1 Introduction

This chapter provides a functional introduction to Store Operations Cloud Service (SOCS).

Overview

SOCS is a cloud service mobile UI which requires Enterprise Inventory Cloud Service (EICS) as a pre-requisite. It executes operational inventory transactions related to a store.

The application uses Oracle's Mobile Application Platform (MAF) and browser based Oracle JET desktop.

The UI is intended to be deployed on iOS, Android, and Windows 10 mobile units, be it a handheld scanner or a tablet. SOCS supports the following functions:

• Scanning of barcodes (GS1, VPN, item, UIN, container ID) or waving an RFID wand to identify a SKU or container

• Container, item, and supplier lookup

• Inventory adjustment with appropriate reason codes

• Direct Store Deliveries with Purchase order (PO), without PO and against an ASN

• Store Ordering

• Creating, accepting, picking, and rejecting transfer requests

• Accepting Return to Vendor (RTV) request, creating RTVs and shipping to a vendor

• Shipping to another warehouse, store, or external finisher

• Receiving from warehouse, store, or external finisher

• In Store Replenishment from backroom to shop floor

• Management of inventory on delivery bay, shop floor and backroom

• Adhoc, unit, problem line and unit and amount Stock counts

• Customer order pick, pack, and ship

• Item Basket

• Serialized inventory tracking

• Capturing customer extended attributes at serial, item, and transaction levels

• Ticket printing

Business Value

This section describes the business values of using SOCS.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

SOCS allows a user to execute store inventory transactions and provide inventory positions to a customer across multiple stores. This means that no time is required to walk over to a fixed station since anyone with a mobile unit can answer inventory and location positions of an item in the store. It is even possible to look up inventory in other stores within the same workflow.

Real-Time Inventory

SOCS sources its data from a centralized point which is continuously updated with sales, receipt, shipping, and adjustment data. This allows for a real-time cross enterprise inventory view.

Streamlined Inventory Processes

All the processes in the SOCS UI follow a similar pattern which means that learning to operate a single workflow allows a user to intuitively and quickly learn how to operate other workflows.

Assisted Inventory Ordering

Some items require real time ordering review with up to date inventory positions to ensure a sufficient supply of inventory is available for customers. This is especially important for highly volatile selling items like fresh. SOCS supports this process through importing replenishment pre-generated orders and the creation of ad hoc orders based on accurate store inventory.

To make ordering easier, SOCS provides inventory information about last ordered quantity, inventory positions in the backroom and shop floor, days of supply, but also allows the user to review forecasted sales data from the planning applications.

Improved Corporate Control

SOCS can be configured using over 400 permissions and configurations. It is for example possible to restrict the UI from manual entering quantities or receiving processes can be configured to require a secondary person to approve the receipt.

Additional tracking features have been built out to help corporate or store managers to validate compliancy through several dashboards:

• When leveraging GS1 databar functionality (manual or automatic through the databar), expiration dates and lot numbers can be tracked and through EICS we can evaluate which items have an expiration date.

• When printing tickets a log is created for all tickets that have been printed.

• A dashboard exists to enable a user to see which stock counts need to be authorized across a region.

• A store shipping network function allows retailers to control which store locations a store can ship to or request inventory from beyond generic transfer zones that can be setup at corporate.

Full Transaction Views

The SOCS UI does not only serve as a mechanism to scan items and record them against transactions, but it also serves as a management application by allowing managers to look up transactions, view item lists and even edit or change (within a time frame) receipts.

Enhanced Inventory Tracking

Two features inside of SOCS allow the user improved inventory tracking.

Serialization tracks each individual item instance, and SOCS allows the user to track each item instance in any physical transaction flow like shipping and receiving, inventory adjustments, stock counts. This improved tracking increases security on high value items as each time a user touches the item a record is made of the transaction.

RFID real time streaming integration allows for accurate location level inventory. This allows a sales associate to quickly look up where an item is located and have confidence that the RFID tracked information is accurate and up to date when serving a customer. In addition to the real time streaming from a third party system, SOCS also has the ability to execute stock counts with RFID items.

Custom Flexible Attributes

SOCS allows the retailer to capture custom defined attributes at three levels:

• Transactional

  The retailer can define by transaction type what can be captured and if the new custom information is required to be captured or not.

• Item

  By leveraging the GS1 databar, retailers can define by subclass up to 10 attributes that can be captured automatically or manual at the item level. This for example can be leveraged to capture lot numbers, expiration dates.

• UIN

  The Item scan number feature allows the user to capture additional attributes for each UIN. This function is reserved for the Jet client at this point, but it does allow in SOCS to identify a single item instance with more than 1 scannable barcode. This is ideal for composite items with multiple unique identifiers for the same item as a computer with a hard drive, or a cellphone.