Infosys-Oracle Blog

In PLM world there are some security feature. However in Oracle ERP-Inventory module we lost this security feature. I worked in Process Manufacturing/ Chemical Manufacturing due to Specialty Chemical we don't want to share our Product information with other facilities to avoid business risk/Data Security issues. It's always challenging to restrict access of user who creates Master Product Data in ERP side. Hence we have to use some custom approach or to use different item codes which add more complexity in our ERP solution.  

Oracle has Product Information Management Module is mostly used as MDM tool. However in one of our implementation we used it as add on Oracle EBusiness Module. PIM has lots of functionality but we will talk only about security feature in this blog.  

PIM provides Data security feature at various level

1.   Organization level - We can restrict data access of Group/ Users based Organization. 

2.   Item Catalog category level - Item catalog category (ICC) is one level of Grouping of Items. We can have different ICC in Business like in Computer business, we can have ICC like Desktop or Laptop or Hard disk, Key board, Mouse. Under this ICC we can assign different items which are relevant to ICC. One item can have only one ICC assigned. PIM use this ICC feature as controller in Most of other Functionality. We can restrict user access based on ICC. Hence we can restrict user access under one organization based on ICC.

3.   Item Level - We can restrict access at Item level.

We can achieve Role based Data Security based by using below feature.

1.   Role & Privilege - Privileges determines data access to user like Create/Edit/ View. A role is collection of Privileges. Business roles can be defined in PIM like Product Engineer, Design Engineer and Application Engineer etc. We can provide Privileges based on Role like Product Engineer will have Item creation Privilege, Design Engineer will have Item Update privileges and Application Engineer will have only Item View Privileges. Hence this way we can restrict Product access based on Role.

2.   Group -We can group multiple Employee/ Person under PIM group. Role and Privileges can be assigned to Group. Group can be defined like Business departments e.g. Planning, Sales, Engineering.  This is optional setup feature and we can assign Role to Person also.

This security feature can be effective to external stakeholders like Supplier and customer. Combination of Role and Group or Person, we can restrict access of User to certain functionality like Item creation access only, View Access only. Like shown below example.

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In our Example we have Chemical Mfg Company and it has two product Group 1. Paint Based products 2. Oil based Products. Company Manufacturing in Three plants so if we have to restrict access of user based on Product type and Location/Plant then we can do it as mentioned below.

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Leveraging PIM Role based Data Security, we can overcome Supply chain Data security concern.  Role and Group configuration can be used for other processes or workflow like Change order and Change management.  

PIM is one of best in class Mater Data Management tool. We can integrate various system and publish product data to various system with various best features. Therefore Existing customer or Future customer can implement PIM as additional Module or MDM tool in Ebusiness suit to use its various functionality. I think Process Manufacturing industry should consider PIM for their Data Management Requirements also.  We will discuss about other virtuous feature of PIM in next blog.