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: 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

APCC 12.1.3.8

APCC 12.1.3.8 Release Features:

- This release comes with enhanced and improved usability of Advanced Planning Command Center module. Within APCC, Supply Chain Analysts in this version have ability to:
- edit material plan to modify supply and demand
- edit resource plan to modify resource availability
- utilize item simulation set for mass item attribute maintenance
- utlize Orders UI to firm and release orders
- re-run a plan and release the plan for execution

- Embed Demantra worksheets in APCC reports: Ability to access and update Demantra worksheets while being logged into APCC. Uses Demantra anywhere feature and requires both APCC and Demantra applications SSO enabled.

Demantra 7.3.1.4 is supported with APCC 12.1.3.8, also note that APCC 12.1.3.8 is certified on OBIEE 11g.

Fueling supply chain with retailer's POS data - Oracle DSR

When recession hit the market, the impact on CPG industry was inevitable. With customers trying to save every penny possible, the competition in market for providing best quality product at minimal price possible has surpassed all previous levels. Everyone is trying to get the most of every dollar they spend. Few most common CPG industry specific issues can be easily listed as:

• Lost sales due to out of stock conditions
• High inventory carrying cost due of misplaced stocking
• Promotion expenses going in vain
• Loss of margins due of expedition costs
• Increasing IT Complexity

Circumstances like this call for nothing but best in class, efficient and optimized business processes which are driven by one and only goal, increasing the profitable revenue making.

The road to accomplish this target is anything but smooth, need is to ensure that the supply chain backbone transforms into an efficient value chain. The value shall be visible and transparent to every stakeholder, be it an internal department(e.g. sales, marketing, operations) or an external vendor. With growing capabilities at retailer's end to capture demand at the point of it's origin, need is to build processes to capture this demand data and utilize it to drive the supply chain. Problem in gathering and utilizing this information is variety of retailer's POS capturing systems, standards and granularity.

One of the AMR Research paper clearly outlines this fact by saying "The Bottom Line: Consumer products manufacturers must centrally manage all demand signal data, including POS, to create a Demand-Driven Supply Network (DDSN) that improves demand visibility to reduce stockouts by more than half and increase Perfect Order performance by 17%"

While in today's generation of supply chain, availability of data is lowest of concerns, problem is with managing this high volume and ensuring the accurate required information is made available to upstream for planning. With variety of sources of POS data, the need to capture and cleanse it prior to it's availability for being used in planning is of high importance.

Oracle's Demand Signal Repository product has shown thought leadership in this direction, by providing a collaborative demand signal management platform with best of breed functionality and reporting capabilities.

Oracle's DSR datasheet points out it's three key capabilities:

• Capture and manage large volumes of disparate external demand data
• Analyze, report and take action based on Day/SKU/Store level insights
• Integrate clean, harmonized demand data to external applications

DSR empowers you to:

• Greater visibility of data to better sense, shape and respond to demand
• Reduce manual effort and cost
• Simplify collaboration across teams and applications.

(Read more about DSR@ http://www.oracle.com/ocom/groups/public/@ocompublic/documents/webcontent/018927.pdf

Rapid Planning, an addition to Value Chain Planning products suite

In May 2009, during Collaborate 2009 event Oracle provided a preview of it's new product "Rapid Planning" and they made a timely release of the product by announcing it's availability on 16th Nov 2009. Rapid planning will benefit customers with it's quicker, real-time, event driven planning and simulation abilities.

Extending the Information-Driven Value Chain

Leveraging its unique web services and open, standards-based architecture, Oracle Rapid Planning customers can enable reduced supply chain decision-making time with the following capabilities:

Fast, event-driven simultaneous material and capacity planning for rapid scenario analysis and real-time evaluation of supply chain events.

Fast sales and operations planning scenario simulation, integrated with Oracle’s Demantra.

Compatible and complementary capabilities to Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning.

Mass edit of supply chain data, enabling customers to conduct ad-hoc, rapid scenario modeling without the need to make changes to the ERP data or transactions.

Predictive and actionable insight via embedded analytics, a spreadsheet-style flexible user-interface, and embedded exceptions and scenario comparisons.

Comprehensive constraint modeling to mimic real-life planner decision making such as alternate bills of material, routings, sources and shipping methods, substitution and lead times.

Multi-enterprise visibility and planning, spanning internal facilities and contract manufacturers.

Multi-planner collaboration and simulation to help speed up the analysis and decision-making process.

Integration with ERP to help quickly translate decisions into actions and release planning recommendations directly to execution without latency.

For complete details about product read the complete release article on Oracle's site @ http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/040402