That’s not really a Project !
Oracle Project offers a very tight and out of box integration with other systems, which are typically, operational in nature. Oracle project connects with procurement, payables, inventory, WIP etc to collect the cost that is incurred for a particular project (and task). So basically if users are able to stamp a proper projects signature on all the transactions which are recorded in “operations” system like payables, procurement, inventory etc, the cost collection for a project really becomes very easy.
Given these features of a product, I think it’s not necessary to give solutions only to manage “Projects” using Oracle Projects. By definition we can call a certain activity in an organization as a “Project” when it has certain life time, certain out come of that activity.
However there are certain operations activities which can use many of the features provided by Oracle projects. There will be requirements to
- Define certain cost budgets,
- Need to track various costs against agreed budgets
- Manage the resource allocation and track their work time
- Manage day to day issues collaboratively.
- Measure SLA for various operations functions based on the time required for each issue resolution.
- Ability to allocate over head costs, to each operations department based on certain criteria’s etc.
- Ability to have a proper change management for budget , scope change etc.
- Ability to have standardized reporting for all operations activities across organization.
We can debate that most of the requirements mentioned above which are to manage costs and budgets etc, can be easily managed in Financials system. This is true however when it comes to track resources, issues, SLA measurements, collaborative issues resolution, change management, status reporting features provided by Projects systems can be effectively used.
We can look at providing this project based solution to various operations like
- Govt health schemes monitoring ,
- Banking organizations have need to capture cost including proper overhead costs for certain activities or departments (Cost centers) etc
- Equipment rental business
- Typical services organization, which have to mobile resources for various contracts
- Use the infrastructure given by Oracle Projects to manage organizations Annual Business planning process.
etc.
So basically there are many instances where the demarcation line in operations and projects is very thin, project bases system can be very effectively used to give solutions to manage certain operation activities as well.
