Infosys-Oracle Blog

Guest post by
Vinod Kumar, Consultant, Infosys

Telecom sector has been chronically plagued by revenue leakage problems and often seen to be spending the maximum energy and budget on areas around how to not let it happen or in other words having in place an effective Revenue Assurance mechanism. Making it one of the most published area in the industry are the solutions around it yet the clients, be it the newcomers or the old-timers, are often marred by this problem. Not that there are no solution around it but it's the understanding of the solution/product offering and the judicious implementation which makes a solution stand out.

Continue reading " Bridging Two Islands: A curious case of Oracle AIA " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Guest post by
Abhishek Sabharwal, Head- Infosys Oracle Innovation Center

Finally, we are here again on the helm of one of the biggest IT events of our times, Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) 2011. As the feeling of nostalgia triggers in with everyone beating each other about the number of years they had been participating in the OOW, the registration lines grew bigger and bigger. The weather, the excitement, iphone tunes and bustling traffic remained the same at SFO but the event seems to gets bigger and better, with representations from 120 countries and close to 45000 registrants.  OOW started on a Green note of using minimum paper throughout the event, so no more bulky schedule. All replaced by mobile phone apps, and real time online updates...welcome Social Media and Mobility to the OOW...

Continue reading " Day 1 at OOW 2011 : The 'Green' and the 'Machines' " »

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What is perhaps the number one complaint about introduction of JD Edwards ERP or a new functionality in JD Edwards, in an Enterprise?
No one knows how to use it!!

According to one study, effective User Adoption seems to be the absolute best predictor of enterprise software success. More often than not, Enterprises have a lack of focus on faster User Adoption that helps to sustain Oracle -JD Edwards implementations and upgrades throughout its life-cycle. Let's talk about ways of achieving a faster user adoption based upon efficient usage of Oracle's User Productivity Kit (UPK) in an Enterprise.

Continue reading " JD Edwards (ERP) User Adoption made easy with Oracle User Productivity Kit " »

Posted by Shriranjan Gharpure at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Guest post by
Nipun Lakhotia, Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Transportation Management Systems (TMS) have come a long way from home grown systems primarily aimed to reduce freight spend to highly advanced optimization systems. Let's have a look at some of the most sought after features offered by next generation TMS.

Continue reading " Transportation Management 2.0: The road ahead " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Many analysis has been done and many artifacts written about the success of the ERP projects but the question which primarily remains unanswered and less explored is who holds the key to success of the program.

Continue reading " Who holds the key to success in ERP led business transformation programs " »

Posted by Arnab Banerjee at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Guest post by
Krishna Ammapalayam Srinivasaragavan, Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

We are in the era of Enterprise Resource Planning implementations. It's estimated that by adopting ERP systems and best practices cost reduction, quality improvement, staff skills increases too many folds. Also the IT companies dealing with ERP systems receive the maximum revenue and profit in their operations.

Continue reading " Enterprise Asset Management - Emerging trends " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Guest post by
Krishna Ammapalayam Srinivasaragavan, Consultant, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Now a days, industries focus not only on the profit, but also on the safety, morale of the employees and social responsibility in keeping the environment a better place for next generations to come. Above said things can be achieved by adopting quality systems and environment friendly methods. 

Continue reading " Enterprise Asset Management - Road to success ... " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Continue reading " Yes or No to Customization of Oracle Transportation Management? " »

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 4:58 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In today's scenario, organizations are facing many problems in managing content with nearly 80% of the unstructured information, lots of content duplication and spending around 15-20% of the operating revenue in fixing problems that arouse from inappropriate data.

To maximize content management efficiency, improve security and reduce costs, organizations need a comprehensive enterprise content management solution that fits easily with their business processes. Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite 11g meets these demands delivering the high performance and scalability required to face the challenging enterprise content management environments.

Continue reading " Looking for the most cost-effective and complete content management platform? Use Oracle Content Management " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Most Retailers have by now embraced the Internet's effect on their businesses. Earlier versions used to see Retailers creating a different entitity such as XYZ Online or XYZ.net for their online sales. But with the recent phase of Multi Channel Commerce initiatives Retailers are quickly merging operations for procuring, selling and shipping items across the multiple channels. This meant that the IT applications had to quickly adapt and integrate with each other to serve the growing business needs of a seamless enterprise. Oracle has taken a big step in acquiring or developing solutions to meet this growing need of Retailers! This post describes what these new products are and why they are called Edge!

Continue reading " Oracle Edge Products - What are the latest Retail Needs " »

Posted by Venu Kotamraju at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In a traditional manufacturing enterprise, the supply chain works in a piecemeal way through multiple departments executing their own  functions and tracking their own performance. Most package-based IT solutions also accordingly adopt a siloed view of the business and provide disparate modules/ applications for different business functions. Thus measurement of overall process performance becomes tedious as end-to-end Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are not defined, benchmarked and measured, leading to dilution of process-level accountability and view, leading to dissatisfied customers and suppliers.  

Continue reading " Are you able to objectively and quantitatively measure the performance of your entire Demand to Deliver Value Chain in a holistic manner? " »

Posted by Abhishek Goyal at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Continue reading " "Pain Points" of Insurance Industry " »

Posted by Rohit Rastogi at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Traditionally the manufacturing industry is always focused on improving the forward logistics- the focus is to cut cycle time for product innovation, time to market, order to fulfill. This led to optimization techniques of forward logistics through usage of technology. Forward supply chain visibility is a key parameter which the customer evaluates before choosing a supplier in manufacturing.

But the paradigm is shifting gradually. Today's best of class manufacturing organizations have created their own service organizations and are realizing the importance of managing the return and repairs efficiently. There is a considerable monetary value attached to this cycle- and more important it is the loss of loyalty due to an unsatisfied customer because of delay in the replacement/repair of faulty product. This loss can be easily associated with loss of revenue, market share and other financial numbers. As a result leading manufacturing companies are leveraging technology and collaborating with partners to optimize their return, repair, replacement, recycle and remarketing processes.

In order to understand the role of reverse logistics, let us look at the key functions in the value chain which impacts the overall cycle time for execution.

• Customer service management- This involves receiving customer complaints and ensuring service contract compliance, proactive updates on service calls, status monitoring and first hand issue resolution
• Transportation and Logistics- this involves authorizing returns, collecting, sorting, testing, stocking, shipping (transportation) and disposition
• Depot repair- Managing repair, reverse engineering, remanufacturing, reassembly and reuse of salvaged components
• Channel Management- This involves measuring, monitoring, tracking and evaluating the performance of channel partners
• Financial management- This involves managing warranty and financial liability, proper inventory valuation and costing and finally recovery of appropriate costs
•  Sales- Refurbished product sale through promotions and other channels

We need to now carefully examine the factors that impact these functions. Once we understand those we can understand the role of efficient reverse logistics in enhancing customer satisfaction. We will discuss those in my next blog- in the meantime let me know your views and thoughts. 

Posted by Nilanjan Chatterjee at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

One question that continues to baffle the program management community around Training delivery in large ERP implementation programs is when to deliver end user Training? The answer is probably not as straight as you may expect. Let's first discuss the constraints around this decision:

• Go Live Date: If there is a huge gap between Go Live Date and User Training, the user tends to forget what they learnt as during this period they have to continue using the legacy system and will not be able to unlearn some of the old practices and habits post go-live. On the other hand, if the training continues till the last date, you will not be able to make an apt decision towards user readiness and its implications on implementation Go No Go Decision.
  

Continue reading " When is the right time to conduct End User Training in Oracle implementation? " »

Posted by Nikhil Kumar at 5:55 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Typical implementations would tread the wrong path by training their end users on all the modules/ functionalities being implemented using the traditional system based classroom session training approach, assuming that this will make them ready for the implementation. Some of these organizations, who are more mature, may leverage similar approach, however by grouping their user community by departments and having some amount of hands on training. But the fact is, the both ways lack the vision and approach towards a successful Training Program. Even before any training activity is initiated, it's important to understand the target end user population, their current skill sets, the impact of the system changes on their day to day tasks and job responsibilities, and then only a strategy must be developed around Training.

Continue reading " Training Need Analysis, the first steps towards a successful End User Training for large implementation programs " »

Posted by Abhishek Sabharwal at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In my last blog Still waters run deep - Poor User Adoption may cost you your ERP Implementation.. I discussed at length about the importance of ERP training and the need for organizations to focus more on user adoption.  As ERP Implementations mature and grow, the focus on user training also intensifies. While many organizations have started realizing the benefits of user adoption, they often struggle to determine the right budget and the right approach to achieve it.

Continue reading " Road towards Package Adoption and Learning - Comprehensive Training Strategy is your Precursor to implementation success " »

Posted by Nikhil Kumar at 5:02 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Continue reading " Still waters run deep - Poor User Adoption may cost you your ERP Implementation.. " »

Posted by Nikhil Kumar at 5:29 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Generally Utility industry  get mostly affected due to Natural Calamities as  they have huge number of Assets /Equipments installed in the field which are open to sky e.g. Transmission Towers, Transformers etc . Most of the Utility Organizations these days are looking for some sort of solution /help for Disaster Management from any ERP/Asset Maintenance system.

Continue reading " Disaster Management in Utility Industry a solution through ERP, Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (eAM) . " »

Posted by Abhijit Talokar at 5:54 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Financial Regulation is just around the corner, as we try to recover from a near financial collapse one thing is clear that regulation will be become tighter. This is quite similar to the efforts around accouting standards after the collapse of Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and other firms. The Sarbanes Oxley Act was passed in 2002 to address that issue. Most organizations undertook immedate measures to comply to these regulations. Each industry has had its challenges in adopting these.

Retailers in particular have a unique challenge in terms of their financial landscape. Most of their accounting data is spread across at least two sets of systems, Corporate Accounting has to reconcile expense/capital procurement through traditional Oracle/PeopleSoft based applications, and merchandise/trade procurement and liabilities through Oracle Retail/legacy applications. This dichotomy of systems meant that any product for Governance, Risk and Control needs to span across these two sets of systems.

Oracle's acquisition of Logical apps two years ago, created a strong software for GRC automation and intelligence. Compared to Oracle's internal controls manager which was the only application avaiable for implementing controls, GRC Manager gives a much wider array of automating the entier GRC needs of an organization.

Two things make this the right time for embarking on GRC automation, the need for regulation has never been higher and implementing such a product gives the entire top management a greater degree of confidence in managing governance, risk and controls. The ability to proactively identify conflits in segregation of duties and resolve them in real time is a very compelling reason for any organization on jump on the bandwagon.

Two, the product offering from Oracle has matured where it is creating the right solution for a Retail organization by automating across platforms and also integrating intelligence. With Oracle creating a holistic offering of products for retailers, the merchandising as well as the expense business operations can be supported on Oracle products.  This makes the integration of the Oracle GRC product that much easier.

 Oracle GRC might be the right product at the right time to hit the market and with R12 upgrades lot of organizations should evaluate this as part of their R12 strategy.

Posted by Venu Kotamraju at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 6:50 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Project Managers work in a constantly changing environment and are often looking for ways to manage the multitude of data elements within their reach. Typically the data is available, but it is scattered across different screens and the project managers need to spend a long time in consolidating them. This would always mean a customization and would require some lead time for the IT team to develop it.

Continue reading " Spend Time on your Projects, Not on Reporting " »

Posted by Prasanna Kelkar at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

  

  

  

  

  

Acknowledgments for inputs from - Lakshmana Murthy Kodukula, OTM Consultant, Oracle Practice

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

This latest release of OTM i.e. OTM 6.1 offers expanded capabilities in five primary areas:
   Extensions to sourcing, planning, execution, financial settlement and visibility across all modes of transportation.
   Extension of the multi-modal capabilities supported for transportation sourcing by addressing complex-ocean bids as well as accessorials for both truck and ocean.
   Expansion of Oracle Fleet Management with new capabilities that help reduce transportation costs and improve equipment utilization by enhancing the planning and optimization engine for solving complex fleet planning scenarios.
   The introduction of new business intelligence capabilities and additional dashboard reports to drive process efficiency and help measure and monitor 'green' metrics such as CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) Emissions, NOX (Oxides of Nitrogen) Emissions and Total Fuel Consumption.
   "Oracle Global Trade Management”, a new product offering of Oracle delivered within the OTM platform. This new product is designed to support the import-export compliance needs of companies engaged in global trade.

This combination makes OTM the only solution that enables companies to manage their comprehensive trade compliance and transportation requirements, including fleet, on a global basis within one central platform.

By further automating logistics processes and supporting sustainability initiatives, OTM 6.1 helps shippers and logistic service providers lower transportation costs improve efficiencies and reduce their environmental impact.
 

Advanced Fleet Management and Support for Sustainability Objectives
As part of the enhancements to Oracle Fleet Management, OTM 6.1 delivers a new mobile communication platform that improves shipment visibility by allowing fleet dispatchers to capture data-rich information about shipments and communicate with drivers in real-time. The mobile communication platform also enables fleet dispatchers to drive process efficiencies by automating shipment monitoring to determine whether an event requires additional action or support.

Reinforcing Oracle's commitment to the "U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) SmartWay Transport Partnership, the new release includes a 'Green Dashboard' that incorporates SmartWay emission factors for measuring and monitoring 'green' metrics that are intended to offer a baseline for 'green' calculations. The SmartWay Transport Partnership helps freight sector companies reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency through strategies, financing and advanced technologies.
 

All these features are so unique in TMS world and had given a fresh and new look to OTM.

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Globalization has changed the way companies do business. Because of increasing competition and pressure on margins they are forced to have multiple Operating Units /Departments and Projects work together on a single deal, yet the customer wishes to receive only one bill. Parts of the work performed may be billed externally to a customer while other work may be billed internally to another project. These types of business needs require a way to capture multiple project costs into one project regardless of where or by whom the work is performed.

Continue reading " Managing Intercompany transactions for Global Projects " »

Posted by Prasanna Kelkar at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Taiichi Ohno, the father of Toyota Production System says, “Transportation is a waste and has to be reduced”. Transportation within the organization is considered a waste which does not add any value. What many overlook is the fact that transportation does not only imply inside the manufacturing facility but also outside it. The outside transportation can, not only help add value but also act as a differentiator. With many companies implementing Lean Manufacturing concepts, it is of paramount importance that the Logistic strategies are also aligned to it. Let us analyze the different wastes in transportation and how they can be reduced using Oracle Transportation Management (OTM), a Transportation Management System (TMS) by Oracle.

With Lean Manufacturing implementation the supplier and the manufacturer collaborate to tune themselves to listen to the customer demand and produce only what is required. They continuously aim to reduce inventory and create a pull system. This requires the transportation to have frequent truck runs with lesser quantity. Most organizations prefer going for Milk Runs with the right size equipments.

Customers also prefer smaller and frequent orders and this reduces the opportunity for full truckloads and direct shipments. In this case organizations have to look at other modes to transfer the goods. Mostly LTL transport is looked at. In many cases the orders are such that they are not fit for LTLs (more weight or volume) but do not fully utilize the full truckload capacity either. In such cases the planners forget the fact that multi-stop shipments can fully utilize the trucks.

One of the key factors for instantaneous response is proper communication between the carrier and the manufacturer. Visibility of the shipments for various reasons like warehouse planning, customer queries etc. is essential. The delivery times for all the carriers needs monitoring so that the efficient carriers can be identified.

To implement lean transportation, organizations are looking at their transport network very closely. Every route is being rationalized so that better vehicle utilization can be achieved. This exercise needs to be done continuously for reduction in the waste.

For some of the above OTM can be very useful, become partners for waste reduction and make the system lean.

Ø  The schedule for the Milk Run is entered in OTM and the shipments are formed accordingly, helping the manufacturer have several runs for a pre-defined route.

Ø  The planning engine of OTM takes care of the customer order planning. It helps in giving you the right mode with the right equipment to deliver the shipment to the customers at the right time.

Ø  Planning engine takes care whether to build a Multi-Stop, LTL, Direct or a Multi-Leg based on all the constraints on the order.

Ø  OTMs powerful Supply Chain Event Management tracks the shipment which helps in planning at the warehouse and answering customer queries quickly. It gives immediate information about the current status of the shipment. The shipments are routed to the correct Dock so that the time wastage on unloading is reduced.

Ø  Cooperative Routing feature of OTM identifies repetitive routes and helps in determining the right number of vehicles required for a particular route. This supplements the Transport Network rationalization.

Ø  Fusion Transportation Intelligence module provides a means to monitor Key Performance Indexes like number of on-time deliveries, number of late deliveries, total load pre lane etc. These help in making strategic decisions and revise the carrier collaboration programs to make the supply chain more effective and leaner.

Reducing wastes in transportation is one of the key factors for making the supply chain lean and OTM can act as a strategic partner to achieve it.

Acknowledgement: Anirban Roy

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 4:30 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The Copenhagen Climate Summit is grabbing the newspaper headlines all over the world. This led me to introspect about how Oracle Transportation Management (OTM), a Transportation Management System (TMS) by Oracle, can help in making the world a better place to live.

Several researchers have revealed the fact that 15% of the global emissions and 31% of the Ozone release can be attributed to transportation. This suggests that we have a large gap to fill in. Being a Transportation and OTM consultant my first thought was how OTM helps to fill up this gap.

Oracle itself builds products which are “ISO 14001 Environment Management Standard” compliant. It helps organizations fulfill its environmental policies. This led me to believe that the same has been built into OTM as well. The benefits for the environment are plenty. Before we get into the environmental benefits let’s try to figure out the benefits every company is looking for after an OTM implementation. Then we’ll see how the 2 are connected. Organizational benefits after an OTM implementation:

·         Route Optimization without any compromise on delivery dates/time.

·         Explore multi-modal and continuous move opportunities while planning

·         Explore consolidation opportunities while planning

·         Automated shipment execution (includes tendering and visibility) and freight settlement process

·         Automate pool and cross dock planning

·         Reduction in Transportation Costs

What many ignore is the fact that most of the above benefits inherently helps reduce the company’s carbon footprint and makes it greener. Let’s try to break it up.

1.       Route Optimization without any compromise on delivery dates/time –

a.        Reduction in truck miles

2.       Explore multi-modal and continuous move opportunities while planning –

a.       Reduction in truck miles

b.      Reduction in number of trucks

3.       Explore consolidation opportunities while planning –

a.       Reduction in number of trucks

4.       Automated shipment execution (includes tendering and visibility) and freight settlement process –

a.       Paperless environment

The points above make it very apparent that OTM reduces the fuel consumption and in turn reduces the CO₂ emissions. EDI integration for Shipment Execution (204, 990 & 214) and Freight settlement (210, 110) makes the entire process paperless and also automates it. Apart from the above, “Cooperative Routing” helps corporations make strategic decisions on which route to optimize and in turn optimize the fleet utilization.

Want to know how much your corporation emits after OTM implementation? Very soon OTM’s Transportation Intelligence module, FTI, will help in providing a dashboard for knowing the CO_2, NO_X and Fuel Consumption for each transport modes run by the corporation’s transportation department.

OTM TMS is a very effective way to reduce the unnecessary emissions of a corporation due to transportation. OTM combines the environment protection and cost reduction in such a symbiotic way that it not only helps the organizations but society at large.

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 5:31 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Continue reading " Project cost control ... But at what Cost? " »

Posted by Prasanna Kelkar at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 4:25 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

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.

Continue reading " That’s not really a Project ! " »

Posted by Prasanna Kelkar at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Retailers are facing stiff challenges due to globalization, increasing input costs and higher customer service expectations. In addition to this, growing service options from carriers, combined with demand for more frequent and time-definite deliveries are forcing retailers to revisit their transportation planning systems to optimize movement of goods across the distribution channel.

Continue reading " OTM In-a-Box: Demystifying transportation management for Retail industry " »

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 7:43 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In the past couple of years, the world has been facing challenges of increasing business complexities, volatile transportation costs and severe resource constraints. For  midsize Logistics Service Providers and Industrial Manufacturing Enterprises this has created a need for an integrated logistics solution that leads to reduced freight spend, improved customer service and hence increased profits.

Continue reading " Infosys OTM Fixed Price Offerings: An Oracle Accelerate Solution " »

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Most of the organizations are typically used to tracking project progress based on % cost spent. Moving to a detailed, sophisticated and integrated Project management solution certainly poses a major “change management” challenge. In this blog lets look at few points which implementation team can keep in mind to address this effectively.

Continue reading " Change Management challenges in Projects solutions implementation. " »

Posted by Prasanna Kelkar at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In the last decade, the emergence of e-commerce coupled with the rise in smaller and more frequent orders has made parcel shipping operations one of the key functions of transportation management.

Continue reading " Making Parcel Shipments work in OTM " »

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Are you looking for a tool that ensures maximum convergence of the best-of-breed Oracle applications deployed at your enterprise?

Let’s discuss how Oracle Process Integration Packs (PIPs) not only offer out-of-the-box process integration solutions to composite industry processes, but also cut deployment times significantly.

Posted by Malay Kumar at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Continue reading " Is my CAD vendor the natural choice for PLM? " »

Posted by Krithivasan S at 6:36 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Oracle Mobile Supply Chain Applications architecture empowers users to achieve new levels of productivity and accuracy. At the same time flexibility of this module along with features of hand held devices available in market makes the system extremely easy to use. Functions required for all transactions can be performed either using RF scanners (with barcodes) or through an Oracle form on hand held device.

Following are some of the key benefits which drive Operational Excellence by implementation of MSCA (Mobile Supply Chain Applications) are:

MSCA comes with standard screens on hand held devices for doing receiving transactions, manufacturing transactions, shipping transactions, inventory transactions and quality data entry. Standard MSCA screens will have a lot of fields which may or may not be used by an operator. It is one of the critical steps in an MSCA implementation to identify in each transaction screen which fields are required and which ones can be removed. MSCA provides option to customize the screens and have only the fields required in a preferred sequence for transactions. This goes hand in hand with design of key documents used in shop floor like Work order, Receipt traveler, Pick slip and any other traveler used during transaction. On these documents identify the key fields which are used for data entry and barcode them.

Oracle Warehouse Management module can be implemented in addition to MSCA to write additional rules which will optimize the travel time and further improve Operational efficiency. It also supports cross docking, flexible label printing, task assignments and LPN (License Plate Number) support for transactions. One of the prerequisite for implementing Oracle Warehouse Management module is using Stock locators and implementation of MSCA. Hence make sure if MSCA is implemented as standalone module locators are enables.

Posted by Srikanth Sripathi at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

EAM system has a broader impact apart from its core function of work scheduling and asset management, which includes financial, inventory and workforce management. Since these functions are also covered by ERP applications, there are inefficiencies when EAM and ERP are operated as standalone systems without the ability to share information.

1. How to overcome these efficiencies and what’s the best way to leverage niche functionalities offered by ERP package & EAM packages?

2. What are the options of integrating best of breed ERP application which manages supply chain, human resources, and financials with work asset management functions of EAM based on the merit of the package?

In my opinion to answer the above question we need to understand why EAM applications are of strategic importance to Power Generation utility companies even though they already have an ERP system to manage their back office functions.

Continue reading " Integrating EAM applications with ERP applications - The need for it " »

Posted by Ashish Anand at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

In continuation with the entry here

Standardised project management process
Utilities have a trend of growing through acquiring other companies and hence the project management processes are likely to vary within their business.  For e.g., an organisation that took over a contracting company that specialises in executing rechargeable jobs is likely to have its processes and systems for managing rechargeable jobs different form the rest of the business - unless there is a conscious effort to homogenize the processes.  The project centric solution design addresses this by mapping the processes to the job classification available out of the box in Oracle ie., direct and indirect jobs  Also project management templates can be defined to ensure that the projects are defined in a specific way that is aligned with other projects in the organisation. This substantially reduces the time required by the engineers and/or planners to create projects in Oracle.  In some cases (Large capital projects), the project are likely to be created in best of breed project management software like Primavera or MS Projects etc.,.  The out of the box interface available in Oracle eBusiness suite can be used to reduce the need to duplicate effort in entering project data into Oracle.  With this, the process, the resource assignment and budgeting are the only processes that need to be done in Oracle eBusiness suite, whilst the other core project management processes are managed in the actual Project management suite.

Continue reading " Providing visibility to your large projects through a Project centric solution " »

Posted by Ismail Syed Mohammad at 9:24 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )