Updates: Oracle Rapid planning 1.0

Oracle's latest release in VCP suite, Oracle Rapid Planning(RP)'s version 1.0 can be installed only with VCP version 12.1.1

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

Demantra 7.3 comes clean

Oracle's latest release 7.3 of Demantra Suite comes with an empty schema, unlike previous versions which had demo data. This surely would be a good news for those who have faced problems while cleaning up the demo data in older versions.

DB issue: Business modeler/Engine Admin cannt connect to database

Problem: When trying to open Demantra Business modeler on my local install, started getting error "ORA-01033 ORACLE initialization or shutdown in progress ". Also found that while connecting to Engine Administrator I started getting error "Cann't connect to database".

Analysis: Found that even while tnsping to database works, even SQLplus connection to database using Oralce SQLPLUS wouldn't work. It happens at times when the last DB shutdown didnt happen properly. Database needs to be re-started after shutting down explicitly by using SQL PLUS.

Solution:

Using command prompt,

Login as:
> sqlplus /nolog

Once logged in, use following commands:

SQL> connect / as sysdba
ConnectÚ.
SQL> shutdown abort
Instance ORACLE arrÛtÚe.
SQL> startup nomount
Instance ORACLE lancÚe.

While executing this, I got below error:

Database mounted.

ORA-00600: internal error code, arguments: [kcratr1_lastbwr], [], [], [], [],[], [], []

To further fix this issue, used following commands to re-start database:

SQL> startup mount
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area 1073741824 bytes
Fixed Size 1264916 bytes
Variable Size 264241900 bytes
Database Buffers 801112064 bytes
Redo Buffers 7122944 bytes
Database mounted.
SQL> recover database
Media recovery complete.
SQL> alter database open;

Database altered.

Verify that you are able to login into Database and then into Demantra applications. All set and we are back to action.

Demand Management Process & Demantra’s Solution

Sensing Demand

Demand data should be collected from various possible sources and which can be treated as “BIBLE” for basing your forecast on. Not only actual sales data but other attributes of sales data like promotional causals, holidays, events etc. should be brought in, which justify the variations in demand data. E.g. Sales data collected from various Retailers’ store varies with days on which store is open, promotions which were launched at the store and competition activities near store’s location. So while predicting sales at these stores we should consider all these factors as well.

Demantra implementation offer real-time Demand sensing capabilities, collect demand data and information from various sources like sales orders, shipments, POS data, distribution center data, customer data and marketing data. Demand can be collected inside Demantra on daily or weekly basis as per the requirements.

Shaping Demand

There are items & locations for which sometime sales data is not available, in that case Demand Planners based on their instincts & experience should be able to enter or edit the sales history. Not only history of sales but forecast numbers generated by engine is likely to be edited to consider inputs which have not been captured by the Analytical Engine.

Oracle Demantra Demand Management provides user ability to define override series for each of collected series and also for forecast series. Demantra provides flexibility to create unlimited number of Causal Factors to capture the information which can describe the demand variance and events which occurred. Causal Factors are created and used to ensure that impacts of these factors are taken into consideration by Engine to generate the Forecast numbers.

Collaboration

For any organization the problem of keeping all the stakeholders who represent various verticals like Manufacturing, Marketing, Sales, Retailers, etc. is very common. Today most of the firms are into global markets and have operations and sales happening in various corners of world. Also to become a demand driven supply chain network, the need of having collaboration with all the demand nodes (e.g., customer’s stores) and supply nodes (e.g., raw material supplier’s factory) becomes vital for most of the industries.

The Demantra application provides an easy to use tool for collaborating with all the stake holders using a web based platform. Users can easily collaborate with their internal stakeholders & customers to better predict their forecast. Also all the stakeholders can be informed and kept in loop to reach to final Consensus Forecast number.

Alerts, Exceptions & Notifications

In most of industrial scenarios it becomes difficult to analyze and to figure out the issues like Demand plan crossing the budget limits, import data failures etc. Thus the automated notifications can assist the planners and managers to take up remedy actions. Alerts can be created within Demantra for notifying stakeholders and concerned group of users on Real-time basis. Automated workflows keep all the users notified and updated if there are any exceptions meeting defined conditions.

Value Chain Planning R12.1.1

Oracle released following new set of advanced planning applications under "Value Chain Planning" category in R12.1.1 :

- Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center (MOC)
- Oracle Demand Signal Repository (DSR)
- Oracle Service Parts Planning (SPP)
- Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center (APCC)

Demantra has it's own set of role to play in above applications, where it is directly integrated with DSR, SPP and APCC. SPP has it's own inbuild Demantra engine for spare parts forecasting too, while APCC and DSR have an outbound integration from Demantra for forecast and other information.

Demantra 7.3 release - Features Part2 - NPI

7.3 simplifies New Product Introduction cycle, by providing following abilities on worksheet application itself:

- create new product based on existing product
- manage product launch and life cycle end
- cannibalization of existing product

Instead of using Demand Planner > Member/Chaining Management application which was quite complex for end users. This new functionality gives end users a simple and faster way of managing new products introduction.

This function has been provided as a level method on worksheet application. New level method "Create similar product" is context based and is called from existing SKU from which the history shall be copied over to NEW product. Filters of worksheet are used for managing combinations and target location members. The option of setting a launch date and cannibalization% is also provided.

Overall this functionality eases out end users life, who have been using sophisticated Demand planner>Member/chaining management till date.

Demantra 7.3 release - Features Part1

Demantra's much awaited 7.3 release happened as promised by Oracle in mid of august09. The current release has lot of new functionality changes and enhancements, from simple ones like UI changes to complex ones like CTO offering.

Complete list of documentation is available in Metalink Demantra document library.

(http://oracledemantra.blogspot.com/2008/07/demantra-documentation-on-metalink.html)

Internationalization:

Open the CWB login screen and you would see the first change, which appears as "Language" button at bottom of logon screen.

This release has internationalized the product by supporting, 8 languages (Russian, Japanese, Canadian French, Korean, Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese), by making web based applications available in these languages for end users.

You need to pick the language at time of installation and only one language per install is supported.

Remember that, the language support is targeted for business users and not for implementers, so don't be surprised when you see your good old Business modeler menu options still showing up in English.

more on 7.3 release features will be posted soon.....