This appendix describes the way the upgrade affects your existing Supply Chain Management products, and highlights the impact of these functional changes on your day-to-day business. It is arranged by alphabetically by products in the Supply Chain Management product family.
This appendix covers the following topics:
An Applications upgrade alters both the technical and functional aspects of your Oracle E-Business Suite system. In addition to changes to the technology stack and file system, an upgrade also initiates specific changes that affect the way your existing products work after the upgrade and the way they look and feel. These functional changes have an impact on the way you use the products as you conduct your daily business.
Note: This appendix describes some of the ways the upgrade changes your existing products. We assume that you have read about the new features and products delivered in this release, which is included in the product-specific Release Content Documents (RCDs) and TOI on My Oracle Support.
The discussions of the functional aspects of the upgrade in this chapter are arranged by products within the Supply Chain Management product family.
Your Supply Chain Management applications specialists should be completely familiar with the information in this section and should have made appropriate plans to accommodate the associated changes before you begin your upgrade.
Changes for Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning are described in this section.
In previous release, you planned distribution centers using master production plans (MPPs), which used material requirements planning logic. In this release, you plan distribution centers using distribution requirements planning (DRP).
You can still use MPP plans after the upgrade. However, the DRP plan uses fair share balancing stock among distribution centers (when one has too much and one not enough of a particular item). You can also use DRP plans to view and adjust material among competing resources (allocation plan), to search for material unassigned to a carrier (opportunities) and add to consolidated shipments, and view a distribution-based horizontal plan.
If you are a distribution-intensive company, you can use distribution requirements planning to plan product movement across your supply chains.
In previous release, you could see the effect of changes to your static and dynamic planning data - without actually making the changes in your production environment - by running simulations. Beginning with this release, you can simulate changes to key item attributes in advanced supply chain plans and distribution plans.
You can assign different values to key item attributes for item-organizations and save the assignments in an item attribute simulation set. When you reference an item attribute simulation set at plan launch, the planning and distribution planning engines use the item attribute values from the item attribute simulation set rather than those from the collected item definition.
You can specify simulated values for these item attributes to use both in manufacturing plans and in distribution plans:
Critical Component, Preprocessing Lead Time, Processing Lead Time, Postprocessing Lead Time, Fixed Lead Time, Variable Lead Time, Fixed Order Quantity, Fixed Days Supply, Shrinkage Rate, Fixed Lot Multiple, Minimum Order Quantity, Maximum Order Quantity, Service Level, Carrying Cost, Demand Time Fence Days, Forecast Control, Planning Time Fence Days, Standard Cost, Net Selling Price, PIP Flag, Selling Price, Substitution Window, Safety Stock Days, Unit Weight, Unit Volume, Safety Stock Method, Safety Stock Percent, ABC Class, Planning Method, and Minimum Remaining Shelf Life Days.
You can specify simulated values for these item attributes to use only in distribution plans: DRP Planned, Max Inventory Days of Supply, Max Inventory Window, Target Inventory Days of Supply, and Target Inventory Window.
In previous releases, you planned process manufacturing facilities using the Oracle Process Manufacturing MRP module. In this release, you plan manufacturing facilities using Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning (ASCP) unconstrained planning. If you have an ASCP license, you can launch multi-organization unconstrained plans. If you do not have an ASCP license, you can launch single-organization unconstrained plans.
Process manufacturing facilities can use these Advanced Supply Chain Planning features: advanced user interface, multi-level pegging, online planning and simulation capabilities, and advanced co-product planning. They cannot, however, use these Process Manufacturing MRP module features: replenishment method-specific order modifiers, multiple transfer types, and resizing suggestions.
After upgrading to Release 12, the term work order replaces the term discrete job in the user interface, including windows such as the Navigator, Supply/Demand, Horizontal Plan, Preferences, and Exceptions Summary.
In previous releases, you created rules that controlled how to schedule the sequence of discrete job and flow schedules and used Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling to sequence the discrete jobs and flow schedules. In this release, the new scheduling feature is based on sequence-dependent resource setup times.
Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning determines a preferred task sequence that minimizes the time used for changeovers. It then tries to schedule activities in accordance with this sequence. You can specify plan option values that control how Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning trades off the benefits of minimizing setup time and maximizing resource throughput against the costs of satisfying demands early and building up inventory or satisfying demands late.
Sequence-dependent setup capability is available for both discrete and process manufacturing. Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning uses the same setup transition matrix inputs that Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling uses.
Previously, Advanced Supply Chain Planning scheduled only to the resource level. Now, when it schedules resources with specified sequence-dependent setups, it schedules to the instance level for the resource.
You can view the preferred sequence of tasks for a resource in the Resource Changeover window of the Planner Workbench. You can also view the calculated setup hours for a resource in the horizontal capacity plan for the resource.
The Sequence Dependent Setups plan option controls how Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning handles sequence dependent setups. If you set this option to No for all time buckets, Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning uses resource utilization percentages to increase activity durations and account for setup times. If you set the option to Yes, Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning does not use the utilization percentage. Instead, it calculates sequence dependent setup times using the changeover matrix defined in Oracle Discrete and Process manufacturing modules.
In previous releases, you used the Advanced Supply Chain Planning Gantt chart to graphically view the manufacturing and distribution plan and reschedule orders as needed. In this release, new paradigms have been introduced, new features have been added, and the usability of existing features has greatly improved.
Gantt chart enhancements make it easier for planners to manipulate schedule outputs and diagnose scheduling problems. With the enhanced Gantt chart, you can:
View activities planned for a resource along the same horizontal line rather than in separate rows in the Resource view.
Compare bucketed required hours to available hours for a resource in the Resource view.
View the variation of used and available resource units over time in the Resource view.
Open multiple views at the same time. For example, you can open both the Resource view and the Orders view at the same time.
Transfer information context between two views. For example, you can display all resources in the Resource view for an order shown in the Orders view.
Save a set of orders or resources as folders that you can view on command.
See other Planner Workbench menu options when the Gantt chart is open.
Peg up and down from a supply or a demand. Arrows in the right pane show pegging.
Display instances for resources with sequence-dependent setups.
Change activity schedules by editing dates in the left pane.
The following Advanced Supply Chain Management reports have changed.
In previous releases, you ran the Advanced Supply Chain Planning Detail Report against manufacturing plans. In this release, you can run it against your manufacturing plans, distribution plans, and collected data. It shows material requirements planning information that you can use to understand the results of a plan, and can include a horizontal listing, a vertical listing, and detail sections showing gross requirements, scheduled receipts, planned orders, bill of material and engineering changes, expired lot, and by-product information.
This report replaces these Oracle Process Manufacturing (OPM) reports: MRP Bucketed Material Report, MRP Material Activity Report, MRP Action Messages Report, and MRP Error Messages Report.
This report replaces the OPM Reorder Point Report used in previous releases.
The following OPM MRP reports have a new format: MPS Material Activity report (based on source transaction data) and MPS Bucketed Material report (based on source transaction data).
Note: See Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning Implementation and User’s Guide (Doc ID: 118086.1) for more information.
Changes for Oracle Asset Tracking are described in this section.
You can leverage a new concurrent program - Generate Notification - New Fixed Assets for Install Base Tracking to generate a workflow notification for new assets created in Oracle Assets. All users associated to the newly seeded Oracle Asset Tracking - Planner responsibility receive notification.
A new user interface facilitates the integration between item instances and fixed assets. You can associate an item instance to a fixed asset, either with a specified item instance or optionally with a selected fixed asset. You can associate multiple serialized item instances to the same fixed asset.
You can perform Fixed Asset updates for manual item instances, such as location or ownership. Fixed Asset updates are also supported for most Oracle Inventory transactions, except WIP transactions.
The Enable Auto Update flag has been added. When Enable Auto Update is set to Yes, an item instance and its associated asset are fully synchronized, subject to the validation rules existing prior to this release. If this flag is off, the association is not subject to fixed asset updates.
The Open Item interface contains Fixed Assets columns. You can create both the item instance and the associated fixed asset as part of your Oracle Installed Based item instance import process.
You can manually create reversing accounting distribution entries. These reversing entries offset entries generated by the Cost Manager, for selected inventory transactions of capitalized item instances. Prior to this release, these reversing entries were created automatically as part of the transaction costing process. In this release, you must run the Create Reversal GL Entries for Inventory FA Items concurrent program to generate reversing entries.
You can create service requests and tasks for an internal asset in Oracle Field Service. Oracle Asset Tracking captures an asset’s complete service history, including the debrief transactions, the manual logging of In/Out of Service, and the operation status of a recovered asset.
The following functionality for Oracle Contracts Core 11i3 and later is being discontinued and will not be supported in this release.
Stand-alone contract authoring and contract management using Oracle Contracts Core features, such as the Launchpad, Contract Navigator, and stand-alone Authoring form.
Stand-alone sales contracts authoring using the Sales Contract category
The web based user interfaces (searching, creating, and updating contracts) in Contracts Online.
No data is migrated during the upgrade. If these discontinued features affect your system, you should consider implementing Release 11.5.10 (or higher) Oracle Sales Contracts, including the contract repository feature. Oracle will continue to support the previously released versions of the Contracts Core and Contracts for Sales products, although enhancements are no longer being offered.
Note: This does not apply to Oracle Sales Contracts or Oracle Procurement Contracts released as part of Release 11.5.10, nor does it apply to customers who are using only Oracle Service Contracts or Oracle Project Contracts.
Changes for Oracle Demand Planning are described in this section.
Statistical forecasting techniques in Oracle Demand Planning are enhanced in several areas:
Forecast at Day Level
Forecasting at day-level now addresses situations when the demand patterns vary by the day of the week. For example, more newspapers are sold on Sundays than on other days of the week.
Forecast Seasonal Data at Week Level
The Holt-Winters implementation now supports weekly (as opposed to just monthly) seasonal trends.
Display Smoothed History and Seasonal Factors
To handle outliers and missing values, Demand Planning automatically performs pre-filtering to smooth demand history. Demand Planning also automatically calculates seasonal factors. You can now view the smoothed history and seasonal factors as outputs in Demand Planning.
Demand Planning now supports Croston’s method for intermittent demands.
Demand planning managers and demand planners can now share their personal objects with other demand planning users. The sharable objects include documents (reports, graphs, and worksheets), document folders, saved selections, and custom aggregates.
Demand planning managers can create these objects centrally, and then share them with all the demand planners at any time in the demand planning cycle. This provides a consistent view of demand planning data to all the users and eliminates the need for demand planners to create the same reports and worksheets individually. Planners can save personal copies of shared documents to refine their selections and layout.
Selective Forecasting now supports the Combination Forecast measure, which selectively forecasts discrete groups of products with product-specific forecasting rules. You can copy data for a group of products from an existing measure to the Combination Forecast measure being defined. You can also use product saved selections and use them when creating combination forecasts.
Combination Forecast measures that you create using Selective Forecasting appear in the administrator's measure list and for managers and planners in the document tree under the Measure folder’s Forecast subfolder. These measures are available in reports, worksheets, and graphs for distribution, submission, collection and upload.
In this release, Demand Planning has been enhanced to improve planner productivity:
Input Negative Numbers in the Worksheet
In Release 11i, users captured decisions based on marketing intelligence, new product introductions, and so on by directly modifying the statistical baseline forecast in Demand Planning. You can now also manually input negative numbers on the worksheet, so that you can maintain separate adjustments in Demand Planning and then add the adjustments to the statistical baseline forecast.
Start Date for Moving Totals
Demand Planning now supports the cumulative sum or “moving total” type formula measure. It allows you to begin calculations from a specific beginning period, which is dynamic. Calculations always begin from the selected period.
Formula-generated Stored Measures
You can now use the same set of functions and operations supported for formula measures (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, lead, lag, nested formulae, and so on). for the initial creation of a stored measure. Once created, you can update stored measures on the basis of the generating formula if you explicitly recalculate it. You can select the dimension levels at which the calculation occurs, and the result is stored. You can also select the allocation and aggregation methods and base measures, apply a price list and make the measure editable in the worksheet.
The following Demand Planning enhancements improve performance in a number of areas:
Administrators can now force the re-aggregation of all measures in the Shared database, whenever a change in a hierarchy is detected, without overwriting user modifications to existing measures. The download process automatically determines which hierarchy values were modified, and then re-aggregates those values for all measures for those values, including input parameters that were not downloaded if a quick download was run. This allows a measure's values to reflect mid-cycle hierarchy changes without running a Populate process, which overwrites all existing modifications to the measures.
Do not run Populate when the Reaggregate option is checked. Populate automatically recalculates the measures and overwrites existing edits. The Reaggregate option only applies to affected hierarchies - not the entire measure. These options are generally mutually exclusive.
You can enable the Reaggregate option in the Demand Plan Administration module by checking a checkbox on the Download screen. A full distribution for planners’ is required in order to receive the hierarchy changes. The Reaggregate option is examined during distribution, and if enabled all personal measures are reaggregated.
Performance improvements have been made to the worksheet opening, editing, and recalculation operations.
When performing a Full or Quick download of one or more Demand Planning input parameters using the Update refresh mode, aggregation calculations are performed for only those measures that have changed.
In Release 11i, entering values into an empty worksheet cell allocated that value to lower hierarchy levels using the Even allocation method. In certain situations this creates an explosion of values in the Demand Planning workspace that can be potentially detrimental to performance.
Values that are entered into empty worksheet cells are now allocated to lower hierarchy levels using the First Level Value allocation method. Only the first child of each descendant level is allocated the entered value, which prevents the database size from unnecessarily increasing.
In Release 11i, you were not able to edit worksheet values of different hierarchy levels without recalculating the worksheet between edits. This enforced consistency of values across hierarchy levels, but created performance issues by forcing demand planners to wait for recalculations to complete between each edit.
Administrators now control when recalculations occur. Edits can be made at any level, and the worksheet is calculated at the user’s discretion. Once the worksheet is recalculated or saved, edits are enforced from the top hierarchy levels down, so it is possible for an edit at a higher hierarchy level to override an edit at a lower hierarchy level.
A new role (Demand Plan Viewer) is available. It allows you to view all data in the shared database, create documents, and share reports. However, data cannot be changed, shared or submitted.
The following enhancements help the Demand Planning administrator more effectively manage the progress of a demand planning cycle:
Session Administration
The new Session Administration option enables the Demand Planning Administrator to view and if necessary terminate inactive or hanging user sessions for a demand plan. This allows demand plan sessions to be restarted as needed without technical database administrator assistance.
Restart Distribute to Planner Stage
If the Distribute to Planner stage of the Demand Planning cycle terminates abnormally, then the Demand Plan Administrator can now restart the process from the beginning. Previously, restarting this process required the intervention of a technical database administrator.
The following collections enhancements help the Demand Planning Administrator more effectively manage the progress of a demand planning cycle:
Collect Facts and Items from a Subset of Organizations
A new checkbox in the Organizations sub-form of the Application Instances form allows organizations to enable Demand Planning independently of Advanced Supply Chain Planning. This allows companies to collect Demand Planning fact data from a small subset of the ASCP-enabled organizations, which saves time on collections.
If you enable and maintain the same items in all organizations that you plan, then you can also save time on collections by invoking a new Collect Items Only From the Master Organization option.
Collect Product Family-Level Manufacturing Forecasts
Demand Planning now supports the collection of manufacturing forecasts defined for product family items.
In Demand Planning, you can very flexibly specify, down to the individual entry level, the priority associated with forecasts. You can then feed this information into Advanced Supply Chain Planning to drive planning decisions. This gives you the freedom to prioritize forecasts by demand class, customer, product, location, and time.
To set up forecast priorities, define a demand plan with at least two output scenarios: the normal forecast output scenario, and a forecast priority output scenario. For each forecast output scenario, use the Scenarios tab of the demand plan definition form to specify which other output scenario that you want to associate as the forecast priority. The output levels of the forecast output scenario and the forecast priority scenario must match. When using the forecast output scenario as a demand schedule in an ASCP plan, the associated priorities from the forecast priority scenario are passed into ASCP as the forecast priorities.
In Release 11i10, Demand Planning ignored demand history based on internal sales orders. In this release, Demand Planning now recognizes demand history from internal sales orders to user-selected organizations. This supports demand planning processes for divisions within a larger enterprise running on a single global E-Business Suits instance. Divisions that run their own demand plans to fulfill demands from internal organizations can now recognize demand history and create forecasts for those demands.
The new Select Internal Sales Orders For plan option field in the Demand Plan Definitions form allows you to specify which internal sales orders to consider. Demand Planning considers all internal sales orders containing one of the destination organizations that you list in the field.
Two new concurrent requests are available for archiving and restoring demand plans: Archive Demand Plan and Restore Demand Plan. These requests require only a demand plan name as a parameter. The archive process writes to a log named arch<plan_id>.log in ODPDIR. The Demand Planning system administrator runs a request to archive or restore a plan. Before starting the archive or restore processes, verify that there is sufficient space to write the log.
The flexible repair processing allows service organizations to define repair order processes and statuses. In this release, the flexible repair order repair type supports the change in transition from the originally intended flow to a new unexpected flow. For example, it supports the flow of an item that is intended for repair, but instead results in an exchange.
This enhancement enables you to:
Define repair order statuses with workflow capabilities
Create custom repair status transitions
Change from one repair type to another during the course of repair
Changes for Oracle Enterprise Asset Management are described in this section.
Important: Prior to the upgrade to 12.1.1, you must set up the Install Base Parameters and Services Profile Option in accordance with Note 884201.1. See: Supply Chain Management Tasks.
Asset Definition in eAM migrates to the Installed Base data schema. This migration enables you to define and store both internal and customer assets in the same tables. The following functional changes results from this architectural change:
By definition, you can track Asset Groups and Rebuildable Items. In the Item Master, the Tracked in Installed Base check box is always selected (On).
Asset Number is now a globally unique number, identifying the asset during its lifecycle. You can change it any time, as long as it remains unique. Within Inventory, the Asset serial number is still used to identify an asset, but it does not have to be the same as the Asset Number.
A Warranty Expiration date can be entered to indicate whether your asset is under warranty.
A new and simplified window enables you to define Asset Groups, using templates. This is an option in the Item Master window.
Unlike prior releases, you can now move an asset in and out of Inventory. You can define Assets as Transactable in the Item Master. You can receive an asset into Inventory, transfer it between organizations, and so on. When out of Inventory, you can specify the physical location of the asset.
Regardless of where an asset resides, its attributes, activity associations, meter association, and preventive maintenance schedules remain with the asset. They are not organization-specific.
In this release, as assets can be transactable, eAM introduces the concept of location organization. An eAM-enabled organization can see, not only assets in its own organization, but also assets residing in the organizations where it provides the maintenance services. The eAM Organization field in the Organization Parameters identifies the non-eAM organizations that an eAM-enabled organization services.
With the Check In/Check Out feature, you can check an asset out to a user. A new self-service page enables you to check an asset out to a user, and check it back in.
As an asset is maintained, events are captured in the Operational Log; you can view this in a new self-service page. You can enter Asset events manually.
In the Work Management area, extensive upgrades were added to this release.
Significant changes were made to the Work Order pages:
New display the Approval history (new feature), Failure Information and Preventive Maintenance information, associated with a work order
You can check on demand if there is any shortage of the required material
Page containers display asset information and work order statistics
A new page enables mass time entry
A new Workflow process is seeded for a work order and its lifecycle. Integration with AME enables you to set up an approval process for your work orders, with preset approval hierarchy and flows.
A new window enables you to define your own work order statuses, which are associated to system statuses (for example, Draft, Released, Unreleased, and so on).
You can now associate multiple time blocks for an employee assigned to your work order. Graphic representation of employee availability is provided when you perform assignment. When you make a change at a lower level, the Work Order Scheduling process adjusts the higher level dates and times, according to the "Bottom Up" hierarchy of Instance/Resource/Operation/Work Order.
A new workbench was added for the Supervisor role. From this workbench, a supervisor can manage the work of his departments or crews.
All the functionality needed to manage work orders is available on a connected mobile device. You can create and update work orders, request material, assign resource, enter material usage, charge time, complete operations and work orders from a mobile device.
The eAM work order process supports FDA compliance, with standardized electronic records and signatures that can be audited in accordance to CFR Part 11. At operation or work order completion, you can sign electronically. A signed record is created with a snapshot of the operation/work order information.
Meter Hierarchy is a new feature. If a Source meter is associated with a specific meter (Target), readings from the Source meter trickle down to the specified meter automatically. Readings from the Target meter are automatically created when readings from the Source meter are entered.
Mass data entry for meter readings is supported with a new self-service page.
Enterprise Asset Management supports organization-specific Preventive Maintenance sets. Global sets are visible to all maintenance organizations. If you define a set and specify it as Local, only your organization can see or update it.
There are two new Preventive Maintenance options:
Multiple-Activity Preventive Maintenance schedule allows you to schedule multiple activities together in a cycle, specifying the intervals for each
Base Date and Base Meter Preventive Maintenance schedule, where work orders are forecasted based on user-specified base date or base meter, regardless of the actual last service dates
Other product upgrades that affect Enterprise Asset Management are described in this section.
From a new window, you can select work order costs and push them, using Mass Updates, to Oracle Assets for capitalization.
The new Maintenance Budgeting and Forecasting process enables you to generate asset maintenance cost forecasts, based on historical or planned works, and export them in Excel, HTML, or XML format.
In the iSuppler Portal, search criteria enable you to query purchase orders specific to a work order or work order/operation. You can also drill down to view associated collection plans and enter collection results for a work order operation from the portal.
To support the new asset architecture and the new eAM functionality, upgrades were made in Oracle Quality:
The old element Asset Number is changed to Asset Serial Number. The prompts are also changed, including those in existing plans.
A new hard-coded element, Asset Number, was added. Asset Activity and Followup Activity are in the context of this element.
Lists of Values (LOVs) for Asset Group, Asset Serial Number, Asset Activity, and Followup Activity were modified to support the concept that a maintenance organization can service assets residing in other organizations.
To support collection plan entry during check in and check out, two new transactions (including plan template and collection triggers) were added: Asset Check In and Asset Check Out transactions.
Changes for Oracle Flow Manufacturing are described in this section.
This release includes a new site-level Flow Manufacturing profile option (FLM: Enable Flow Sequencing). It is not required for an upgrade from a previous release - you can continue to use both Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling and Oracle Flow Manufacturing Sequencing if both components were previously installed in your Release 11i system.
The default value is No for this profile option. You can legally set this option to Yes only if you have specifically licensed Oracle Flow Sequencing.
Changes for Oracle Install Base are described in this section.
Three profile options previously used to support Field Service Location are now obsolete: CSE_ISSUE_HZ_LOC, CSE_MISC_ISSUE-HZ_LOC, and CSE_MISC_RECEIPT_HZ_LOC.
A new user interface based on Oracle Applications (OA) Framework makes it easier to define and maintain an item instance. Important attributes of an item instance are grouped into tabs with the remaining information accessible through links.
Organizes counters and notes information into tabs.
Provides access to counter, order, and service information through Service Request and Repair Order links.
Provides new links to access Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (eAM) Work Requests and Work Orders.
Adds a new button to access Configurator for updates. This button is enabled only for configurations built in Configurator
Item Instance Mass Update is converted from a form-based user interface to an OA Framework-based user interface. You can also update, delete, or transfer contracts as part of the mass update.
The definition of counters and Enterprise Asset Management meters is consolidated, and additional features have been added to enhance functionality.
A counter group is optional when you define a counter.
Multiple counters can be associated to an item instance.
Meter readings can now be absolute or change readings.
You can maintain a daily usage rate for your counter.
Backdated reading adjustments are allowed with certain restrictions.
A counter hierarchy can be set up so that readings for a source counter trickle down to target counter readings.
The Inventory Transaction Type contains the Location Required flag, which supports Asset Transfer to/from Field Location. You can create new user-defined transaction types as follows:
Transaction Source: Inventory or Move Order
Transaction Action: Issue from Store or Receipt into Store
Location Required flag: Selected
The upgrade affects the way item instance works with other products.
A new Contract page displays contracts impacted by an item instance transaction such as quantity change or ownership change. Associated changes to contracts can be initiated from this page.
A new sub-tab allows you to search and display item instances in the Contact Center user interface. Validations for item instance creation and update, configuration update (reconnect, disconnect) are enforced.
The convergence of Oracle Inventory and Oracle Process Manufacturing allows Oracle Install Base to support the tracking of OPM inventory transactions.
Changes for Oracle Inventory are described in this section.
Oracle Process Manufacturing (OPM) Inventory has been replaced with Oracle Inventory. Oracle Inventory now supports both process manufacturing and discrete manufacturing organizations.
Before this release, OPM maintained its own inventory module. This module interacted with standard Oracle Order Management, Oracle Procurement, and Oracle Advanced Planning and Scheduling, as well as the OPM-specific manufacturing module. Oracle Inventory interacted with all discrete and flow manufacturing modules.
In this and future releases, Oracle will support only Oracle Inventory for both discrete and process manufacturing environments. Oracle still retains the organization type distinctions process and discrete because the manufacturing, costing, and quality modules are not converging for this release. Although Oracle Inventory integrates with both product suites, you must still determine the organization type in order to indicate the appropriate costing, production, and quality modules.
The Process Manufacturing convergence has the following benefits:
One item master: Instead of maintaining separate item masters for discrete and process manufacturing, you can now maintain a single item record.
Central view of inventory: You can view on hand balances across all discrete and process manufacturing organizations.
Integrated Supply Chain: OPM customers can now use Oracle Mobile Supply Chain Applications and Oracle Warehouse Management.
In order to support process organizations, the following functionality is available in Oracle Inventory.
Dual unit of measure (UOM) support
Material status control
Advanced lot control
Support for indivisible lots
Material aging workflow
Note: See Oracle Inventory User’s Guide (Doc ID: 295186.1) for more information.
Starting in this release, Oracle Inventory can defer the recognition of COGS until all contract contingencies are filled and Receivables has recognized the revenue. Oracle Inventory holds incurred costs in a deferred COGS account until Receivables recognizes it per the revenue recognition rules. This enables you to recognize both COGS and revenue in the same accounting period. The new accounting rules also support customer returns.
All sales order issue transactions are debited to the deferred COGS account except:
Internal sales orders: For internal sales orders, the COGS account is debited directly when the new accounting rule is not enabled.
Intercompany transactions: For all intercompany transactions (external drop shipments, internal drop shipments, and non-ship flows) COGS is debited directly if the new accounting rule is not enabled.
Oracle Cost Management moves incurred costs from the deferred COGS to the COGS account based on the revenue recognition events or order close events. The remaining accounting aspects remain unchanged. Set up the Deferred COGS account on the Other Accounts tab of the Organization Parameters window.
This feature interacts with Oracle Cost Management to defer the cost of goods sold. Oracle Inventory stamps the account type on the material transaction, and Oracle Cost Management debits the correct account at the time of the material transaction. Oracle Cost Management also moves the costs incurred from the Deferred COGS account to the COGS account upon revenue recognition.
Note: See Defining Other Account Parameters in Oracle Inventory User’s Guide (Doc ID: 295186.1).
In Release 11.5.10, Oracle Inventory introduced the option to use the Material Workbench to view material that resides in receiving in addition to on-hand material. In this release, you can use the Material Workbench to view detailed information about material that resides in receiving, in-transit material, and on hand material. When you choose to view in-transit material, you can view the following document types:
Purchase orders
Advanced shipment notices (ASNs)
Internal Orders
Oracle Inventory calculates availability information according to the material location of the relevant material. Instead of viewing on hand material, material in receiving, and in-transit material through separate queries, you can perform one query that displays an item across different material locations. You can also perform a query that displays item information across organizations. This provides you with access to a global picture of inventory for the item, and allows you to make quick decisions regarding item sourcing and procurement.
In this release, the following changes were made to the Material Workbench query window:
Search based on cross-reference: You can now search for material based on purchasing or order management cross-references. This enables you to easily access on hand information for inventory if you do not know the internal item number.
Search for inbound material: You can now search for inbound material from a particular supplier, against a source document, or expected within a certain period. You do not have to have an ASN to search for inbound material. The system uses the purchase order promise date as the expected receipt date for purchase orders without an ASN. You can also search for internal organization transfers.
Save Queries: You can save queries to use for a later date. This enables you to reuse complex queries. You can mark saved queries as public or private. If you mark a query as private, then only you can use the query.
After you execute a query, you can view the material across different material locations at the same time. You can expand the tree window to view on hand, receiving, and inbound material according to the search criteria you supply. In the results pane, when the organization node is highlighted, the summary view may include multiple organizations. The system displays material in each location simultaneously to provide a global picture for a particular item. The results pane also provides you with faster sorting, column manipulation, and exporting capabilities.
The following changes were made to the Material Workbench to support Oracle Process Manufacturing convergence:
Dual UOM: If an item is under dual UOM control, the secondary UOM information displays in the results pane, and the Availability window in the Material Workbench.
Grade update: You can now select Grade Update on the Tools menu to update the grade of an item under lot control.
Status update: You can now select Status Update on the Tools menu to update the material status of material in an inventory organization.
Note: See Material Workbench in Oracle Inventory User’s Guide (Doc ID: 295186.1).
In this release, the picking rule window enables you to capture individual customer product quality and material characteristic preferences. For example, one customer may require premium grade material, while another more price-sensitive client may not have that restriction. To manage customer preferences, restrictions were added to the picking rules engine allocation logic in addition to the existing sort criteria for acceptable material. In this release, the Inventory Picking Rules window enables you to create picking rules without installing Oracle Warehouse Management.
These rules are a subset of Oracle Warehouse Management rules and have the following usage and restrictions:
Allocate based on first in first out (FIFO) or first expired first out (FEFO)
Ensure only one lot is allocated, or allow multiple lot allocation
Restrict allocation by shelf life days
Allow partial allocation, or ensure full allocation
Specify matching based on item quality data
Allocate lots in lot number sequence, or no sequence
Allocate revisions by revision, effective date, or no sequence
Allocate by sub-inventory, receipt date, or no sequence
Allocate by locator, receipt date, or no sequence
Allocate by preferred grade
Ensure lots of indivisible items are fully consumed
Allow over allocation
After you create the picking rules, you can use the Rules Workbench page to assign picking rules in the following combinations:
Item
Item category
Customer
Source type
Transaction type
When you enable a rule the system builds a rules package. After the system builds a rules package, it creates an enabled strategy with the same name and description. If you disable the rule, then the system automatically disables the strategy. You can only disable rules that are not used in any disabled strategy assignments. You can also only modify disabled rules.
Note: The Rules Workbench available in an inventory-only organization does not have the full capabilities of the Oracle Warehouse Management Rules Workbench.
Note: See Defining Picking Rules in Oracle Inventory User’s Guide (Doc ID: 295186.1).
You can create linkages between supply and demand to guarantee material availability. These linkages are known as reservations. A reservation guarantees the availability of reserved supply to a specific demand. In previous releases, reservations supported limited supply and demand types.
In this release, Oracle Inventory introduced the following new supply and demand types:
Purchase orders
Internal requisitions
Discrete jobs
Process manufacturing batches
Shop floor jobs
Components for Complex Maintenance Repair and Overhaul work orders
Components for process manufacturing batches
Reservations supports document validation, availability checks, and change management for the new supply and demand types. In this release, reservations also supports crossdocking in the warehouse, and enables you to reserve the most appropriate inbound receipts for an outbound shipment. The crossdock attribute was added to the Item Reservations window to link supply to demand. The system creates crossdock reservations automatically. You cannot delete a crossdock reservation if the supply type is receiving.
In this release, you can reserve a specific serial number and Oracle Inventory ensures the system allocates the serial number at pick release. A new Serial Entry window was added to enable you to reserve multiple serial numbers for a reservation. If you reserve serial numbers, pick release allocates the serials irrespective of the picking rules. Pick release allocates the reserved serials first and honors the organization parameter Allocate Serial Numbers for the remaining demand. Oracle Inventory also allows you to substitute serial numbers during picking and shipping. If you choose to substitute a serial number, then the system deletes the reservation for the substituted serial number.
Note: The items Reservations window supports serial reservations only for on-hand delivery.
Note: See Item Reservations in Oracle Inventory User’s Guide. See also Warehouse Management Crossdocking in Oracle Warehouse Management User’s Guide.
This section describes the changes to Oracle Inventory Optimization.
Demand fulfillment lead time is the time between order placement and order fulfillment. You usually set it either to the time allowed by the customer or based on business practice. You can express a customer service level target in terms of a demand fulfillment lead time. For example, you can set a 95% service level with a three-day demand fulfillment lead time.
In previous releases, Oracle Inventory Optimization assumed that the lead time was zero. And, service levels were specified in different places - item-specific service levels as a flex field for the item, customer-specific service levels as a flex field for the customer, and demand class-specific service levels when associating a demand class with allocation rules.
In this release, service level and demand fulfillment lead time can be specified in one place as part of a service level set at the following levels: Item - Organization - Demand class, Item - Demand class, Item - Item category - Demand class, Item - Organization, Category, Demand class, Customer site, Customer, Organization - Demand class, and Organization.
You can enter lead time in days as a fractional number. For example, a 4-hour lead time as 0.167 (4 hours / 24 hours).
In previous releases, Inventory Optimization did not consider the variability of lead times when it calculated safety stock levels. In this release, it calculates these variability measures from lead times when it calculates safety stock levels:
Manufacturing lead-time variability: A standard deviation value that the planning engine applies to the item processing lead time. You enter item processing lead time in Collections Workbench form, Item Details window. Oracle Inventory Optimization assumes that the statistical distribution of the manufacturing lead time is normal.
In-transit lead-time variability: A standard deviation value that the planning engine takes against the ship method transit time. You enter ship method transit time in the Transit Times form. Oracle Inventory Optimization assumes that the statistical distribution of the in-transit lead time is normal.
Purchasing lead-time variability: A standard deviation value that the planning engine takes against the supplier processing lead time. If entered, Oracle Inventory Optimization assumes that the statistical distribution of supplier variability is normal. As in previous releases, you can also enter this value by specifying a histogram of purchasing lead time-probability pairs. If you enter the value using a histogram, Oracle Inventory Optimization takes the probability distribution from the user inputs.
Note: See Oracle Inventory Optimization Implementation and User’s Guide (Doc ID: 118086.1) for details.
Changes for Oracle Order Management are described in this section.
Here are the profile options that are obsolete. All functionality previously provided by these profile options is now controlled by Oracle Payments.
OM: Estimated Authorization Validity Period
OM: Number of Days to Backdate Bank Account Creation
OM: Payment Method for Credit Card Transactions. Control is now available at the Payment Type level in the Define Payment Types window.
OM: Process Payment Immediately at Booking. Control is now available at the Payment Type level in the Define Payment Types window.
OM: Risk Factor Threshold for Electronic Payments
These profile options have been converted to Oracle Order Management system parameters:
OM: Credit Memo Transaction Type
OM: Credit Salesperson for Freight on Sales
OM: Employee for Self-Service Orders
OM: GSA Discount Violation Action
OM: Invoice Source
OM: Invoice Transaction Type
OM: Non-Delivery Invoice Source
OM: Overshipment Invoice Basis
OM: Reservation Time Fence
OM: Schedule Line on Hold
OM: Show Discount Details on Invoice
Tax: Inventory Item for Freight
Tax: Invoice Freight as Revenue
The system parameters retain the same names as the profile options without the prefixes (OM: or Tax:). The profile OM: Employee for Self-Service Orders is replaced by the system parameter called Requestor for Drop Ship Orders created by external user.
These profile options were changed to system parameters to support Multiple Organization Access Control (MOAC), which allows you to access one or more operating units using a single responsibility. Some addition benefits include:
Implementers need to set some application controls at an operating unit level so that the business flows they operate on can be consistent within that operating unit. At the same time, the application controls can be set differently for different operating units. Delivering those controls as system parameters (which are specific to operating units) instead of as profile options meets this need.
After you set the values of certain key application controls during an implementation, you need to ensure that those values are not changed later in the implementation process. Using system parameters for these controls ensures that implementers are appropriately warned or disallowed from making such changes.
The upgrade migrates the values of the profile options to system parameter values.
In previous releases of Order Management, seeded defaulting rules defaulted the Order Type and Salesrep from the Customer. These defaulting rules are deleted. You can still default the Order Type and Salesrep values from other sources, such as the Customer Ship-to and Customer Bill-to.
The sources Customer.Order type and Customer.Salesrep are also disabled, so all custom defaulting rules that used these source are deleted.
In previous releases, Order Management stored credit card information locally. In this release, the integration with Oracle Payments provides a centralized data model within Oracle Payments for credit card and bank account information and services to process payments. Vital and sensitive data such as credit card numbers, credit card security codes (CVV2), and bank accounts are encrypted and stored within this centralized model.
Note: See Oracle Order Management Implementation Manual for more information.
Prior to this release, Oracle Process Manufacturing (OPM) had its own inventory control system, which maintained a central Item master, tracking inventory in two units of measure, provided grade control, status control, and lot and sub-lot numbers. With the upgrade, these features are migrated to Oracle Inventory. The OPM application now relies on this core inventory system. This model is common for both process and discrete organizations and provides for a single inventory view throughout the supply chain.
Note: See Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 for pre- and post-upgrade steps. See also Oracle Process Manufacturing Migration Guide.
OPM Process Execution leverages additional capabilities available with the core inventory system. Reservations, which are guarantees of available inventory, replace the "pending lot allocations" capabilities. However, unlike the current pending lot allocations, detailed reservations are "hard" reservations. That is, once you have reserved material to a batch, all other sources of demand are prevented from reserving or using this inventory. Move Orders can optionally be used to model, control, and document the movement of material to a staging location prior to consumption by a batch. Revision control of items is also supported in batches.
If you are using the Oracle Warehouse Management System (WMS) and Oracle Mobile Supply Chain Applications (MSCA) products, then there are two new mobile transactions are supported in OPM Process Execution. You can now create and update batch reservations via mobile devices. This reduces data entry errors and the need for reconciliations, and streamlines production-reporting processes.
The following table summarizes changes in concepts and terminology to OPM Process Execution for Release 12:
| Before the Upgrade | After the Upgrade |
|---|---|
| Allocation of ingredients (pending transactions) | Reservation (multiple levels) - manual or rule-based |
| No support for movement of inventory material within the production | Support for move orders |
| No support for WMS | Integration to WMS transactions |
| No support for item revisions | Item revision support |
| Organization can be either a plant or laboratory | Same organization can be defined as either a plant or an organization or both |
| No support for subinventories | Inventory organization (plant) can have multiple subinventories |
| Consumption and yield warehouses | Supply subinventory and yield subinventory |
| Shop calendar | Workday calendar |
| Profile options | Profile options and organization parameters |
| Pick lots | Select Available Inventory |
Least Cost Formulation is a new capability that enables a formulator to generate a formula based on a pre-determined product specification by optimizing on-hand ingredients usage with respect to their quality attributes and costs to generate the optimal formulation. The formulation (or batch) created from this process is typically used only one time, since it’s using a snapshot of available inventory that may not exist again. However these formulas can also be saved for re-use during a certain time period.
A new field, S88 Recipe Type, is introduced as part of the recipe header that enables users to categorize each recipe as a General, Site, or Master Recipe. A new View By for Recipes is available from the Product Development Workbench with a General Recipe at the top of the list, followed by all of the Site Recipes, and each site displaying all of the Master Recipes. Also, General and Site recipe types will be defaulted when new recipes are created. Recipes created under a Master Inventory Organization will default to "General" recipe type, while recipes created under all other Inventory Organizations will default to ‘Site’ recipe type.
Item Substitution Lists will enable users to restrict the substitutions made, rather than allowing any item to be substituted for another. Effective dates for each substitute item will be possible, reducing the number of formulas and recipes by enabling one formula to store all the possible alternative items over a period of time. Item Substitution lists must be approved, and will therefore require an approval workflow, including status and version control.
There were also some minor changes to comply with the new organization structure and implementation of revision control of items.
The following table summarizes changes in concepts and terminology to OPM Product Development:
| Before the Upgrade | After the Upgrade |
|---|---|
| Lab as a type of organization | Lab as a separate inventory organization |
| No support for item revisions | Item revision support for formulas and validity rules |
| Experimental items | Engineering items |
| Profile options | Profile options and organization parameters |
OPM Quality Management has been enhanced to leverage some elements of the Oracle Quality applications. The first is a new process during receiving inspection to hold delivery inventory in a receiving location until sample acceptance. This functionality provides a two-step receiving process: 1) inspection by a warehouse operator and 2) quality testing and results entry within the laboratory.
Another addition is the capability to track a nonconformance (batch irregularities such a ingredient substitutions or changes in procedures) during the production process with Oracle Manufacturing Execution System for Process Manufacturing and Oracle Quality. These nonconformance issues can be reviewed by plant quality personnel prior to yielding acceptable product from the batch.
The following table summarizes changes in concepts and terminology to OPM Quality Management:
| Before the Upgrade | After the Upgrade |
|---|---|
| No support for item revisions | Item revision support in specifications, samples, and stability studies |
| Sample against a lot updates its sublots | Sample against parent lot updates its lots |
| Miscellaneous inventory adjustment for sample quantity deduction | New inventory transaction type for sample quantity issue |
| Sample history only for a specific lot, warehouse, and location | Sample and results traceability through lot split, merge, and transfer |
| Quality laboratory and R&D llaboratory defined as same laboratory organization | Quality laboratory and R&D laboratory defined as same or separate inventory organizations |
| Lot expiry/retest workflows | Inventory Date Notifications |
| Grade and actions defined in OPM Quality Management | Grade and actions defined in Oracle Inventory |
| Profile options | Profile options and organization parameters |
| Hold reasons | Reason codes in Oracle Inventory |
OPM Inventory Control has been replaced with a common inventory solution - Oracle Inventory (see Inventory in this appendix for a description of changes made to support process industries). As a result, many all of the OPM Inventory Control windows are now in Query-only access without update. Current balances are available directly from Oracle Inventory views and reports. The OPM Inventory Close functionality is now available under the OPM Financials responsibility as Period Close for Process Inventory Organizations.
The following table summarizes changes in concepts and terminology in Common Inventory:
| Before the Upgrade | After the Upgrade |
|---|---|
| Items | Master items and organizations items |
| Item organizations | Obsolete |
| Inventory calendar | Inventory calendar |
| Warehouse | Organization/subinventory |
| Warehouse locations | Stock locators |
| Item lot conversions | Item conversions and lot-specific conversions |
| Lot and sublot | Parent lot and child lot |
| Session parameters | Change organizations |
| Lot status | Material status |
| Allocation parameters | Picking rules |
| OPM category sets | Default category sets |
| Profile options | Organization parameters |
| Lot genealogy | Genealogy workbench |
| Public APIs | Public API signatures may have changed |
An unconstrained version of Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning (ASCP) application replaces the Oracle Process Manufacturing Material Requirements Planning (MRP) application. The Oracle ASCP unconstrained planning and scheduling engine determines material requirements and schedules supplies to satisfy dynamic demand. Additional capabilities include: advanced multilevel pegging, flexible replenishment hierarchy, and online planning.
Unconstrained planning and scheduling provides you with a platform to integrate to other Oracle Advanced Planning and Scheduling applications (APS) including Oracle Collaborative Planning (CP) to increase cooperation with suppliers and customers, Oracle Demand Planning (DP) to enhance forecast and sales and operations planning, Oracle Inventory Optimization (IO) for advanced inventory optimization, and Oracle Global Order Processing (GOP) for enhanced order promising.
The following features replace the Oracle ASCP product that existing OPM customers who are upgrading as well as new customers receive as a replacement for OPM MRP:
Replacement for P/MRP
Single-Org Unconstrained Plan ASCP
Single instance - no separate Planning Server
Replacement for P/MRP
Multi-Org Unconstrained Plan ASCP
Single instance - no separate Planning Server
Not Licensed or Licensed CBO
Multi-Org Unconstrained or Constrained Plan ASCP
Option to have a separate Planning Server
Not Licensed or Licensed CBO
Multi-Org Unconstrained or Constrained Plan ASCP
Option to have a separate Planning Server
The following table summarizes changes in concepts and terminology for Planning:
| Before the Upgrade | After the Upgrade |
|---|---|
| Shop calendar | Workday calendar |
| OPM MRP reports re4placed by the Oracle ASCP Supply Chain Planning Detail Report: Bucketed Material, Material Activity, Action Messages, Error Messages | The Oracle ASCP Supply Chain Planning Detail Report replaces the indicated OPM MRP reports |
| OPM Reorder Point Report | Oracle Inventory Reorder Point Report |
| Batches | Work orders |
| Batch status | Work order status |
| Firm jobs | Firm work orders |
| Move work order to PIP functionality not available | Move work orders to PIP |
| Profile options | Profile options and organization parameters |
Changes made to the Oracle Inventory and OPM System Administration applications support process manufacturer users of Oracle Inventory. Therefore, the need for a separate OPM System Administration application is diminished. Many of the functions in the OPM System Administration are replaced by Oracle Inventory procedures and routines. For reference purposes, the OPM System Administrator windows are query-only and cannot be updated.
A new window has been added for users to set up and initiate the migration of data. The data can be validated in a new log report.
The following table summarizes changes in concepts and terminology to OPM System Administrator:
| Before the Upgrade | After the Upgrade |
|---|---|
| Profile options | Profile options and organization parameters |
| Look Up window | Process Manufacturing System Lookup |
Oracle Subledger Accounting replaces the Manufacturing Accounting Controller to generate journal entries in Oracle General Ledger. The Subledger Accounting product is designed to provide greater flexibility and to streamline setups. SLA is a single source for both process and discrete manufacturing organizations. For additional information, refer to the Subledger Accounting section of this document.
OPM Cost Management continues to capture costs for all transactions in a process-enabled organization are provided by OPM Cost Management. There is complete support for material transfers between process and discrete organizations.
The following table summarizes changes in concepts and terminology to OPM Cost Management and Oracle Subledger Accounting:
| Before the Upgrade | After the Upgrade |
|---|---|
| Company | Legal entity |
| Cost method | Cost types |
| Burdens | Fixed overheads |
| Percentage burdens | Percentage overheads |
| PM batch detail (actual cost transaction view) | Production batch |
| PCO account | COGS account |
| Inventory close (in OPM Inventory Control) | Period Close for Process Inventory Organizations |
| Subsidiary Ledger Update program | OPM Accounting Pre-Processor and Subledger Accounting programs |
| GL Export | The export to GL is available as an option while running the Create Accounting program |
| Acquisition costs | Freight and special charges |
| Inventory Valuation report (in OPM Inventory Control) | Inventory Valuation report for process inventory organizations (in OPM Financials) |
Differences in functionality resulting from separate inventory models for process and discrete applications are now removed from the Logistics product areas. Additional process logistics capabilities, formerly available only to discrete, such as vendor managed and consigned inventory, international drop shipments, shared services and global procurement are now available.
For those companies using WMS, Oracle Receiving will also have the capability to put material into LPNs, use putaway rules and create labels (if using Oracle Process MES Operations). Process industries can also use WMS functionality in MSCA since the product supports both secondary quantities and grade.
Lastly, Oracle Purchasing for OPM Receiving has a tighter integration to OPM Quality Management. A two stage inspection process provides the ability to view sample acceptability and visual inspection results directly from the receiving window. Oracle Quality is leveraged to define skip receipt parameters and sampling plan criteria based on ANSI/ASQC standards or user-defined rules.
Most of the changes in Oracle Process Manufacturing Regulatory Management enable multi-organization access to information. The Dispatch History window, Dispatch History Report, Regulatory Item Information window, and Workflow Notifications show the organization context information and uptake the common inventory model. Organization context restricts record query and item validation. Inbound and outbound XML messages also incorporate organization as one of the elements.
UN Numbers and Hazard Classes are now maintained in the Oracle Purchasing product and CAS Numbers are maintained on the common item master.
The following table summarizes changes in concepts and terminology to OPM Regulatory Management:
| Before the Upgrade | After the Upgrade |
|---|---|
| Item Version | Item Revision |
| Actual Hazard | Actual Hazard % |
| Primary CAS Number | CAS Number |
| Stand-alone formula | OPM Product Development formula with regulatory validity rule type |
| Regulatory item | Items in Oracle Inventory with Regulatory flag |
OPM MSCA now supports the following additional transactions:
Create and update batch reservations in OPM Process Execution
Oracle Manufacturing Execution System for Process Manufacturing:
Update actual resource usage
Ingredient issue
Ingredient return
Product completion
Product return
Incremental backflush
Create pending product lot
Update pending product lot
Technology changes enable all e-record and e-signature features available in the Forms technology stack to be supported for the Oracle Applications Framework Forms technology stack. Also a mobile e-signature framework enables e-signatures on mobile devices. Improvements to streamline the approval setup include one-step data setup validation, role based approvals and the ability to leverage XML from multiple sources for e-record generation.
Additional capabilities to streamline the approval process include the ability to do a before and after comparison through redlining, expediting the process through parallel or simultaneous signatures and “first responder wins” functionality. The number of window that a user needs to few has also been decreased to a single step.
Prior to this release, Oracle Process Manufacturing had its own inventory control system, which maintained a central Item Master, tracked inventory in two units of measure, provided grade control, status control, and lot and sublot numbers.
Prior features are added to Oracle Inventory. The Oracle Process Manufacturing application now relies on a core inventory system–a single model of inventory for both process and discrete organizations. This provides for a single inventory view throughout the supply chain. One central Item Master becomes the source of item creation and maintenance. It is also a repository for all item attributes.
Common inventory is the centralization of all inventory tracking. Oracle Inventory contains inventory balances, transactions, and reservations.
Consigned and vendor-managed inventory are also tracked in this application. For process manufacturers, all of the Oracle Process Manufacturing applications now use Oracle Inventory for their inventory information, and no balances or transactions are maintained in OPM Inventory Control.
Historical information can be viewed in OPM Inventory Control, but current balances reside in Oracle Inventory and transactions are executed in Oracle Inventory.
The following OPM Inventory concurrent programs are disabled:
Synchronize all OPM Items
Synchronize all Process Inventory Organization
Synchronize all Stock Locators for Process Organizations
GMI Purge Empty Balance
Move Order Line Auto Alloc and Confirm
Purge Empty Balances
Inventory Close is now available under the OPM Financials responsibility as Period Close for Process Inventory Organizations
The following OPM Logistics concurrent programs are disabled:
Purge OPM Txns and Move Order Lines
Reprocess Internal Order Receipts
Auto Alloc and Confirm
Following are the OPM Inventory public APIs packages. Package bodies for the APIs are dropped and files stubbed. Signatures of APIs are retained. This ensures that any code which calls these APIs get successfully compiled but due to missing package body errors are raised during runtime:
GMIPAPI
GMI_TRANS_ENGINE_PUB
GMIPDX
Transfer API
Following are the obsolete features in OPM Regulatory Management:
Several fields are desupported
Stand-alone formulas are no longer supported
The OPM MRP application is obsolete and the following features are not supported by Oracle ASCP:
Replenishment method specific order modifiers
Multiple transfer types
Resizing/Rescheduling suggestions
Dynamic Bucketing
Dual unit of measures
In addition, the following features are obsolete:
The OPM Manufacturing Accounting Controller application is now obsolete. It is replaced with the OPM Subledger Accounting application
The organization structure used earlier by OPM prior to this release is now replaced with the organization structure used across the E-Business Suite and is applicable for all process-enabled organizations. To ensure compliance with the organization structure, the costing entities that were at the OPM Company level such as Cost Rollup and Actual Cost Calculation are now mapped to the Legal Entity level.
Sales Order Reservations menu option is obsolete.
The OPM Logistics applications support the common Inventory application. In OPM Order Fulfillment, you can view historical data in query-mode.
All Oracle E-Record features, which were available in the Forms Tech Stack, are now supported for the Oracle Applications Framework Forms Tech Stack.
Hold Reasons are now obsolete.
Profile options are now referred to as system parameter.
Changes for Oracle Product Lifecycle Management are described in this section.
In prior releases, you could only update structure attributes for common structures (also known as common bills of material) in the source bill. Now, five structure attributes are editable, and can have different values from the source bill.
The five attribute fields are: Operation Seq, Include in Cost Rollup, and three material control attributes (Supply Type, Subinventory, and Locator). You can choose to change these attributes when you create a new common structure, change an existing common structure, or add or update a common structure when using the Bill Import open interface program.
Note: See Common Bills and Routings in Oracle Bills of Material User’s Guide.
The advanced search function has been enhanced so that searches using the operator “contains” are now case-insensitive.
Columns created within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet during the information export process now match the column formats of the display format selected.
In prior releases, when assigning items to organizations, some of the item primary attributes were defaulted from the master item during organization assignment and could not be changed. In this release, you can now edit the following attributes during organization assignment:
Tracking
Pricing
Secondary Unit of Measure
Defaulting
Positive Deviation Factor
Negative Deviation Factor
Oracle Service Contracts provides a complete contract authoring and execution solution to manage warranties, extended warranties, usage and subscription based services. Service providers can leverage entitlement verification checks to accurately determine the level of service available to customers via call center support, depot repair or field service processes. Accurate pricing and flexible billing options ensure customers receive accurate invoices. An automated renewal process improves revenue by guiding customers and sales representatives through upcoming renewals, ensuring un-interrupted service for customers while minimizing service revenue leakage for service providers.
Changes for Oracle Service Contracts are described in this section.
Businesses require flexibility for defining how pricing, billing and termination amounts are calculated for partial periods. Some businesses base partial period calculations on fixed 30-day months, 90-day quarters and 360-day years. Others prefer to calculate partial periods based on the actual number of days within a period.
To use this new feature, you need to define the way you wish the partial period to be calculated in the Global Contracts Defaults form. For example, you will need to define whether the application counts whole periods from the start date of the service, or based on the full calendar months that span the duration. Periods can be defined based on a fixed quantity, for example, 30 days per month, or based on the actual number a days in each period.
Note: See Oracle Service Contracts User’s Guide for more information.
At time of contract renewal, customers sometimes elect to discontinue one or more services on a contract. The ability to track cancellation details for individual service lines or covered levels improves management’s ability to evaluate renewal rates and cancellation rates, providing insight into the reasons behind changes in renewal rates.
To use this new feature you may need to set up additional statuses to track the reasons for cancellation. Use the Status and Operations form to define extra statuses as necessary under the Entered and Canceled status types.
Note: See Oracle Service Contracts User’s Guide for more information.
The standard contract approval workflow is integrated with Oracle Approvals Management to drive the approval process. Standard Approvals Management features, such as rules-based approval routing and definition of approval groups, are supported.
To use this new feature, you need to set up the Oracle Approvals Management engine defining the approval rules, approval groups and hierarchy as necessary to support your business.
Note: See Oracle Service Contracts Implementation Guide for more information.
Multi-Org Access Control (MOAC) enables companies that have implemented a Shared Services operating model to access, process, and report on data for an unlimited number of operating units within a single applications responsibility. Users are no longer required to switch applications responsibilities when processing transactions for multiple operating units. Data security is maintained using security profiles that determine the data access privileges associated to responsibilities granted to a user.
To use this new feature, you may need to define or change your setup for organization hierarchies. You must define security profiles and assign operating units, and assign a security profile to each responsibility and a default operating unit to your users.
Note: See Oracle Service Contracts Implementation Guide for more information.
Some service providers standardize their service offerings across their customer base, while others tailor complex service programs to meet the needs of specific customers. In this release, service providers who standardize their offerings can define standard coverage that can be referenced by services sold in contracts.
Updates to the standard coverage are automatically applied to all contracts that include that service coverage, making changes in coverage immediately accessible to all downstream processes that need to check entitlements. Coverage can still be tailored to suit the specific needs of customers by pressing the Customize button when adding the service to a contract.
To use this new feature, you need to:
Review your current set of coverage templates and ensure that they represent the set of standard coverage offerings that your business offers.
Exclude the customize coverage function, Create Customized Coverage, to the set of users that should not have the privilege of authoring contracts that deviate from standard or reapply standard coverage to a service line.
By default, contracts will be migrated with customized or "private" coverage. If you wish your contracts to reference a standard definition, open the contract and reapply the standard for each service line. This reverts to the coverage template currently assigned to the service and removes the instantiated coverage. Or, you can start using standard coverage for new or renewed contracts only.
Note: See Oracle Service Contracts User’s Guide for more information.
Service Contracts is integrated with XML Publisher to support user-defined layout templates for customer communication documents. The Template Setup forms are enhanced in this release.
To use this new feature, review the seeded communication templates and modify them as necessary to support your business process.
Note: See Oracle Service Contracts User’s Guide for more information.
Changes for Oracle Shipping Execution are described in this section.
Beginning with this release, printing of reports in Shipping Execution is not limited to text output. PDF format is now available on various Shipping Execution reports through the use of report templates created in Oracle XML Publisher.
Oracle XML Publisher enables you to define your reports using broadly accepted tools such as Microsoft Word. Within Word, you choose the information you want, where you want it on the report, and any fonts, colors, or logos you prefer for the report. You can start by copying the seeded.rtf (Rich Text Format) layout provided with Shipping Execution and modifying it, or you can start from scratch and define any desired report layout you prefer.
The following Shipping Execution reports are available for PDF output:
Pick Slip
Packing Slip
Mailing Label
Bill of Lading
Master Bill of Lading
Commercial Invoice
Vehicle Load Sheet Summary
Many new attributes have been added to the XML output of the Pick Slip, Packing Slip, and Commercial Invoice reports, including:
Secondary Quantity
Secondary UOM
Lot number
Grade
FOB terms and Freight terms have been added to the Bill of Lading and the Master Bill of Lading reports to provide support for the VICS Bill of Lading.
Note: This new information does not appear on the report’s seeded layouts. It is part of the XML data structure available to build the templates within Oracle XML publisher.
The Shipping Transactions form and Quick Ship window now allow you to view Workflow-enabled shipping transactions. These transactions automate business processes by routing information according to user-defined business rules. You can use them to automate specific tasks and customize output based on attributes of business objects.
Note: See Oracle Shipping Execution User’s Guide for more information.
Pick Release runs pick release processes in parallel. Distributing the workload across multiple processors reduces the overall time required for a single pick release run. You can also specify the number of threads spawned by Pick Release. (The actual number of pick release child processes spawned by Pick Release depends on each individual pick release batch, and on the profile setting.)
The new seeded profile WSH: Number of Pick Release Child Processes is used to determine the default number of child processes. However, it does not have a default value so the Pick Selection program considers this as “1.” Change this profile to the number of child processes that you want to run in parallel, depending on the hardware efficiency and other application constraints at your location.
Because Inventory locks the organization/item combination, multiple parallel pick release processes do not process the same item in the same organization at the same time.
Changes for Oracle Shop Floor Management are described in this section.
Option 1 in Oracle Shop Floor Management (OSFM) refers to the behavior of jobs where copies are not created, and individual operation data is not copied from the Bills of Material definition to job as you move to that operation.
As a part of the upgrade, this functionality is discontinued and automatically replaced with Option 2 functionality.
Option 2 enables you to create individual copies for each job by copying Bills of Material and network routings when a new lot-based job is created. You can hold, modify, and view detailed information for each operation of the job.
Using Option 2, you can make the following job-level changes:
Change the path of a job to any other valid intended path for future operations
Change component requirements or specify component substitutes for future operations
Employ alternate resources using the resource-centric workbench
Use the new HTML User Interface for detailed planning recommendations on the components, resources, and the network path of a job. (You can also make similar changes to the job through open interface tables.)
The WSM: Create Job Level BOM and Routing Copies profile option is disabled and set to a value of Yes so that it uses the Option 2 functionality. In addition, The Shop Floor Parameters window contains the Create Job level BOM and Routing Copies field. It is display-only and always displays a value of Yes.
Note: See the information about Defining Parameters and Profile Options in the Oracle Shop Floor Management User’s Guide.
Changes for Oracle Warehouse Management are described in this section.
The Warehouse Control Board, which enables you to monitor warehouse activity and improve warehouse efficiency, has been enhanced.
You can now manage tasks as a group instead of individually. And, you no longer have to view the details of individual tasks and approve changes manually. The Manage Tasks window replaces the Update Tasks window (use the Manage button from the Find Tasks window). It retains all the capabilities of the Update Tasks window, but also enables you to:
Increment and decrement task priority
Cancel inbound and crossdock tasks
Change the status of Active and Dispatched tasks to Unreleased or Pending
Save, query, and delete action plans
View task count by task type
Assign tasks based on user task type
Execute tasks immediately, or execute tasks in the background
Note: Use this feature with caution. It is not easy to undo committed actions. Managing groups of tasks works best with saved criteria for queries and actions because they are more predictable.
The Control Board-Manage Tasks concurrent program is used to schedule planned task actions. It requires you to save queries and action plans before you run the concurrent request. The system commits actions based on the action plan you select, without need for further input.
The Find Tasks window contains new search criteria. that increases control over returned tasks, and supports the new crossdocking feature. The following task selection criteria is now available:
Crossdock: You can now manage crossdock tasks on the Warehouse Control Board. When you select this source type, you cannot select any other source type.
Item Type: You can now query for tasks based on the item type you assign in the Item Master.
Task Age: You can now query for tasks based on days, hours, minutes, months, or weeks.
Order Type: You can now query for tasks based on sales order type.
Time till Shipment: You can query for tasks based on the time until the scheduled shipment in days, hours, or minutes.
Time till Appointment: You can query for tasks based on the time until the scheduled dock door appointment in days, hours, or minutes.
Note: See Navigating the Warehouse Control Board in Oracle Warehouse Management User’s Guide.
In previous releases, Oracle Warehouse Management restricted the list of fields you could include on the label format to a list of predefined seeded variables. In this release, you can create an SQL statement to add your own variables to label formats without customizing the application. Using the Define Custom Labels window, you can create custom label fields for Label Formats.
Note: See the sections on Defining Label Field Variables and on Setting Up Label Formats in Oracle Warehouse Management User’s Guide for more information.
In this release, you can now group deliveries that travel part of the way together, but do not travel to the same final destinations. With this feature, you can:
Consolidate outbound material across deliveries as well as within a delivery.
Consolidate material in either a consolidation locator, or directly to a staging lane.
Consolidate material into an LPN. In this release, the outermost consolidation LPN cannot contain any loose material, and none of the LPNs inside the outermost LPN, whether nested or not, can have material for more than one delivery.
Consolidate material during pick drops, packing, staging moves, and crossdock.
Oracle Warehouse Management integrates with Oracle Shipping Execution to determine if you can consolidate deliveries. In order to be consolidated, deliveries must have a common ship-from address and a common de-consolidation point.
There are five new seeded outbound operation plans for consolidation:
LPN-based consolidation in staging lane within delivery (available in previous releases as LPN based consolidation)
Direct consolidation in staging lane across deliveries (new)
Direct consolidation in staging lane within delivery (new)
LPN-based consolidation in consolidation locator, across deliveries in staging lane (new)
LPN-based consolidation in consolidation locator within delivery in staging lane (available in previous releases as locator and LPN based consolidation)
LPN-based consolidation in staging lane across deliveries (new)
Locator-based consolidation in consolidation locator, across deliveries in staging lane (new)
Locator-based consolidation in consolidation locator within delivery in staging lane (available in previous releases as locator based consolidation)
You can also consolidate crossdocked material. When you create a crossdock operation plan, you enter the appropriate outbound operation plan at the end of the crossdock operation.
Mass Consolidate enables you to perform mass moves from consolidation locators to staging lanes. During this transaction, you can also specify a consolidation locator. You can only perform this transaction on a mobile device.
You can now consolidate material in the packing workbench. You enter an existing or new consolidation LPN, and Oracle Warehouse Management performs the necessary validations. The mobile ship confirm transactions, such as LPN Ship, Dock Door Ship, and Direct Ship, now capture all delivery information and confirm it individually if you consolidate material across deliveries. The Quick Ship transaction also validates and restricts confirming a delivery if you consolidate material across deliveries.
Note: See the information on Setup Operation Plans and on Explaining Consolidation in the Oracle Warehouse Management User’s Guide.
In previous releases, you had to create a dummy strategy with no restrictions. In this release, you can now assign rules and values directly in the Rules Workbench, so you no longer need to create a strategy with a single rule. Other enhancements are:
Assign rules and values along with strategies directly in the Rules Workbench.
Rules Engine Simulator and Execution Trace Log display the strategy rule and value used.
The custom strategy selection API also supports returning a strategy, rule, or value.
Evaluates and processes the first assignment that satisfies the conditions.
The Rules Where Used window available in previous releases was decommissioned because you can view rules directly in the Rules Workbench.
You can now allocate material based on Oracle Process Manufacturing allocation criteria. Additional objects and parameters were added to the rules engine to support Oracle Process Manufacturing. For allocations of dual UOM-controlled material, allocations are made in both the primary and secondary quantities.
Additional objects and parameters were seeded to enable quality specification matching. The system calls an API and returns a Yes if the lot meets the specifications, and a No if the lot does not meet the specifications.
The Rules Engine now supports searching for material in non-locator controlled sub-inventories.
The system can now create lot level detailed reservations for lot indivisible items. The system validates that the lot quantity equals the available to reserve quantity. If they do not fall within tolerances, it does not make a reservation. In previous releases reservations for lot indivisible items were created systematically during sales order scheduling. In this release, reservations for lot indivisible items are created manually after sales order booking.
The Rules Engine will only over allocate an indivisible lot if you enable over picking for the organization. You can under pick an indivisible lot. Indivisible lot consumption is restricted to sales order and manufacturing issues.
Note: You can assign a value only if the rule type is Cost Group.
With the Rules Workbench, you can assign crossdock rules and criteria to objects. The rule assignments can include both demand initiated (opportunistic) and supply initiated (planned). You can assign criteria to business objects that include organization, customer, supplier, item project, and task.
The rules engine now honors serial-level detailed reservations before it applies rules. It verifies the availability and material status of serial numbers. If a serial number fails the availability check for any reason, Oracle Warehouse Management backorders the demand line. In previous releases, the system did not perform validations between reservations and material status. The rules engine also controls the allocation of serial numbers at a locator.
Note: See the information on Rules Workbench and on Crossdock Criteria in the Oracle Warehouse Management User’s Guide.
In previous releases, Oracle Warehouse Management provided opportunistic (supply initiated) crossdocking that was limited to back ordered sales orders. In this release, Oracle Warehouse Management introduced planned (demand initiated) crossdocking. You can use a set of crossdock criteria to plan crossdocking in your warehouse. Oracle Warehouse Management can now compare expected receipts and outbound shipments to identify planned crossdocking opportunities in the warehouse. When the system identifies a planned crossdocking opportunity, it pegs the scheduled inbound receipt to the outbound shipment. The system then identifies a specific crossdocking goal based on whether you want to maximize crossdocking or minimize wait time.
Planned crossdocking enables you to pre-allocate incoming supply to a given demand source, while opportunistic crossdocking enables you to dynamically allocate incoming supply to a demand source on receipt. The planned crossdocking eligible supply sources are:
Advanced Shipment Notice (ASN)
Internal Requisition
Intransit Shipments
Material in Receiving
Approved PO
Oracle Warehouse Management still supports opportunistic crossdocking. If enables you to assign material to a demand source until it arrives in the warehouse.
Note: If you are currently using opportunistic crossdocking, you must create a default opportunistic crossdock criterion and assign it in the Organization parameters in order for it to continue working after the upgrade.
The eligible demand sources for opportunistic crossdocking are:
Scheduled Sales Orders (new)
Backordered Sales Orders (available in previous releases)
Scheduled Internal Orders (new)
Backordered Internal Orders (new)
Backordered WIP Component Demand (available in previous releases)
Warehouse Management introduced a new crossdock criteria window. The Crossdock Criteria window enables you to:
Determine Crossdocking type (planned or opportunistic)
Determine the eligible supply and demand sources for crossdocking
Determine crossdocking goal
Set the crossdocking window
Prioritize documents
Note: See the information on Warehouse Management Crossdocking and on Setup Operations Plans in the Oracle Warehouse Management User’s Guide.
The following features were added to Material Handling:
You can now define automated device messages in the following formats: XML, message with delimiter, or message without delimiter. You use a message template to specify the message format, and then specify the message components and characteristics. The components you can use in the messages are seeded in the system. This list is extensive and covers the components the usual business flows require.
Use the new Message Templates page added to the Warehouse Control System to create message templates. Then specify the message components in the new Message Components page. You can assign the message template to use when you define a device on the Define Devices window within Oracle Warehouse Management.
When the Warehouse Control System receives an error, it initiates a workflow process linked to the reason. You can create a message based on the device response reason. You can create workflow processes based on transaction reasons you define in Oracle Inventory.
Two business events were added to the Warehouse Control System to support Oracle Process Manufacturing: Process Dispensing and the Process Parameter. You assign these events in the Assign Devices to Business Events window in Oracle Warehouse Management.
The Warehouse Control System also added another device type called Manufacturing Equipment to support Process Manufacturing. You assign device types to equipment on the Define Devices window in Oracle Warehouse Management. Oracle Process Manufacturing uses the Warehouse Control System execution framework to invoke the necessary APIs to obtain device responses directly on an Oracle Applications framework page.
Note: See information on Transaction Reasons in the Oracle Inventory User’s Guide. See also Defining Devices and Assigning Devices to Business Events in the Oracle Warehouse Management User’s Guide.
Oracle Quality provides an integrated, enterprise wide, flexible quality management application designed to support diverse quality needs of discrete, repetitive, assemble-to-order, and batch process manufacturers. Oracle Quality is integrated with the Oracle E-Business Suite to provide unified quality data definition, data collection, and data management throughout the enterprise and across supply and distribution networks. Oracle Quality's flexible architecture can support a wide variety of business models and also provides reporting on all aspects of quality management.
Changes for Oracle Quality are described in this section.
This is new functionality introduced in this release that enables the application to communicate with devices on the shop floor and collect the Quality data. A new User Interface (UI) page has been added to enable the device setup. To support this functionality, the collection plans setup window from Release 11i has been modified to specify the elements that are device enabled. A new button on the Quality Workbench enables the entry/update page to read the data from the devices. This functionality is available only for those customers who have purchased the MES product license.
Note: See Oracle Quality User's Guide for more information.
The usability of the Quality Workbench (QWB) is improved in this release to bring a parity between forms and OA pages in terms of the functionalities that include online actions processing and online validations, deletion capability, adding rows and row duplication features for standalone plans, exporting quality results, multi-row update for parent and child plans, and additional features that serve to bridge the gap that existed between the forms application and the workbench application in Release 11i.
Note: See Oracle Quality User's Guide for more information.
The Oracle Quality charts that were based on the legacy Oracle Graphics in Release 11i are replaced with OA Framework charts in this release.
Note: See Oracle Quality User's Guide for more information.
The ERES functionality in Release 11i has been enhanced to support deferred E-Signatures for entering and updating quality results. Quality integration with service request transactions feature ERES functionality in this release.
Note: See Oracle Quality User's Guide for more information.
The following Quality profiles are obsolete in this release:
QA:Action Processing Mode
QA:Receive Web Supplier Notifications
QA:Self-Service Transaction Notification
QA:Statistics Engine