Supply Chain Upgrade Impact

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:

About Business Impact and Functional Changes

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.

Supply Chain Management

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.

Advanced Supply Chain Planning

Changes for Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning are described in this section.

Distribution Planning

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.

Item Attribute Simulation Sets

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.

OPM Planning Convergence

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.

Sequence-dependent Setup

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.

Gantt Chart Enhancements

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:

Reports

The following Advanced Supply Chain Management reports have changed.

Planning Detail Report

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.

Inventory Reorder Point Report

This report replaces the OPM Reorder Point Report used in previous releases.

OPM MRP Reports

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.

Asset Tracking

Changes for Oracle Asset Tracking are described in this section.

Notification from Fixed Assets

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.

Interface to Fixed Assets

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.

Fixed Asset Update

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.

General Ledger Reversal 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.

Field Service Capabilities for Assets

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.

Contracts (Core)

The following functionality for Oracle Contracts Core 11i3 and later is being discontinued and will not be supported in this release.

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.

Demand Planning

Changes for Oracle Demand Planning are described in this section.

Forecasting Enhancements

Statistical forecasting techniques in Oracle Demand Planning are enhanced in several areas:

Shared Objects

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

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.

Planner Productivity

In this release, Demand Planning has been enhanced to improve planner productivity:

Performance

The following Demand Planning enhancements improve performance in a number of areas:

Re-aggregate Option

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.

Worksheet Performance Enhancements

Performance improvements have been made to the worksheet opening, editing, and recalculation operations.

Net Change Aggregation

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.

Prevent Even Allocation

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.

Reduce Forced Recalculations

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.

View-only Access for Users

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.

Administration

The following enhancements help the Demand Planning administrator more effectively manage the progress of a demand planning cycle:

Collections

The following collections enhancements help the Demand Planning Administrator more effectively manage the progress of a demand planning cycle:

Enhanced Support for Forecast Priorities

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.

Demand History for Internal Sales Orders

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.

Archiving Process for Demand Plans

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.

Depot Repair

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:

Enterprise Asset Management (eAM)

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

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:

A new and simplified window enables you to define Asset Groups, using templates. This is an option in the Item Master window.

Asset Transactions

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.

Maintenance organization and Location Organization

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.

Asset Operations

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.

Work Management

In the Work Management area, extensive upgrades were added to this release.

Usability

Significant changes were made to the Work Order pages:

Workflow for Work Orders

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).

Assignment and Scheduling

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.

Supervisor Workbench

A new workbench was added for the Supervisor role. From this workbench, a supervisor can manage the work of his departments or crews.

Mobile Solution

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.

CFR Part 11

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.

Meters

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.

Preventive Maintenance

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:

Additional Upgrades

Other product upgrades that affect Enterprise Asset Management are described in this section.

Financial

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.

iSupplier Portal

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.

Quality Integration

To support the new asset architecture and the new eAM functionality, upgrades were made in Oracle Quality:

Flow Manufacturing

Changes for Oracle Flow Manufacturing are described in this section.

Flow Sequencing Profile Option

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.

Install Base

Changes for Oracle Install Base are described in this section.

Discontinued Profile Options

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.

Item Instance

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.

Item Instance Mass Update

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.

Counters

The definition of counters and Enterprise Asset Management meters is consolidated, and additional features have been added to enhance functionality.

Asset Transfer to and from Field Location

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:

Support for Other Products

The upgrade affects the way item instance works with other products.

Oracle Contracts

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.

Oracle TeleService (Tangible Asset for the Contact Center)

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.

Oracle Process Manufacturing (OPM)

The convergence of Oracle Inventory and Oracle Process Manufacturing allows Oracle Install Base to support the tracking of OPM inventory transactions.

Inventory

Changes for Oracle Inventory are described in this section.

Oracle Process Manufacturing Convergence

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:

In order to support process organizations, the following functionality is available in Oracle Inventory.

Deferred Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Recognition

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:

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.

Dependencies and Interactions

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).

Material Workbench

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:

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.

Query Changes

In this release, the following changes were made to the Material Workbench query window:

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.

Changes to Support Process Manufacturing

The following changes were made to the Material Workbench to support Oracle Process Manufacturing convergence:

Picking Rule Enhancements

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:

After you create the picking rules, you can use the Rules Workbench page to assign picking rules in the following combinations:

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).

Enhanced Reservations

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:

Supply types

Demand types

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.

Inventory Optimization

This section describes the changes to Oracle Inventory Optimization.

Demand Fulfillment Lead Time

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).

Lead Time Variability

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:

Note: See Oracle Inventory Optimization Implementation and User’s Guide (Doc ID: 118086.1) for details.

Order Management

Changes for Oracle Order Management are described in this section.

Obsolete Profile Options

Here are the profile options that are obsolete. All functionality previously provided by these profile options is now controlled by Oracle Payments.

Changed Profile Options

These profile options have been converted to Oracle Order Management system parameters:

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:

The upgrade migrates the values of the profile options to system parameter values.

Defaulting Rules

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.

Pre-Payments

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.

Process Manufacturing

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.

Process Execution

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

Product Development

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

Quality Management

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

Inventory Control

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

Process Planning

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:

Licensed ASCP - New Customer

Not Licensed ASCP - Upgrade Customer

Licensed ASCP - New Customer

Licensed ASCP - Upgrade Customer

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

System Administration

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

Cost Management and Manufacturing Accounting Controller

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)

Logistics Applications

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.

Regulatory Management

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

Mobile Supply Chain Application

OPM MSCA now supports the following additional transactions:

E-records

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.

Obsolete Features

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.

The following OPM Inventory concurrent programs are disabled:

The following OPM Logistics concurrent programs are disabled:

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:

Following are the obsolete features in OPM Regulatory Management:

The OPM MRP application is obsolete and the following features are not supported by Oracle ASCP:

In addition, the following features are obsolete:

Product Lifecycle Management

Changes for Oracle Product Lifecycle Management are described in this section.

Common Structures

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.

Advanced Search

The advanced search function has been enhanced so that searches using the operator “contains” are now case-insensitive.

Web ADI Integration

Columns created within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet during the information export process now match the column formats of the display format selected.

Item Organization Assignments

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:

Service Contracts

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.

Partial Period Definition

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.

Service Cancellations

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.

Contract Approval Rules

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

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.

Coverage Definition and Instantiation

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:

Note: See Oracle Service Contracts User’s Guide for more information.

XML Publisher Communication Templates

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.

Shipping Execution

Changes for Oracle Shipping Execution are described in this section.

Flexible Documents

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:

Many new attributes have been added to the XML output of the Pick Slip, Packing Slip, and Commercial Invoice reports, including:

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.

Workflow-enabled Shipping Transactions

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.

Parallel Pick Submission

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.

Shop Floor Management

Changes for Oracle Shop Floor Management are described in this section.

Option 1 Disabled

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:

Profile Option Changes for Option 2

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.

Warehouse Management

Changes for Oracle Warehouse Management are described in this section.

Control Board Enhancements

The Warehouse Control Board, which enables you to monitor warehouse activity and improve warehouse efficiency, has been enhanced.

Manage Groups of Tasks

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:

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.

Planned Task Management

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.

Additional Tasks Selection Criteria

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:

Note: See Navigating the Warehouse Control Board in Oracle Warehouse Management User’s Guide.

User-extensible Label Fields

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.

Multi-delivery Consolidation

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:

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:

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.

New Transaction

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.

Changed Transactions

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.

Rules Engine Enhancements

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:

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.

Crossdocking

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:

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:

Warehouse Management introduced a new crossdock criteria window. The Crossdock Criteria window enables you to:

Note: See the information on Warehouse Management Crossdocking and on Setup Operations Plans in the Oracle Warehouse Management User’s Guide.

Material Handling

The following features were added to Material Handling:

Flexible Response Message Formats

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.

Workflow Support

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.

Process Manufacturing

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.

Quality

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.

Device Integration Functionality

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.

Changes in Quality Workbench

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.

OA Framework Graphics

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.

ERES Support in Service Family

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.

Obsoleted Profiles

The following Quality profiles are obsolete in this release:

  1. QA:Action Processing Mode

  2. QA:Receive Web Supplier Notifications

  3. QA:Self-Service Transaction Notification

  4. QA:Statistics Engine