Infosys-Oracle Blog

Single global plan for the organization operating in multiple geographies sounds exciting but it comes with its own challenges. The biggest challenge being the system uptime. All the geographies expect system availability for most part of their day. With single global plan for multiple geographies across the globe, there is no quite time. One or the other geographies has day time and are using the system. This makes it challenging to find a suitable time and schedule the global supply chain plan run cycle. It also puts a lot of focus on performance of each program in the cycle. I'll share some of my experiences in the rest of the article.

It is important to determine the region that has the maximum users, most complexity and needs the system up for the most part of their day. Once that is determined, the whole cycle needs to be scheduled around that geography. In case of my client, the decision was easier with 70+ planners in the North America region, 10+ in EMEA and about 5 in the APAC region. Also, the NA region had more complex planning processes as it has 4 out of 5 manufacturing plants and also deploys goods to other geographies.

Next step is to determine the time by which all of the North America users are out of the system and any other system processes are over. We determined 8 pm Pacific Time as the time when we can make the plan unavailable for the users and launch the plan run cycle. The complete planning cycle (data collections, custom programs, plan run and reports) takes 6 hours which means it starts at 8 pm and completes at 2 am pacific time and the system is up and the plan with latest data is available. It is like 10 am in EMEA and they have the system available for most part of their day. For APAC region it is past their mid-day. They get the new plan for about last 3 hours in their day. As their planning processes are not so complex, it is just enough time for them.

It is very important to improve the whole cycle performance as much as possible. Every minute saved adds to the system availability for EMEA and APAC users. Steps taken to improve the performance is the topic for some other day.

Finally, change management was the most crucial part and needs to be handled well. We explained the whole approach to VP of Global Supply chain and got his buy in. He then communicated this to regional leaders. This way we had the consent of all the regions.

Posted by Satish Devani at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Guest post by
Umesh Tanna, Senior Technology Architect, Infosys

 

Oracle E-business suite R12 upgrade is a major project that organization undertakes. Functional, technical and infrastructure administration teams are the primary groups that are involved in upgrade project from IT department.  Oracle Application Database Administration activities are very critical activities in upgrade project that is performed by Oracle Apps DBA. Following are most essential aspects of R12 upgrade project from the standpoint of Oracle Apps DBA.

Upgrade Solution

This is the overall blueprint of R12 upgrade project. Database, application, availability/fault tolerance, disaster recovery, node topologies, performance expectation and last but not least - supported upgrade paths/procedures by Oracle are the important considerations while designing the upgrade solution.

• There is flexibility to choose from available upgrade paths based on the current application/database version.
• If the existing version is very old, then upgrade solution has to first upgrade to intermediate version and then finally to latest target version.
• Similarly, it is flexible to do both database and application upgrade in one large outage or one have choice of upgrading them separately over different week end to reduce the outage.
• If we want to change the platform (Ex. UNIX to Linux) then Oracle provides cross platform migration solution for upgrade.
• Another crucial decision while designing the solution is whether we are changing any architectural components or not as a part of the R12 upgrade.
• If there is no fault tolerance in the existing architecture, upgrade project may be the right opportunity to introduce it for ex. clustering of database (Oracle RAC) and load balanced application servers are probable candidate.
• In many cases where existing operating system version is quite old, in order to upgrade to latest version of R12, one has to upgrade the operating system first.

Perform due diligence of analyzing, evaluating, validating and then designing optimal upgrade solution that incorporates all the above aspects.

Research, Plan and Prepare

This is always self-explaining but is very important. Outcome of this should be documented steps and procedures to perform for upgrade. Give due focus to this activity to pre-empt the problems by proactively taking care of them.  Though Oracle R12.x upgrade manual is available and is the main source of information for this, however, many latest information/finding is published in Oracle support sites and it is worth discovering all relevant information of project interest. For ex. Oracle now publishes consolidated upgrade patch to take care of the problems/bugs experienced during upgrade and incorporating such patch in our upgrade project proactively, makes the upgrade smooth.  Reviewing the Readme, platform specific release note, Oracle upgrade center (A dedicated section in Oracle support site), Oracle white paper, and Oracle webcasts goes long way in preparing for smooth execution of upgrade.

Upgrade Iterations

Upgrade activity is highly complex activity and one has to expect that issues would be experienced that may be specific to organization's infrastructure, set up and configuration. Hence, multiple iterations of upgrade should be planned.  Though based on the overall complexity this may vary but minimum three to four iterations should be planned to identify all the issues, resolving them and recording the fix applied. Iteration is also required to benchmark the various database and other parameters to optimize the execution time of upgrade. Intention is to have subsequent iterations as much flawless as possible and have reasonable repository of known problems/fixes rather than having surprise during go live.

Go Live and Outage Planning

In general overall upgrade execution takes several hours for typically sized installation. It is not uncommon to see this is taking much longer for highly complex and large sized environment.

• Identify the set of activities such as software installation that can be performed in advance to reduce the critical downtime.
• For environment having multiple nodes, plan to complete the upgrade in one node and then clone that to other nodes to save time rather than applying patches in all nodes.
• Merge the patches and then apply rather than applying individual large patch.
• Use the database and other patching procedure parameters that offered maximum benefits during iterations.
• Try to script as much work as possible rather than executing them interactively.
• Plan and execute dry run immediately before the go live to rehearse from start to finish involving multiple teams to achieve maximum coordination and orchestrating entire go live event to perfection.

Execution

Execute with excellence throughout the duration of project.

• Play attention to details. Don't assume or ignore. It may prove costly for ex. One must read Readme of patches to understand the pre-requisites and post -requisites action.
• Keep various tracker for ex. Patch tracker, configuration tracker (to keep recording of configuration item changed), Oracle SR tracker. Such trackers are very useful over complete project duration to have repeatable process.
• Avoid applying manual fix and insists on Oracle provide patch.
• Be extremely cautious doing anything that is unsupported. 
• Perform the technical procedures consistently in multiple iterations to have desired outcome (except those controlled change that is carried out as correction or to optimize execution time).
• Upgrade project is long project.  Keep practice of documenting what you do during upgrade or after upgrade as a fix.

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

What was in vogue yesterday may be defunct today. Most the picking and sortation systems deployed in a warehouse or distribution center years ago may not be able to meet the business requirements today. This is partly due to the fact that they lack flexibility and agility that could be found in current systems. It is during these testing times, when organizations are unable to keep pace with turbulent times, do they think of big ticket investments.

In times gone by, the occasional customer request for special services was not a rule of the game. It used to be processed off-line as one of case, an exception. Warehouses used to always strive for on time delivery. The focus was primarily on maintaining high throughput and order accuracy. This is no longer true since customer delight is the only mantra for success. In today's quick response environment, while throughput and order accuracy are still important, the key competitive factors now are flexibility and agility to quickly and efficiently adjust system operations to changing order profiles, while providing customized order processing and palletizing services - all within a small shipping window.

Let us scratch our grey cells and recapitulate that big ticket investments like replacing the MHE or WMS need a careful evaluation of TEAR factors to assess the ROI. In one of my recent blogs I had mentioned these factors. They are presented below once again for ready reference.

1. Training: The WMS/WCS should be configured and designed in such a way that it crosses the demographic boundary. The screens should be easy to navigate and use and only relevant information is displayed for each user based on his role. It is important to understand that a warehouse comprises operators of all age groups, therefore it important to have systems that are user friendly. They should be appealing and not appalling.
2. Efficiency: The WMS/WCS should be configured and designed in such a way that it enhances the efficiency of operations. This translates to increased pick rates (picks per hour) and fewer user touches per picks. WMS/WCS often replace the batch pick methods with dynamic picking opportunities. This not only enhances the efficiency but also increases the reporting accuracy to the ERP under consideration.
3. Accuracy: This is vital in terms of fulfilling customer orders. Customers have unique remaining shelf life requirements that WMS/WCS can help achieve. WMS/WCS ensure that FIFO oldest components and oldest lots are picked before newer ones to insure product shelf life and eliminate fragmentation.
4. Responsiveness: WMS/WCS reduce the amount of manual effort involved in the warehouse. This in turn in turn implies shorted delays. Since the work orders are assigned automatically the instant that they arrive from the ERP, they are picked within minutes instead of longer durations.

So what is the right time to replace the age old systems? What is that tipping point, to accept the moment of truth? A meticulously thought of evaluation criteria needs to be established. Some of the obvious variables that need to be measured and assessed are:

• Initial System Investment
• Throughput achieved by new system
• Maintenance Issues and Uptime with the new system

Replacement strategy is always associated with a risk. Organizations today also look at getting the best of both worlds wherein integrating new automated order fulfillment processes with existing receiving and shipping operations provides the desired flexibility and agility going forward. It may sometimes prove to be a healthy marriage. So what is the most logical sequence when it comes to strategizing? When considering the options of keep, replace or enhancing MHE and WMS, the most suitable sequence should be keep, enhance, and replace (KEP). What would you keep in KEP?

Posted by Amit Sinha at 4:24 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In my last Blog "Emerging Trends in Publication Industry" I had discussed about new business lines in the publication industry, in this blog I shall elaborate on the solution offered by Oracle EBS to support the new business lines.

E-Content in different format for diferent e Readers (Order Management), this involves order fulfillment being moved out to 3rd party who are apt in converting "e -contents" to the desired e reader format. The publishers own the content and need to provide secured access to 3rd party providers. On receipt of order a drop ship order is created and interfaced to these service providers. Confirmation from the service provider is considered as ASN to close the drop ship orders. This solution relies on EDI transactions with 3rd party and also in providing secured access to service providers to the contents

Access to E content over web, (Service Contract, Service Mode, Pre paid), this business model is to allow customers to have a time bound access to content over web for a specified time period. This can be achieved using Oracle Service Contracts to store the paid up contracts for the access and integrate with a third party Access & Entitlement system to provide access based on valid contracts. These contracts are defined like access to specific contents e.g. Gold Privilege to a content means unlimited access, Silver Privilege means access on during night time. The complexity in this solution is the integration with Access and Management systems to provide access based on the contracts.

Access to E content over web, (Service Contract, Counter Mode, Postpaid), A variant of the above solution can also use Service Contracts in counter mode to keep track of the usage and then send an invoice for the usage to the contract. The Solution from EBS needs to be integrated with a third party system to provide the usage details, and an access and entitlement system to provide access to the contents based on the contratcs

All these solution rely on integration with 3rd party service providers, storing of contents and providing secured access to 3rd party Service providers and user so in any implementation of EBS for publishing house these needs to be factored in the Order to Cash track as different kind of fulfillment for e media

Posted by Shome Shankar Sircar at 7:56 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Introduction

With the business expanding across globes and with manufacturing organizations resorting to sub-contracting, there is a need for organizations to look at procurement beyond their current markets.  This introduces the need for a centralized procurement function for better purchasing efficiency, better control over organization spend, and central and simpler management of contracts with suppliers.  Oracle Fusion Procurement introduces new and better features that aid organizations to better manage their procurement functions.  The following are the advantages of a centralized procurement function:

• Better control over organization spend
• Consolidated purchasing across business units
• Leverage volume discounts by consolidated demand
• Better supplier relationship management
• Single point of contact in buying organization for supplier
• Centralized contracts - easier implementation and better management
• Consolidated measurement of supplier performance
• Reduced overheads

Centralized Procurement in Oracle Fusion

Oracle Fusion uses the concept of Business Units and each business unit (BU) will be associated with a set of business functions.  The model also allows defining relationships between two business units as shown in the figure below. 

 

The relationship between two BUs will be of the form Producer-Consumer where one of the business units will consume the services offered by another.  So a BU with requisition business function can consume the services of another BU that has purchasing business function.

In addition to the relationship between BUs, another important factor that drives purchasing functions is the relationship of the BUs with the suppliers and supplier sites.  In Fusion, a supplier is defined at global level and data related to a supplier can be accessed across BUs.  However, a supplier site is defined at the business unit level.  Each supplier site is owned by a Procurement BU.  These supplier sites can then be assigned to one or more requisitioning BU that the specific procurement BU serves.

With the above infrastructure that Oracle Fusion provides, it becomes easy now to define a centralized procurement organization (and even a centralized payables organization). Fusion allows defining an employee as a 'Procurement Agent'.  A procurement agent will be associated with one procurement BU and given access to one or more or all of the upstream requisitioning BUs of that procurement BU.  An agent can be a category manager, a VP of Purchasing or any other role that a procurement organization chooses to define.  But all procurement related roles will require the employee to be defined as an agent as a pre-requisite.

An agent will then access all requisitions that flow in from the upstream requisitioning organizations that s/he has been given access to.  The Process Demand page (formerly called the Demand Workbench in R12) will provide a single point access to all requisitions that the agent has access to.  The process demand page will allow the agent to either auto-create POs or use document builder to create a purchase order, blanket agreement or a sourcing negotiation as the agent may seem fit to meet the demand.

While creating a purchase order or a blanket agreement, Fusion ensures that the BU that raised the requisition is stamped on the document provided the supplier site assignment has the requisition BU also as the sold-to BU (see figure below for supplier site assignment).  If the sold-to BU is different, then the purchase order or blanket agreement will carry the Sold-to BU name instead of the Requisitioning BU.  In other words, the liability will remain with the organization that will make the payment to the supplier/site.  This is illustrated in the image below.

 

Conclusion
As can be seen from the above illustration, Oracle Fusion Procurement allows an organization to easily model its procurement function based on its needs.  This model allows setting up a basic, straight forward set-up of a business unit catering to its procurement needs to a complex set-up that may address global procurement needs.  Oracle Fusion also ensures that organizations that wish to set up a centralized procurement unit can do so with no issues related to ownership of liabilities, received goods or legal issues related to payment and international trade.

 

Posted by Shankar Viswanathan at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Guest post by
Bhuvaneswari Venkataraman, Lead Consultant, Oracle Practice, Infosys

 

In one of our recent workshops conducted (during February 2011) for a financial Institution, we were showcasing a complete banking solution including  OFSAA for risk Management.  While explaining the capabilities of OFSAA in Risk Management perspective, one key stake holder from client Group posed a question   'Can we check Hedge effectiveness with OFSAA?'   To that, my intuitive reply was "NO. Not at this point of time. But I believe this would  be available in future version".  Little did I know then, that my reply will be proved right very soon?

Oracle has indeed announced their product 'Oracle Financial Services Hedge Management and IFRS Valuations' as part of the Oracle Financial Services Analytical Applications suite vide their press release dated 1st June, 2011.

Let us get to a bit of the background on Hedge Management and its implication in Accounting.

What is hedging?  It is the mechanism or practice of taking position in one market or investment in order to cover up for a risk or loss arising from the original asset.

Definitions provided by International Accounting  Standards  http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Content/pdfs/71166.pdf  (2.9,2.10,2.11 under definitions relating to Hedge Accounting)

A Hedged item is an asset, liability, firm commitment, highly probable forecast transaction or net investment in a foreign operation that exposes the entity to risk of changes in fair value or future cash flows and is designated as being hedged. - Cause for risk.

A hedging instrument is a designated derivative or (for a hedge of the risk of changes in foreign currency exchange rates only) a designated non-derivate financial asset or non-derivative financial liability whose fair value or cash flows are expected to offset changes in the fair value or cash flows of a designated hedge item. - means of mitigation

Hedge effectiveness is the degree to which changes in fair value or cash flows of the hedged item that are attributable to a hedged risk are offset by changes in the fair value or cash flows of the hedging instrument. - a measure which proves if the hedging decision actually provided the effect.

For example, a bank funding a loan contract may be hedging its interest rate risk by getting into an interest rate swap.  So ideally, if the changes in fair value or cash flow of the hedged item and the hedging item offset each other, the hedging is said to be highly effective!

Accounting for derivative financial instruments under International Accounting Standards is covered by IAS39 and subsequent IFRS 7 among many. The increased use of derivatives in the economy has posed challenges in accounting and the firms and regulators had challenging times in recognizing the real profit. These standards bring greater transparency, in the reporting of derivatives and their use in risk management and require  the effectiveness of a hedge to be assessed on an ongoing basis. In normal accounting principle, derivatives are expected to be reported based on the mark-market value (fair value) and the corresponding  gains and losses are recognised in the income statement.  The changes in market value of derivatives brings about a mismatch in the timing of gain and loss recognition  and an increase in the volatility of earnings.  Hedge accounting seeks to correct this mismatch by offering  a different accounting treatment to those derivatives which are used as hedging instruments in the course of the business.  IAS 32 and  IFRS 7, require extensive and detailed disclosures when hedge accounting is used and there are several norms stipulated when and how to categorize hedging instruments and when to discontinue Hedge Accounting for a specified hedge and  lot many criteria to test the effectiveness.

As per the Oracle Data sheet, this product classifies and computes fair value, manage hedge relationships, Monitor and test prospective and retrospective hedge effectiveness, hedge de-recognition and accounting and many other features which are key  requirements  for institutions reporting under IFRS.  Having an underlying powerful cash flow engine which seamlessly runs through the Risk modules of OFSAA where an enterprise's Risk and Performance are taken care   with a provision of  homogenous environment to Corporate Accounting (EBS, FAH) and now contributing to the effective Hedge Management  clearly proves OFSAA to be the most  deserving candidate  in the Financial Services Space.

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

On earlier occasions we have discussed that cross docking is a prevalent practice in the retail industry but no so much in other sectors. During my recent visit to Pennsylvania, I got an opportunity to have witness retail and manufacturing organization setups on the opposite sides of the same road that was laden with dead hedgehogs on either side.  It was an enriching experience as I could apparently see why cross docking as a practice has not caught up so much with the manufacturing players as compared to those belonging in the retail industry. Cross docking practice and flow through practice are much easier for retailers than manufacturers or distributors, since on most occasions the warehouse configuration would entertain a dock door to staging lane architecture. This implies that for a given period of time an outbound door is usually dedicated to a store. In other words it is a "door per store" layout. Due to this reason there is less concern about getting specific products into the truck. Manufacturers, on the other hand, don't enjoy this luxury. They indulge in opportunistic crossdock practices.  This means that they would need to marry up inbound shipments that contain items for customer orders with other items on those order that need to be picked. This is a cumbersome act.

Even opportunistic cross docking comes with its own set of challenges. Especially with those manufacturers/distributors that operate in products that are expiration date sensitive or those products where country of origin is of importance. That includes using FIFO principles, because organizations, especially those in expiration date sensitive industries, are reluctant to ship a more recently manufactured/received product if older product is sitting on the shelf.  This might involve extra handling cost than would be the case if the inbound receipts were cross-docked.

To top it all ERP/WMS deployed pose a number of system limitations as well. The WMS is configured and modeled in ways that it desires the goods to be in a "pickable" location before it can allocate the goods to the DC "orders."  This could translate to design compromises where in the organizations can make the inbound receiving location pickable and then switch it off again. There are other alternatives wherein merchandize could be systemically moved to another location that is pickable in nature. All in all the process is tedious. There are other examples of system barriers where goods received one day could not be allocated for orders until the following day. In such cases the organizations need to have received goods sit in staging locations overnight.

It is a common observation that both WMS and ERP systems have progress to make to really empower crossdock processes. As they all say that IT follows business, system evolution to support efficient cross dock practices is a much needed need of the hour. There is certainly a long way to go.

Posted by Amit Sinha at 4:13 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Guest post by
Chandru Narain Amarnani, Senior Technology Architect, Oracle Practice, Infosys

 

Oracle Exadata has become a buzz word in the industry especially when looking for a solution which can handle massive information of data, managing them cost effectively, and most importantly accessing these data with high performance. The Sun Oracle Database Machine (as it is referred) is quickly getting accepted as the ultimate solution for Online Transaction Processing(OLTP), Data Warehousing and consolidation of mixed workloads delivering extreme performance, high availability and scalability. One of the key enabler of this is the Exadata Smart Flash Cache.

Exadata Smart Flash Cache is the most unique and fundamental technology of the Sun Oracle Database Machine. The idea behind is to intelligently cache data from the Oracle Database replacing slow I/O operations to disk. It is not a disk replacement - software intelligence determines how and when to use the Flash storage, and how best to incorporate Flash into the database as part of a coordinated data caching strategy.

Configuration

Each Sun Oracle Exadata Storage Server (Exadata cell) comes preconfigured with Exadata Smart Flash Cache. This low-latency solid state flash storage is packaged on a PCIe card (Sun Flash Accelerator F20) and each card has 96 GB of flash. Four flash cards are installed in each Exadata cell bringing the total flash storage per Exadata cell to 384 GB. Using PCIe based flash devices makes the full performance of the flash available. Using flash disk technology would limit the performance since flash disks would be connected to a relatively slow disk controller significantly reducing the IOPS and bandwidth that could be delivered. Each cell is capable of performing up to 75,000 Flash IOPS, end-to-end through the database and Exadata Storage Server, which is more than 20X the IOPs from regular disks. [Oracle White Paper, Exadata Smart Flash Cache and the Sun Oracle Database Machine, 05 01, available at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/exadata-smart-flash-cache-twp-v5-1-128560.pdf, last accessed on 31st May 2011]

Key Features of Smart Flash Cache

• Why Smart? - The Oracle flash cache is smart because it knows when to avoid trying to cache data that will never be reused or will not fit in the cache.
• Unprecedented IOPS  - The Exadata Smart Flash Cache enables the processing of up to 1 million random I/O operations per second (IOPS) for Full Rack Sun Oracle Exadata Machine.
• Incredible bandwidth - The Sun Oracle Database Machine delivers 50 GB/sec of bandwidth from flash in Exadata V2 drastically higher than anyone else.
• Capacity - Using EHCC (Exadata Hybrid Columnar Compression) Exadata V2 can store many times more data into Smart Flash Cache.
• End-to-End integration - Oracle has implemented a Smart Flash Cache directly in Exadata storage. Oracle flash technology is tightly integrated into the end-to-end architecture.
• Automatically Managed - Automatically managed without any manual intervention by the user.
• Powerful - The Exadata Smart Flash Cache is the power behind the OLTP functionality of the Sun Oracle Database machine.
• Ultimate Solution - It is the ultimate Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) solution.

Summary

Flash technology is increasingly becoming popular among different vendor products but Oracle Exadata Smart Flash Cache technology is notably faster, notably better integrated, and has notably greater ROI. Exadata Smart Flash Cache is a highly distinguished solution.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet Infosys experts at Oracle OpenWorld 2011, Booth No. 1813, Moscone South

Explore more at  http://www.infosys.com/Oracle/news-events/Pages/oracle-openworld-sanfrancisco11.aspx

Follow us on Twitter -  http://twitter.com/infosysoracle

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Posted by Guest Blogger at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Guest post by
Amit Zutshi, Lead Consultant, Oracle Practice, Infosys

 

How fast things can change and how quickly innovations can alter the competitive and business landscape is playing itself out best in the mobility arena today. Taking a real life example, I was witness to my friend's smartphone search and subsequent order from a manufacturer whom he was shunning as recently as four months back. At almost USD 700, it was not the cheapest phone on the block and hence "value-for-money" was definitely not a driving factor to embrace a hitherto novice in the smartphone domain. Visibly much happier now, my friend can't stop gushing about how his phone beats the wits out of the pioneer in its space. So, what happened in just four months?

The answer to above question lies in a single simple sentence: mobile computing technology has broken all barriers related to "perceived superiority". Innovation in the mobile space is no longer the prerogative of a few design houses or countries; it is a much wider phenomenon. This also brings us to the topic of what the future is going to be in the mobile space, thanks to the fierce competition between platforms and providers - old and new, experienced and not so experienced. Here is what would shape the future of mobility:

Enterprise Applications Moving to the Cloud

'Cloud' to many may seem as old wine in new bottles (after all, we still remember grid computing). However, it is the stability, maturity and cost factors that are driving everyone to adopt cloud as it is getting defined today. Nowhere is the effect being felt as strongly as in the mobile computing space. With Apple's iCloud already offering seamless synching of all of one's mobile devices (from the Apple stable, of course), the tidal wave may have just started. iCloud may be promising just free space and calendar synch capability as of now, but as computing power and applications start making the network their preferred place of operations, a new wave of innovations is bound to hit the enterprise mobile space. We could see the emergence of enterprise application stores offered as a managed service for non primary tasks along with the focus on core enterprise applications getting powered over the cloud and thus breaking the computing prowess barrier of the handheld.

Internet is the only enabler of cost effective distributed computing as we understand the cloud of today, and hence companies still need to find answers to questions on security and how to enable multiple virtual networks to seamlessly talk to enable a glitch free corporate and user experience, but those are problems that are already being worked upon and hence a solution may not be too far away.

Corporates Securing Mobile Computing Environment

Security and usability have always had a face off in traditional computing environments, and the same is being seen in the mobile space too. While corporates would like to improve usability and reduce expenses by allowing employees to bring their own devices to work, security concerns override such intentions many a times, particularly in risk averse organizations. However, as we see many companies taking the leap of faith and allowing 'Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)' concept to reduce costs and increase employee satisfaction at the workplace, we not only have to deal with multiple device specific form factors and renderings, but also the most important challenge that it throws at the workplace - corporate data security.

While BOYD grows as a trend, we would see a lot of focus on not only providing corporate data and applications access across platforms through a standardized VPN of some sort, but also ability to remotely cleanse the device on a time to time basis in accordance with corporate policies.

Portability as a Deciding Factor for Development Platform Choice

We all acknowledge that application development needs to get de-constrained from the platform quirks to enable enterprises to not only to not get tied down to a single platform and device but also to promote BOYD to reduce IT costs. What seems to be appearing as the biggest enabler in the portability space is HTML5. It is emerging as the standard for mobile application and service development and is being supported by all the major mobile web browsers, except Windows as of now. It is also expected to be supported by all the major ERP vendors as a part of their mobile enterprise application platform offerings. Portability, thus, is emerging as a key criterion while choosing the development platform.

Allowing Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) to Enable Mobility

Although this does not count as a trend within the mobile computing and development space, it certainly is one within the consulting domain.  BPR related to the mobile space is expected to gain prominence as enterprise mobility catches up further. What it essentially means is that as businesses realize that replicating desktop applications onto the mobile devices would not work, there would be an increasing need felt to transform certain business areas so as to make mobile computing work for them. A consultant's role as a business transformation enabler would not only mean looking for process efficiencies, but also how those can be merged with increased cost efficiencies that can be realized by efficiently porting the transformed process to the mobile device.

Are we forgetting something here? Probably yes: tablets. Although the growth of tablet as a computing and communications device has exploded in the last one year, this is one area which I desist from calling a future trend, as it is already there for everyone to see. What we may see happening, however, is increased focus on improving the tablet capabilities with the enterprises and their employees demanding bigger screens, better resolutions, better battery life, smartphone synch capabilities. quad core processing with 3D capabilities, constant connectivity with 4G and so on.

While I realize that hazarding guesses on where the next wave of mobile computing breakthroughs would come in from is futile, thanks to having been a party to my friend's smartphone search, it is important to note, however, that the areas touched upon here are going to shape the mobility market for a considerable period of time and definitely in more ways than one.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet Infosys experts at Oracle OpenWorld 2011, Booth No. 1813, Moscone South

Explore more at  http://www.infosys.com/Oracle/news-events/Pages/oracle-openworld-sanfrancisco11.aspx

Follow us on Twitter -  http://twitter.com/infosysoracle

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Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:24 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Look at the mirror directly or through spectacles, you are most probably seeing through it or seeing just the glass. Look deep into it - In all chance it contains sand from Australia, soda ash from China, both processed in Taiwan, manufactured in India using Italian machinery and recipe combination verified in American Laboratories. Each of these processes adds cost towards freight, storage, taxes and duty. Some part of the money you paid was actually for these. As a user you need not know the profitability and margins. But for the manufacturer this is of utmost importance. Normally the landed cost charges are applied to different items based on weight, volume and quantity.

Oracle Process Manufacturing Financials supports Landed Cost management (LCM), a web based application which is part of Oracle E-Business suite and a milestone for customers to track and control the cost of landed goods. Oracle Landed Cost management application is seamlessly integrated with Oracle Process Manufacturing (OPM), Oracle Purchasing, Oracle Inventory and Oracle Payables.

These costs are initially estimated as Estimated Landed Cost (ELC) and then updated with Actual Landed Cost (ALC), as when they become known, allocating them to shipments, orders, and products.  Accordingly the estimate versus the actual cost comparison through LCM workbench would highlight improvement actions on controlling the landed costs. Oracle Process manufacturing customers irrespective of using different cost methods can use the Landed cost management features.

OPM - Landed cost management application supports two basic scenarios of receiving flows. First one is Landed Cost management as Pre-receiving and the other is Landed Cost management as Servicing. Unique selection of either of the flow can be made and henceforth the Organization would operate exclusively as Landed Cost management for Pre-receiving or Servicing. Let us consider a routine procure to pay flow as an example and understand how the landed cost for items are arrived.

LCM as Pre-receiving:
LCM as Pre-receiving is used when we intend to calculate the Landed cost estimation before we receive the goods in Organization with reference to Purchase order. The LCM Pre-receiving functionality has the flexibility of varying the item quantity and price defined in Purchase order. The charges associated with the items are generated and validation is performed manually to derive the Estimated Landed Cost (ELC).  The Pre-receiving details from LCM module are passed on to the Receiving applications and receipt of goods and receiving transaction takes place for the same quantity.

LCM as Servicing:
The Servicing scenario is used when the receipt of items into inventory happens followed by automatic creation of Estimated Landed Cost. The receipt happens with reference to Purchase order quantity and price, which cannot be changed like pre-receiving.  This scenario is favorable when you assess that the landed cost of an item remains constant with known service providers without much variation to the charges.

Through Oracle Payables, the Item invoice and freight invoices are created and matched to the receipt of the item with actual prices. This information is passed back from Oracle payables module to the Landed cost management in order to calculate the Actual Landed Cost (ALC) and the relevant account postings happen to General Ledger. For both Pre-receiving and Servicing, the Actual Landed Cost could be viewed and compared with Estimated Landed Cost. This would help to analyze and control the Landed cost charges. The Oracle Process Manufacturing reports display the history of the landed cost adjustments made to the item.

Without knowing the landed cost of a product and realizing the profit margins would end up exhausting your pocket. These landed costs is usually 30 to 40% of the product cost which may even go beyond this if unnoticed and uncontrolled. Lot many hidden costs would put up your profitability at risk.  The usage of LCM application gives the opportunity to identify areas of potential cost reduction, more accurate product profitability reporting, and increased competitiveness by sourcing of materials from foreign locations.

Posted by Ashish Namdeo at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Objective of my blog is to present the power of empowering and new perspective of ERP implementation that can make the implementations easy.

The success of ERP does not mean to have very tight control in every transaction that need to be performed. Control without affecting the productivity is fine but excessive controls only adds headache for the people performing the transactions as well as their managers too. Let me share my experience in some of the ERP implementations where the employees are empowered and made meaningful decisions for the overall benefit of the business.

Case1:  In one of the ERP Implementation the department manager is very clear to define the requirements as not to impose the approval limits to the buyers as they are supposed to honor the demand that comes from the user department and know the price they need to pay. The approval limits will not only make the buyer limited about his responsibilities and increases the work throughout the approval hierarchy. Rather few reports have been made to know the purchase committed cost on a daily, weekly basis. The belief is that the buyer is supposed to know what he is ordering, how much he is ordering and at what price. If not the buyer is not suitable for the assignment they are assigned with. The buyers have already been approved by way of providing access to the system. Hence additional approvals are not required. This shows the confidence that the organization has put on the buyers and buyers were pride for performing their job without any limitations. This is the power of empowerment that eases the implementation.

Case2:In an another implementation we were demoing basic functionality of ERP and consultants have shown all the controls available in purchasing and payment process whereas not many controls were existed in Order management or sales invoicing process. Traditionally many controls were available for purchase and payment processes and less or nil controls for sales order processes. This made the client very surprised and their business processes requires more control on top line that comes from the sales orders invoicing than the payment process where which controls the bottom line. Most of the sales reps were new to the organization and less experienced. As we know every organization requires control of top and bottom lines. But lack of control on top line can result in no control on the bottom line. Hence it makes sense for the implementation team to put more controls on sales order processes than purchase processes. This is certainly a new perspective of ERP implementation and a shift from the traditional design.

Case3: In this case the ERP team is of the opinion that the there is need to establish a very tight control and provide access for the specific functions and menus for the users including department managers. The sponsor of the project made it very clear to the project team not to spend any effort and introduce such measures. The management was very clear that if a manager does not know what and how to perform his functions is not fit to be in that position. Hence grant all the accesses and leave it to the discretion of the manager to perform his duties. This shows the confidence and trust of the management had in the managers. This is again a shift from the traditional implementation.

There can be many more cases like this where ERP is used to empower the employees and instill controls where necessary only. The lesson here is empowering is the key to the success in the modern times.

Posted by Murali Krishna Somisetty at 8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The Oracle's strategy to handle big data and business intelligence together, has got 3 key players in the winning combination namely Oracle Database Enterprise Edition 11g R2, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g and Oracle Exadata Database machine. Few additional players play an equally important role and those being OBIEE Applications for ERP/CRM, and Oracle Industry Business Intelligence/Analytics applications.

In continuation of the Part I of this blog series which can be referred here http://www.infosysblogs.com/oracle/2011/05/oracle_exadata_and_datawarehou.html, lets continue the journey deep into Exadata world.

Let me begin with a YouTube video that might just open up eyes for the need of Exadata, please refer to the Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qzFFBff34g) for better insights on how Information explosion is a reality.

• From a functional standpoint the critical needs for a Data Warehousing platform are following:
  Faster response time to queries for effective analysis
• Near real-time query analysis without impacting OLTP systems - Data availability, and Latency
• Hide complexity of underlying data sources - Data Integration, Data Virtualization
• Easier maintenance and monitoring - Integration with central administration toolsets

Diagram 1 - Key pillars for Effective Data Warehouse

 

From the technical standpoint following are broadly the Data Warehousing platform needs:
A) Query Performance
B) Fast I/O and data transfers between storage and database servers
C) Flexible Partitioning, various Indexing Options and Effecient Cache management
D) In-Database Analytical processing capabilities and features - OLAP, Data Mining, Statistics etc
E) Effecient Compression techniques which can enhance not only storage options, but faster data scans
F) Support Massively parallel processing which is scalable to handle larger data sets
G) Data virtualization and integration capabilities - supporting variety of data source options

Here's what Oracle Exadata has in the offering, to manage the above mentioned functional and technical requirements for effecient Data Warehousing and Reporting Platform:

1. Query Offload processing in the Storage
2. Smart scans to increase query performance and eliminating the need for indexing as DBA's had common practice in past
3. Smart Flash Cache in database machine vastly increases for various workloads
4. Oracle Database support for Analytics features within the Database (Predictive modeling and other data mining and advanced analytics, Geospatial latitude and longitude stored as geocodes)
5. Flexible partitioning, Bitmap indexing, join indexing, materialized views and result cache
6. OLAP, Statistics, Spatial, Data Mining, Real-time transactional ETL, Efficient point queries
7. Data intensive processing directly in the storage
8. Hybrid columnar compression (effecient compression increases the user data scan rates)

 

In today's blog we will cover Hybrid Columnar Compression technique. I specifically picked this as the first topic, as there's two fold large impact that Hybrid Columnar compression technique provides namely

Ability to retain more data in-memory for faster query results, as compression allows for more space in-memory.

Large compression allows for storage space savings

 

In standard database the typical format of data storage is as follows:

Diagram 2 - Storing rows of columns sequentially in standard databases

 

The compression techniques look for redundant data as one of the key criteria to compress the data. If the above diagram is to be transposed into columns, and then looked at rows as compression there's a better likelyhood of finding more redundant data in same columns that can be compressed more effectively. Effectively the data is grouped by columns & then compressed. The diagram below shows how the transposed database table leverages the Hybrid Columnar compression. This can enhance compression by a factor of 10x-50x, which gives you more flexiblity to bring larger amount of data into your Cache

 

Diagram 3 - Storing the columns of rows as Columnar model of compression

 

There are two modes in which compression techniques help
a) Query Mode - used for data warehouses, with key focus on optimization for speed. The order of compression can be 10x with column based compression. The data scans/smart scans improve proportionally with the compression orders
b) Archival Mode - for archiving the infrequently used data and key focus being on reducing the space. This works with the view that your data can be directly archived onto the tapes instead of via the storage. Additionally with columnar compression, it allows for more data to be available for querying which is otherwise going to be archived and then retrieval takes it own sweet time before it's ready for query.

Next blog I will be covering Smart Scans and Smart Flash Cache options that really power pack the Exadata.

 

References:
1. YouTube video on Oracle Exadata need - Oracle Exadata, are you ready? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qzFFBff34g)

Posted by Yogesh Bhatt at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Big ticket investments by organizations are in vogue. We are talking of huge investments when organizations embark on such journeys. As discussed earlier, these investments make economic sense only when the ROI crosses the hurdle rate. Let us refresh our memories by recapitulating that it is important to understand the initiative's probability of success to achieve the ROI that is greater than the Hurdle Rate. Hence ROI as a number in isolation has not got a meaning unless it is associated with the chances of it being achieved. These kinds of analyses can help better understand the risk-reward trade-off of potential investment.

Keeping, Enhancing or Replacing a WMS/WCS is also one such big ticket engagements. Organizations need a WMS or a WCS when they can justify the ROI such as manpower savings, space, utilization, product turns and customer sales based on the TEAR factors. Well what are these TEAR factors? Before we get into understanding these factors, let us quickly get to know the basics of WCS. I am sure we all are well versed with the WMS but to some of us WCS may be an unknown territory.

A WMS focuses on inventory from the time it arrives at the receiving dock to the time it leaves from the shipping dock. This means that a WMS tracks the inventory movement within the four walls of the warehouse. A WCS schedules, monitors and directs movement of inventory and tends to include some kind of automated equipment control. By definition WCS is an execution system that orchestrates the activity flow within a warehouses. The WCS coordinates material handling sub-systems such as conveyor belts, carousels, and sorters. At each decision point, the WCS determine the most efficient product flow and transmit directives to the equipment controllers to achieve the desired result. Warehouses with automated material-handling hardware often have a warehouse control system (WCS) that integrates with a warehouse management system (WMS) to provide management with a comprehensive view of the warehouse. The WMS is well integrated with the ERP system to ensure that there is seamless information interchanged between the two systems.

Let us now get back to understanding the TEAR factors to just the ROI in such big ticket engagements.

1. Training: The WMS/WCS should be configured and designed in such a way that it crosses the demographic boundary. The screens should be easy to navigate and use and only relevant information is displayed for each user based on his role. It is important to understand that a warehouse comprises operators of all age groups, therefore it important to have systems that are user friendly. They should be appealing and not appalling.
2. Efficiency: The WMS/WCS should be configured and designed in such a way that it enhances the efficiency of operations. This translates to increased pick rates (picks per hour) and fewer user touches per picks. WMS/WCS often replace the batch pick methods with dynamic picking opportunities. This not only enhances the efficiency but also increases the reporting accuracy to the ERP under consideration.
3. Accuracy: This is vital in terms of fulfilling customer orders. Customers have unique remaining shelf life requirements that WMS/WCS can help achieve. WMS/WCS ensure that FIFO oldest components and oldest lots are picked before newer ones to insure product shelf life and eliminate fragmentation.
4. Responsiveness: WMS/WCS reduce the amount of manual effort involved in the warehouse. This in turn in turn implies shorted delays. Since the work orders are assigned automatically the instant that they arrive from the ERP, they are picked within minutes instead of longer durations.

Deploying expensive WMS/WCS are strategic decisions for organization and analysis the TEAR factors will help gauge the ROI better.

Posted by Amit Sinha at 4:50 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )