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. 

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

Demantra: Logs to look for while debugging

Demantra application has various logs which can help during root cause analysis of a problem encountered in application. Some of these logs are configurable to a large degree giving flexibility to capture detailed log for analysis. Here is a summary list of some of these key logs:

• Demantra installation log: Installer's first screen has option to enable logging at various level to capture installation activity. 
• Collaborator.log: This log captures any error during server start, shutdown, restart, etc. The log is available under the web server directory. 
• Systemlog: Captures various issues around logs encountered by end user on worksheets,  while running methods, etc. LoggerManager utility available through URL can be used to configure logging level and setup. 
• IntegrationLog:  Captures various logs around data integration runs done via Demantra's inbuild integration interface tool. 
• DBExecptionLog: DB_EXCEPTION_LOG table captures logs generated by some of the Demantra's procedures. (ep_load_xxx, chaining etc.)
• EngineLog: EngineManagerLog & Engine2Klog files carry details of engine run activity, logging level can be controlled for engine logs too. 
• WFProcessLog: Captures workflow run related logs and is accessible through URL too. 

More details around all the logs which come handy during troubleshooting Demantra issues can be found in Metalink Note ID 741464.1. 

Demantra 12.2.4 is Available now !!

Oracle VCP 12.2.4 is now available which includes Demantra 12.2.4 version. Here is a list of few key features which made the cut into this release:

• User Access Control: Allowing better control in user's access to application, enables admin to disable access to users/groups for certain time, etc. 
• Improved New product launch management in DM and PTP module
• Custom hierarchies in APCC: Allowing integrating additional custom hierarchies for Customer/Organization dimensions into APCC from Demantra
• Worksheet Performance improvements

Additionally this release also comes with support for In-Memory Performance Driven Planning(PDP) & In-Memory Consumption Driven Planning(CDP). 

VCP 12.2 release and EBS11i source?

Key points to remember:

• VCP 12.2.X release will not be supported with EBS11i source, for customers who wish to upgrade to VCP12.2.X release in future will need to upgrade their EBS platform to either 12.1 or 12.2. 
• Customers wishing to stay put on EBS 11i will have to stay on VCP12.1.X version and on Demantra 7.3.1.X version.
• Latest released supported version for EBS11i source is VCP 12.1.3.8 and Demantra 7.3.1.4

Note: Demantra 7.3.1.5 is in making and should be released soon. Also Demantra 12.2.1 release is expected to be released sometime this year. New Demantra CDP module announcement though makes release of Demantra 12.2 during this FY improbable. 

Consumer Driven Planning Module announced @ VCP Summit

Oracle announced two new Exa system offerings which will be released towards end of FY 2013. The intend is to provide customers with Exa enterprise systems with packaged solution with faster planning capabilities.

• Consumer Driven Planning(CDP) on Exa
• Performance Driven Planning(PDP) on Exa

Consumer Driven Planning module will use Demantra system capabilities on top of Exa systems to empower customers with a system which will be significantly faster(10hours to 10 mins kindda) and will be capable to handle huge volume of consumer level POS data. Oracle indicated that CDP will be a new module(the name may change though) under Demantra Suite offering and should be released along with VCP 12.1.3.9. Later R12.2 release will embed this new module along with PDP module offering. 

Initial release of Demantra's CDP module will mainly support:

 - POS based forecasting at multiple levels within a single Demantra instance. 

 - Store level data storage and forecasting

 - Bottoms up forecasting using Sell Thru data

 - Sell-in forecast derivation based on Sell Thru forecast

 - Store life cycle management (new store launch, store closures etc) 

 - Multi Channel Sell-in calculation based of consumption data

 - Replenishment planning 

 - Configurable Safety Stock calculations(simple rule based to statistical based)

Later releases are planned to support packaged PTP and DSR Exa systems. 

Oracle understands that some Demantra customers like Electronic Arts have already implemented similar processes using Custom configurations and integration. This new module is supposed to provide such functionality out of the gate in a packaged Exa Enterprise system for customers ease. We will wait to see more information and details about the new modules from Oracle soon. 

Oracle's first "Value Chain Summit" is here..

Join fellow users, partners, and luminaries for the Oracle Value Chain Summit in San Francisco to learn how Oracle is helping companies transform supply chains into value chains to gain competitive edge. This thought leadership..

Click on link below to get more details of the event..

http://www.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=157624&src=7531558&src=7531558&Act=50

Demantra DB Connection Issue Resolution

This morning, ran into an issue with my local Demantra install. When connecting to Business modeler I got a DB error " ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified." 

Additionally found that TOAD wont connect to my local DB 11g install too, giving the similar error. Checked that my DB services were running fine and TNSPING was responding well too. 

Decided to bounce my DB using cmd prompt and found below error while doing it:

ORA-00065: initialization of FIXED_DATE failed 


Recalled that last I used my DB I changed my DB settings to make it fixed date environment for some work and shutdown my DB with FIXED_DATE settings. 

To resolve the issue, I took the option of creating a new PFILE using SPFILE and then edited the PFILE to take out the FIXED_DATE settings from it. Later I was able to make this change permanent by creating SPFILE using the PFILE. 

CREATE PFILE FROM SPFILE;

Once created look for file named “initXXX.ora” where XXX stands for DB service name. e,g. VCPDB in DB Home install directory. Take out the FIXED DATE setting from init file and try starting server using :

SQL> startup pfile='uo1\dbhome_1\database\INITXXX.ORA' ;ORACLE instance started.

For making this change permanent:

CREATE SPFILE from PFILE ='u01\dbhome_1\database\INITXXX.ORA' ;

RESTART again to use the SPFILE for starting the DB. 

And... I am back in action with my local DB and Demantra install. :)