This appendix covers the following topics:
Oracle offers enhanced functionality with the release of Oracle Warehouse Management system (WMS). Many features of Oracle WMS are new, for example the use of License plate Numbers (LPNs), cartonization, and so on. However, other features are an extension of existing Oracle Inventory features, for example Advanced Lot and Serial Attributes, Mobile Cycle and Physical counting, and so on. This chapter details how to migrate to these new features of WMS from the existing Oracle Inventory features. This chapter also discusses the business considerations and system considerations for this upgrade/migration process. Detailed functionality will not be discussed, however a brief introduction will be given. The details of implementing these new and enhanced existing features are discussed in the other chapters of this guide.
Physically, the License Plate (LP) is equivalent to a label and the License Plate Number (LPN) is a unique number that is printed on the label. A barcode representing the unique number is also printed on the label to facilitate scanning of the LPN when performing transactions as opposed to performing keypunch data entry.
When migrating to LPN functionality, perform the following steps:
Loose items should be packed into LPNs by a pack transaction. This will pack the loose materials into an LPN. An LPN can be a pallet, box, cart, and so on.
LPN labels (barcodes) should be printed and posted on respective pallet, box, cart, and so on.
There are no mass pack scripts available for this purpose. The user has to perform pack transactions so that the material can be associated with LPNs. For example consider a warehouse scenario where the warehouse is migrating from existing Oracle Inventory to Oracle WMS. The user goes into the warehouse and decides what on-hand inventory needs to be in LPNs. After this is determined, a pack transaction is performed and labels are printed and posted on the pallets or boxes. The inventory that needs to remain loose is left as it is.
Material Status Control makes it possible to control the movement and usage for portions of on-hand inventory that may have distinct differences due to grade, quality, or maturity level. It provides the user flexibility in specifying allowable transactions. Users can indicate with a high degree of granularity the actions to be allowed or disallowed, the statuses that are applicable to their warehouse or facility, and the entities that are assigned to various statuses. For further details on Material status functionality please refer the Oracle Warehouse Management User's Guide or the Material Status Control chapter of this guide.
To start using this feature following steps should be taken:
There are SQL scripts available in a driver file that are run during installation of Oracle WMS. After running these SQL scripts the item becomes Lot and Serial status enabled. By default they are given a status of Active, which means that all transactions can be performed on the lots and serials for that item. This script also assigns a status of Active to all the lots and serials of that item in all the organizations to where that item is assigned.
Similarly there is a SQL script in the driver file that updates the status of all the subinventories and locators in the organization to Active. The status of Active here has the same meaning as that of lot and serial Active status.
These statuses can be changed according to the needs of the user.
A Cost Group is the set of accounts that hold on hand inventory. Cost Groups were introduced in Oracle WMS to separate tracking of Physical and Accounting attributes. With the introduction of Cost Groups, it is now possible to have a 1:1 mapping of the zones in the warehouse to the subinventories in the system resulting in more accurate representation of capacity.
Cost Groups have been a part of Oracle Inventory since before the introduction of Oracle WMS. There is a data migration script that can be used to migrate to Cost Groups. For more information, refer to the Oracle Inventory Implementation Guide.
Unlike Oracle Inventory, in Oracle WMS all the subinventories must be locator controlled. Every subinventory must have at least one locator. Locator control can be decided at the organization parameter level or at the subinventory level. For a WMS organization, Locator Control cannot be None, it can either be predefined or dynamic.
When migrating from Oracle Inventory to Oracle WMS all subinventories have to be made locator controlled. When converting an organization with an on hand inventory to a WMS enabled organization, the do the following:
Use the Locator Control API to create locators in the existing subinventories. After this is done perform a mass move to move the existing on hand inventory to the newly created locator for a given subinventory. Details about this API are in the following section.
In Oracle WMS, available weight capacity, available volume capacity, and available units capacity of a locator is maintained in real time. This is essential for an efficient put away process. During any material transaction, the available weight capacity, available volume capacity, and available units capacity of the transacted locator are updated based on the total weight and total weight of the transacted item and maximum weight, maximum volume and maximum units allowed of the locator. It is therefore imperative that all locators used in WMS have weight unit of measure, maximum weight, volume unit of measure, maximum volume, and maximum units defined.
For existing Oracle Applications users, who are upgrading to Oracle WMS, it is recommended that a set of check scripts, that are provided with the product, be run and any corrective action be taken before using Oracle WMS. These scripts identify pre-WMS data that may have to be enhanced to better utilize the capabilities of Oracle WMS. One of the check scripts is the Locator check script. It lists locators with either one of the following not defined:
Weight unit of measure
Maximum weight
Volume unit of measure
Maximum volume
Maximum units
X coordinate
Y coordinate
Z coordinate
Dimension unit of measure
Length
Width
Height
The existing Locators Maintenance form can be used for adding the missing attributes to the definition of the listed locators. However, data entry would be time consuming and cumbersome if the locators list is large. A faster approach would be to write a script in an appropriate language that would repeatedly call APIs that perform Locator Maintenance passing the required data.
Currently, in Oracle Inventory, items can be restricted to certain locators, but with Oracle WMS the same functionality is used to assign items to locators to create a "soft" assignment that can be used by the WMS Rules Engine. In Oracle Inventory, locators cannot be deleted. There may be a need to delete locators that are obsolete. This may reduce the volume of data and also improve performance. But then it's essential that before deleting, you confirm that the locator to be deleted doesn't exist in any core Oracle Inventory table.
Locator Maintenance APIs handle the above said requirements. They constitute the following:
Create Locator API to create a new locator (CREATE_LOCATOR)
Update Locator API to update an existing locator (UPDATE_LOCATOR)
Locator Item Tie API to assign an item to a locator (CREATE_LOC_ITEM_TIE)
Delete Locator API to delete an existing locator (DELETE_LOCATOR)
The APIs are part of PL/SQL package INV_LOC_WMS_PUB. This is defined in $INV_TOP/patch/115/sql/INVLOCPS.pls.
Advanced Lot and Serial Control provides two new areas of functionality for tracking lots and serials. Lot and Serial attributes enable you to store a range of information for material based upon the lot and or serial number. Sublot functionality enables you to split and merge lots to differentiate between quantities of material that are no longer similar enough to be considered a single lot. Lot Genealogy stores the parent/child relationship between lots and sublots and provides lot traceability resulting from inventory transactions, including all lot splits and merges. The analogous functionality for Serial Genealogy has been available with Discrete Manufacturing.
Upgrading to the Advanced Lot & Serial attributes, when there is existing on hand inventory, is done from the Maintain Lot Numbers / Maintain Serial Numbers form. There are no API or concurrent requests to update all the existing on hand lots so that they receive the default and or mandatory attributes. Perform the following steps to update the existing on hand lot:
Assign lot context to item or item category
Query up the lot number in the Maintain Lot Numbers form
Enter the mandatory values for the different segments in the context
These steps must be performed for all the existing on hand lots. Same procedure is followed for assigning serial attributes to the existing on-hand serial numbers. There is a different form, Maintain Serial Number that is used for updating the serial number attributes.
A future proposal states that there should be a fully developed functionality for mass update of lot and serial attributes.
Oracle WMS provides tools that enable a warehouse to effectively dispatch tasks and manage inventory. Currently, many decisions within a warehouse are left to the operator, demanding a high degree of operator training, but still yielding suboptimal results and occasionally, serious mistakes. Material handling rules, customer requirements, and storage constraints place complex demands on the warehouse. The Rules Engine provides a flexible repository for the many different types of rules and restrictions to effectively manage a warehouse. This section illustrates how the Rules Engine can automate this decision making process, removing it from operators and thereby reducing mistakes and increasing efficiency. The Rules Engine enables directed picking and put away, assigns transactions to a cost group, ensures customer compliant labeling, and assigns tasks to a resource with the appropriate training and equipment. Rules can be based on nearly any attribute in the database, including user defined flexfields. Strategies, or a collection of rules, can be organization specific, customer specific, item specific, or specific to one of many additional business objects.
While migrating to Oracle WMS, the simplest possible setup is as follows:
One picking rule with no restrictions or sort criteria
One put away rule with no restrictions or sort criteria
However, a warehouse would likely not want to utilize only this setup because of specific business requirements that would restrict what should be picked or where material should be put away.
Reasonable picking rules would utilize First In First Out (FIFO) and First Ended First Out (FEFO) picking standards, which have been seeded within Oracle WMS. These are basic standards for picking material, however put away is also a consideration for a warehouse. The following put away decisions may need to be made:
Should material be put away to any empty locator?
Should lots and items be commingled?
If this basic approach is not sufficient to model the warehouse, you need to go through the entire setup process including:
Strategy search orders
Defining rules
Defining strategies
Defining strategy assignments
For detailed information on defining strategy search orders, defining rules, defining strategies, and strategy assignments, refer to the Oracle Warehouse Management System User's Guide.