans
• 200+ Seeded measures
• End to End business process flow support (CollectData>PlanDemand>PlanInventory>PlanSupplies>Execute)
• Integrated with OrderMgmt, MaterialsMgmt, InventoryMgmt, Mfg & Purchasing Cloud Services
• Integrated with Fusion ERP for collections & planning output releases
• OOTB Plan Summary dashboard
• Planner Workbench (Configurable)
• Seeded Data views (Configurable)
• Seeded Analytics (Configurable)
• Embedded Analytics (Configurable)
• Excel Export/Import option

Here is a demo from Oracle on Planning Central's first release. 

Remember all the configurations/setups for Planning Central very much like other Cloud applications is required to be done using Functional Setup Manager(FSM). Offering is Value Chain Planning and functional area is Planning Central. FSM should be used for setting up source systems definition, profiles, loading data and configuring planning analytics. 

Prep for a Cloudy time ahead - Adopting Cloud

Moving Development & Testing to Cloud:

• Development and test environments soon will be all on Cloud, as strategy to move from on-premise infrastructure and application installation into cloud for temporary needs seems surely beneficial to businesses
• Even for doing POCs and evaluations before taking up journey to implement a software can be better handled by using a Cloud for the time needed

Deploying Business Process to Cloud:

• Review OOTB Cloud service offering
• Map & align current business process to OOTB offering
• Configure the service offered
• Integrate the service to rest of the ecosystem (other clouds/non-cloud systems)
• Migrate data, Test & Adopt

Hybrid & Mix: 

• Many businesses are gong with Hybrid approach by carrying combination of on-premises, private cloud & public clouds
• Even going to multiple vendors for different cloud services is seen often as per recent market research on customers using Cloud

IT Department:

• Need for new learning and skills 
• Prepping for right partnership for journey to Cloud
• First Cloud experience & Maintenance to upgrade/enhance/support Cloud services afterwards

Demantra 12.2.5.1 New Features

Oracle released Demantra 12.2.5.1 some time back and there is already a patch on top of the first release which is mandatory for 12.2.5.x customers. With this release though Oracle has brought in couple of interesting enhancements to Demantra and OOTB integration. Here is a summary of what's new per in Demand Management module, no other modules have any additional features in this release.

• Site level integration with EBS enhanced: EBS-DM integration enhanced to allow clients collect historical sales into Demantra from EBS Order Management at account or customer level of Site hierarchy. This used to be a typical customization at client locations and with this option surely customers with EBS integration implementing Demantra or looking for upgrades will be able to leverage this OOTB feature now. Implementing this option will also take care of concerns in later upgrades/patches to EBS side as this becomes a supported option.
• Improved Security: Earlier releases used HTTP calls to communicate between modeler/engine/application server mainly, also allowed a user within firewall to launch engine or other calls if they had the right URL. Calling methodology now uses database layer & oracle wallet to improve security. 
• Enhanced Workflow Tool: Few small but handy changes like SAVE AS option to copy a workflow definition & ability to view(no changes allowed if not an owner) workflow definition owned by other users. Additionally an importance enhancement to allow indicating in workflow step, from which step workflow should restart in case of failures. This surely adds to recovery ability of workflows.
• Global instance enhanced timezone support: User's timezone will be considered in worksheets or any other user actions like simulation launch. E.g. history and first forecast bucket will transition based of user's timezone and not based of instance system timezone.
• Intermittent flag to IO: Inventory Optimization module now gets an intermittency indicator along with Forecast and forecast accuracy which it leverages to improve Safety stock & Service level. 
• Mobility Support enhanced: Demantra Anywhere now supports most regular worksheet functionality, additionally users can launch methods, run simulations, and introduce new products. 
• GUI: Improved GUI for better user experience. New release also allows selecting a pre 7.3.1.4 UI or revised 7.3.1.4 UI or latest 12.2.5.1 interface. 
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ASCP 12.2.5.X Release Key Features

ASCP 12.2.5 Release Features

Oracle has provided handful of enhancements in ASCP module with the latest release. Here is a summary of some key features which are now available.

• Collection filtered by Category Sets
• Ability to setup category sets and then use as filter to collect/refresh only subset of product data into ASCP
• Improves performance of collection process
• Demand Schedule Specific Forecast processing:
• Forecast processing options/consumption criteria definition can be done at demand schedule level with this enhancement. This allows one to submit for different region/Product LOBs separate schedules. 
• Following options can be enabled at demand schedule level now
• Backward days
• Forwards days
• Spread forecast
• Consume by Forecast bucket
• Explode Forecast
• Plan level options are used if no demand schedule level values are set
• Improved plan accuracy and allows more flexibility 
• Plan Options> organization tab has these additional options.

• Maximize Resource Utilization
• Works with Constrained plan without detailed scheduling plan type only 
• Allows better use by front loading production and minimize resource downtime
• ASCP will also use alternate sources of supplies (e.g. alternate resources, substitute components etc.) too if needed for maximizing resource utilization 
• There though are some fine prints on what all ASCP can do with this feature enabled, e.g. plan can violate the sourcing split % if needed for maximizing resources. 
• Use only if key need is to front load and maximize resource utilization 
• Extended Support for Reservation (for plan type : Constrained without detailed scheduling)
• Support so far:
• Reservation b/w on hand supplies & sales order demands
• Reservation b/w on hand, internal requisitions and maintenance work order supply types to maintenance work order demands 
• Extended support for:
• Reservation b/w discrete jobs, process batches, purchase orders & requisitions with sales orders/process batch demands
• Allows companies with Make To Order environment to reserve certain work order supplies to sales order demand
• Supply - Demand reservation could be 1-1, 1-Many, Many-1 or Many-Many 
• Enhanced Project Netting for Project Mfg environment 
• Enhanced User experience with Alta GUI



• Improved user interface provides ADF based Alta GUI, which is where future GUI is going towards for Oracle.
• New supply planning work area:
• Allows personalizing content and page layouts 
• User can define how he wishes to review and analyze the plan output
• Plan definition can be done with new GUI
• Enhanced Supply/Demand workbench using new GUI
• Favorites option
• Taxonomy of  most used/critical elements (E.g. items, resources, suppliers, orders etc.) 
• Planners can define their own set and use for filtering in Supply Demand work area
• Exception Management using new GUI

Demantra on Cloud

Demantra is now available on Cloud with Oracles' Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS) allowing customers to setup a Demantra instance on Cloud or to clone an existing instance into Cloud. There are currently though some limitations on usability, and this platform is supported for setting up instance for development, demo & QA purposes mainly. This surely allows customers to setup a cost optimal way of doing development, POCs and testing using Demantra instances setup on Cloud rather than setting up servers and supporting in house.

Current support is limited to release 12.2 and 12.1.3-based environments on Oracle Linux, and currently excludes configurations with Oracle RAC, DMZ, and external integrations.

VCP on Cloud benefits:

• Infrastructure cost savings
• Allocate temporary infra for Project POCs, testing, training and development
• Monitoring and automated patching abilities using Oracle Application Management Suite(AMS) for on-premises & cloud environments simultaneously

You need subscription of Oracle Compute Cloud services (like any other SaaS).With IaaS though you are supposed to purchase license for VCP suite and will be responsible for maintaining your VCP instance hosted on Cloud. Oracle does offer through Oracle managed Cloud Services option of Oracle managed VCP instance. 

Read on for more details @ https://blogs.oracle.com/demantra/entry/demantra_in_the_cloud_you

APCC 12.2.5.1 Release Features

APCC's latest release 12.2.5.1 is available and comes with following enhancements to the features: 

• Org Specific Manufacturing Calendar
• Earlier only one calendar setup by MSC:APCC Calendar Code, now you can setup multiple
• All mfg calendars for all planned orgs in ASCP plan will be available in APCC now
• Single global plans can be better analyzed and reviewed using org specific calendar which respects corresponding work days and start of weeks etc

• Material plan enhancement
• Ability to drill down from horizontal plan into details using Category & Org context embedded

• New reports in SCA dashboard & Project driven Supply Chain Dashboard
• Additional OOTB reports now available in various tabs for Supply Chain Analyst dashboard
• Additional OOTB dashboard content for Project environment

OBIEE 12C now available for download

Oracle recently announced availability of OBIEE 12c version which comes with some nice features like Data mashups which allows OBIEE users to use their own excel data in OBIEE along with rest of data available in analytic.

Get started with download from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud.

https://blogs.oracle.com/proactivesupportEPM/entry/obiee_122100