Oracle Open World 2010: Sales and Operations Planning for the Food and Beverage Industry

Join us at Oracle Open World 2010 for a session on "Sales and Operations Planning for the Food and Beverage Industry"

http://www.eventreg.com/cc250/sessionDetail.jsp?SID=315911

Oracle VCP Product and processes

S&OP Process - Post1 - New Product Planning process

Step1: New Product planning process

Planning process for new product launch forms the first step of the larger S&OP process. This sub process shall support forecasting demand for the new product being launched. Statistical Quantitative forecast most of the times is based on the fact that future demand will resemble the historical sales. For improved forecast accuracy, qualitative information shall be incorporated into quantitative forecast numbers and a combination of it shall be used as Baseline forecast.

But for a new product with no historical sales data present, one needs to look at their product list for items with similar attributes and characteristics. Once identified historical sales of these existing product shall be mapped as history of the new product. Later a quantitative forecast can be generated out for this new product.

Picture: Product Launch Flow ***

A new product launch can affect the sales of existing products under same product line. Say the recent launch of Apple's "3G S Iphone" will surely impact the sales of it's existing old 3G model. (Well in this particular example with Apple reducing the price of old 8 GB model by half might shadow down the effect to some extent). But usually in such cases old product faces lower demand with consumers trying to grab the latest model release. This effect of reduction in the sales volume, sales revenue, or market share of one product as a result of the introduction of a new product by the same produce, is referred as Cannibalization.

Another commonly seen effect is phase out of an existing product, which is getting replaced by a new one. Effect of this process should be incorporated into the baseline forecast calculation.

Setting up New Product Planning process in Demantra:

Oracle Demantra and it's integration with EBS provides the features required to build the new product planning process on it. Collect new product codes from EBS into Demantra by using NPI setup form on DM system administrator responsibility. Once the new product is visible in Demantra, use the Member Management feature under Demand planner application to create combinations where this new product shall be sold. zero history can also be created for this new product and selected location level member's combination. This will allow users to pull up these combinations into worksheet and manually enter or adjust the historical sales information. Next step in the process is to map the historical sales from existing combination to new combination, which can be achieved using Chaining Management feature. A Chain is created and executed to copy sales history from existing combinations into the new combination. Once done, the new product at selected locations will have historical sales data, which is utilized by the Analytical Engine for calculating future demand of this new product.

It can be ensured that new product's demand prediction follows the shape of previous product launches, using Shape modeling feature of Demantra. As many as 8 distinct shapes can be saved and used under this functionality.

...........................next step in S&OP process "Demand Planning/Review".............................................

*** picture reference: http://www.winningware.com/images/LaunchFlow.jpg

Notes from Today's Webcast on "The Key to Optimizing Demantra Worksheet Performance"

Today's webcast was another session full of information on how to ensure that you are getting best performance from Demantra worksheets. Few key points to take away were:

1. At times JAVA is the culprit for a degraded performance of worksheets

2. End users machine specific setups can help improve performance as well

3. Database maintenance plays key role too

4. Application server settings based on number of concurrent users comes handy too.

The session covered various issues and resolutions for them, it was nicely presented by dividing in short term and long term solutions.

Short term solutions which were discussed in today's session focused on:

- Ensuring End user machines meet minimal system requirements

- Setting up the heap size (Xmx) to maximum possible

- Guidelines to end users for minimizing other applications run during Demantra usage

- Worksheets shall be reviewed and usage of filters is highly recommended

- Setting up params related to Application Server (like MaxUpdateThreads, etc.)

- Running Rebuild_Schema procs to ensure no chain rows exist

- Running Drop_temp to ensure temporary tables aren't eating up space

In long term strategy, few key suggestions were:

- Ensuring strong network connection for end users

- Providing separate tablespace for key tables and their indexes (e.g. sales_data, mdp_matrix etc.)

For complete session coverage and details of all the solutions, you can go to Oracle Community - Demantra Solutions. (or refer to metalink note 800030.1)

Upcoming Demantra Webcast from Oracle

Another solution advisory webcast will be happening on 3rd June 09, this webcast comes again from newly build Oracle Support Community for Demantra Solutions. The subject for this webcast is "Optimizing worksheet Performance", more details for the webcast can be found under metalink note with document ID 801835.1. 

"Upcoming Demantra Solutions Advisor Webcasts

Advisor Webcasts offer a convenient way for you to interact with professional, technical, and application experts regarding topics such as troubleshooting tips, best practices, new release information and more.

Webcast: The Key to Optimizing Demantra Worksheet Performance

Topics will include:

• Java Plugin Settings
• Creating Worksheets in the optimal manner
• Backend Database Checks
• Application Server Settings
• Other options when your worksheet performance doesn't meet your needs

A short, live demonstration and question and answer period will be included. " 

You can register for this webcast from the link provided in the metalink note. (Id provided at the beginning of this post).

Demantra S&OP(7.2.0.2) integration with EBS 11.5.10 released

Oracle has released another integration patch recently to provide seeded integrated S&OP functionality to it's existing 11.5.10 customer base. This patch builds integration between EBS 11.5.10 and Demantra 7.2.0.2 S&OP. Oracle has already released integration to 7.2 S&OP & Demand Management, with EBS R12 through 12.0.4 release. Also EBS 11.5.10 integration with Demantra DM exists already.

The new release has been named as Demantra 7.2.0.2 ( or 7.2 CU2). More details are available in Metalink note id "470574.1".

Demantra - S&OP (Sales & Operational Planning) : Integration Overview - 3

S&OP module of Demantra 7.2:

Oracle has provided a great solution as out of box offering for Sales & Operational Planning process in form of Demantra's S&OP module, integrated seamlessly with EBS R12, ASCP, and SNO. Oracle has done lot of seeded configuration in Demantra front to support the S&OP processes and integration with Enterprise resource planning(ERP), strategic planning tool(SNO), and tactical planning application(ASCP). We will try to take a closer look at these entities and how it can help you in building a collaborative, integrated, Real time Sales & Operational Planning environment using Demantra.
S&OP configuration in Demantra has been built on top of basic Demand Management module, so all the seeded DM entities co-exist and are used in S&OP module as well. S&OP has been defined as a separate component within Demantra so that S&OP process stakeholders work on entities related to them. Remember that Data model definition remains common for S&OP as well as DM modules of Demantra.

NEW DEMANTRA ENTITIES:

1. Levels & Hierarchies:

New levels and hierachies to support viewing/analyzing supply plan and related data for Supply Review and Executive Reviews have been introduced. For Supply review, Supply plan information is being captured in Plan Scenario (General Levels) with proper statuses in Scenario Status(Plan Scenario>Scenario Status) to maintain and manage Supply plans in Demantra. Also new Supplier level(lowest level) and Resource level (Resource-Scenario>Resource, Linked Scenario) hierarchy also appears for viewing data at Supplier level.

2. Series for RT-S&OP

S&OP involves much more information and collaboration in terms of inputs, recommendations and consensus, thus Oracle has provided seeded series for carrying out S&OP sub processes. All the supply plan related information at Plan Scenario level for item & location population is stored in form on various series:

Plan related data series: Available Resource/Supplier Premium/Standard Capacity, Required Resource/Supplier Capacity, Constrained Forecast, Beginning On-hand, Dependent Demand, Inventory plan, Planned Shipments, Production Plan, Safety Stock.

SCI data series: Actual Production, Actual On-hand, Past due backlog, Total backlog etc. for capturing Supply Chain Intelligence data to monitor KPIs and for exception management.

Consensus related data: Multiple series for handling consensus creation process during Demand Review stage, like for weightages from various stakeholders, their forecasts, Consensus Forecast (in units & amount), etc.

3. Worksheets

To carry out each of the sub-processes in S&OP like Demand Review, Supply Review, etc., Oracle has provided quite a few seeded worksheets for each of these steps.

• 
  
  Worksheets to support Demand Review Process : Marketing Forecast, Sales Forecast, Consensus Forecast related worksheets at various levels of aggregation.


• 
  
  Worksheets to support Supply Review Process: Constrained Plan, Production Plan, Inventory plan and Exception management related worksheets for Supply Demand balancing and analysis of various Supply scenarios, coming from ASCP/SNO.


• 
  
  Consolidated Plan related worksheets for reviewing and approving the final agreed upon Demand & Supply plan, which is further published back to ASCP for further detailed planning and execution.


• 
  
  Worksheets & Content panes for KPIs like Demand Fill%, Production & Inventory plan adherence, etc.

4. Integration Interfaces: Since S&OP process captures, processes and involves much more information as compared to DM, you can find new Integration Interfaces for supporting this inbound and outbound data flow. Few important interfaces which has been seeded by Oracle are described briefly in table below:

Workflows related to Plans, allow you to easily load your Supply plan data in form of Plan scenarios into Demantra for Supply reviews and Plan consolidations.

5. Workflows: Real time Sales & Operational Planning is more of process and people oriented than application oriented, it requires input and approvals from various stakeholders for consolidation Oracle has addressed this front with Demantra's seeded workflows which can be customized further to fit customer's requirements. Workflows automate/semi-automate key processes like Demand Review, Supply plan load, exceptions handling and Publishing Consensus plans.

Besides above discussed entities, there are few more setups and entities, which have been provided with out-of-box S&OP Demantra application. Remember that the configuration flexibility of Demantra provides a huge opportunity for solving your specific S&OP problems. With seeded integration between EBS and APS suite products, S&OP module of Demantra can be easily Incorporated in your organization.

Demantra - S&OP (Sales & Operational Planning) : Integration Overview - 2

What it takes for seeded S&OP integration to work ?
Demantra's 7.2.0 and higher versions have seeded integration for Sales & Operations Planning(S&OP) module with Advanced Supply Chain Planning(ASCP) & Strategic Network Optimizer(SNO) modules of APS. The seeded integration however currently is supported only with Oracle EBS R12.0.4 version and is available as integration patch. Once you fulfill the pre-requisite criterias and apply the patches, on EBS front new responsbilities start appearing(similar to EBS-DM integration).

What's new on EBS side? :

The New Responsbilities for S&OP:
1. Sales & Operations Planning System Administrator : This responsbility is quite similar to Demand Managment System Administrator responsbility and has few Menu options common to DM System Administrator. Users who controls and executes data collection for S&OP planning should have access to this responsbility. S&OP Administrator can collect all the relevant data from EBS into Demantra, using Collection menu options controlled by Setups and Profile options.
The Menus in this responsbility are divided broadly into following:

• Links to Open Demantra S&OP application (which includes : S&OP Workbench, Workflow Manager, Administration, User Management)
• Collections Menu (which includes : Collection > Standard collection, Shipment & Booking History data, SCI Data**, Currency Conversion, UOM Conversion, Returns History, Pricing Data, and Download Calendars)
• Collect from Legacy (Legacy Collection - Flat; Legacy Collection - Self; Shipment & Booking History - Flat; Shipment & Booking History - Self Service)
• Setup ( Instances; Calendar List; New Product List; Price List )

2. Sales & Operations Planning Analyst: S&OP Analyst responsibility is same as Demand Analyst in Oracle's EBS-Demantra DM integration. As an analyst, the menu options have limited authority and can only Open Demantra S&OP applications - S&OP Workbench, Workflow, Administration, and User Management pages.

3. New S&OP enabled plan options: ASCP & SNO plan options have now a new check box saying "S&OP enabled", once selected those Supply plans can be brought inside Demantra for S&OP process as Supply Plan Scenarios.

4. Publish option in SNO: New option to publish SNO plan for S&OP usage has been added in SNO workbench.

** From collection point of view, only Supply Chain Intelligence(SCI) data is added entity as compared to Demand Management integration. SCI data being collected comprises of Order backlog information, Actual production data, etc.

Besides above changes on EBS/ASCP/SNO side, Demantra's S&OP module has been changed a lot to support this seeded integration. There are new Levels, hierarchies, series, worksheets. integration interfaces, workflows etc. which appear if you install S&OP module.

Demantra - S&OP (Sales & Operational Planning) : Integration Overview - 1

Demantra - S&OP (Sales & Operational Planning)

Sales & Operational Planning module of Demantra has got a complete makeover by Oracle, in Demantra's 7.2 release Oracle launched integrated S&OP module as Supply Chain Planning offering. S&OP module has been integrated with ASCP (Advanced Supply Chain Planning), SNO (Strategic Network Optimization) and IO (Inventory Optimization) of APS suite, along with seamless integration with Oracle EBS R12.0.4.

High Level Data Flow in S&OP:

Data flow in S&OP can vary based on whether ASCP or SNO or Both are used in the process. We will go through one of the possible scenarios here and will then later focus on integration with ASCP & SNO separately.

• Collection of Shipment & Booking history (old DM feature)
• Download History data into Demantra using seeded workflow "EBS Full Download"
• Demand Review:
  
• Generate Forecast - Shipment & Booking
• Generate Consensus Forecast
• Submit Consensus Forecast to Planning applications (SNO/ASCP/IO etc.)
  

• Supply Chain Planning
• Generate Assignment Set(sourcing rules) from SNO Plan based on Consensus Forecast
• Generate Safety Stock plan from IO, using Consensus Forecast and Accuracy
  
• Create ASCP Plan with Assignment Set from SNO, Safety Stocks from IO and Demand Schedule from Demantra - Demand Review process
  
• Make ASCP plan available for S&OP (new check box in ASCP plan options)

• Supply Plan Review
  
• Download Supply Plan names/members into Demantra S&OP using seeded workflow "Load Plan Scenarios"
• Download Supply Plan data using seeded Level Method "Load Scenario Plan Data"
• Exceptions are detected automatically as part of Load data workflow and S&OP users are intimated with Tasks/Alerts
• In case for removal of Exceptions Supply plan needs to be re-launched after making recommended changes, then Supply plan is re-run and re-downloaded into Demantra
• Once Exceptions are handled and are taken care of, then next step is taken

• S&OP Executive Review
• Review Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as per the S&OP plan/scenarios
  
• Review Supply plan scenarios and Exceptions
  
• S&OP committee finalizes S&OP Plan
  
• Publish the Final Plan and archive it, for future references

We will talk more about Demantra's S&OP integration with EBS/ASCP/SNO in next few blogs.

You can refer to Oracle's documentation on S&OP module available on Oracle Metalink for getting into details. ( Refer to previous post for whereabouts of Demantra http://oracledemantra.blogspot.com/2008/07/demantra-documentation-on-metalink.html)