EBS 122 Cum RCD VCP

ORACLE E-BUSINESS SUITE
RELEASE CONTENT DOCUMENT

Value Chain Planning
Releases 12.1 and 12.2
Prepared by Oracle E-Business Suite Product Development
Last Updated:
September 15, 2016
Copyright 2011, 2016, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
1.
Disclaimer
2.
Introduction
2.1.
Purpose of Document
3.
New and Changed Features in Value Chain Planning
3.1.
3.2.
Oracle Value Chain Planning
3.1.1. Release 12.1.1

3.1.1.1.
Backward Compatibility to 11i10
3.1.2. Release 12.2.5
3.1.2.1.
New Look and Feel Based on Alta Skin
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Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center
3.2.1. Product Overview

3.2.2. Release 12.1.1
3.2.2.1.
Sales and Operations Planning Dashboard
3.2.2.2.
Supply Chain Analyst Dashboard
3.2.2.3.
Analytical Framework
3.2.2.4.
Scenario Management
3.2.2.5.
Supply Chain Planning Web Services
3.2.2.6.
Seeded BPEL Processes
3.2.2.7.
Process Automation
3.2.2.8.
Activity Management
3.2.3. Release 12.1.2
3.2.3.1.
Compatibility with 11.5.10 Planning Server
3.2.3.2.
Integration to Third Party Planning Systems
3.2.3.3.
Ability to Run APCC Standalone
3.2.3.4.
Rich User Interface Enhancements
3.2.4. Release 12.1.3
3.2.4.1.
Analysis of Inventory and Service Levels
3.2.4.2.
Analysis of Excess and Obsolescence
3.2.4.3.
Enhanced Sales and Operations Planning Dashboard
3.2.4.4.
Supply Chain Risk Management Dashboard
3.2.4.5.
Revenue Gap Analysis
3.2.4.6.
Collaboration Workspaces for Unstructured Collaboration
3.2.4.7.
Enhanced Exceptions Analysis
3.2.4.8.
Integration with Rapid Planning
3.2.4.9.
Plan Versus Collected Data Comparison
3.2.5. Release 12.1.3+
3.2.5.1.
New Dimension End Item
3.2.5.2.
New Dimension Parent Model
3.2.5.3.
ASCP Material Plan
3.2.5.4.
ASCP Resource Plan
3.2.5.5.
Item Simulation Set Window
3.2.5.6.
ASCP Orders Window
3.2.5.7.
Related Exceptions
Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document
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3.3.
3.2.5.8.
Launch Plan
3.2.5.9.
Parallel Processing of Plan Archival
3.2.5.10.
Configurable Time Levels During Plan Archival
3.2.5.11.
Turn Off Archival of Complex Measures
3.2.5.12.
Configurable Currency Conversions
3.2.6. Release 12.2
3.2.6.1.
Plan-specific Forecasting Measures
3.2.6.2.
Custom Series from Demantra DM and RT S&OP
3.2.6.3.
Support for Custom Demantra Product Hierarchy
3.2.6.4.
Integration with Distribution Planning
3.2.7. Release 12.2.4
3.2.7.1.
Custom Hierarchies
3.2.7.2.
Custom Measures
3.2.7.3.
Projected On Hand
3.2.7.4.
Total Demand Fulfilled
3.2.7.5.
Build Plan
3.2.7.6.
Order Details
3.2.7.7.
Archive DRP Plans to APCC
3.2.7.8.
Support for Predictive Trade Planning Measures
3.2.1. Release 12.2.4.1
3.2.1.1.
High Volume Detailed Reporting
3.2.2. Release 12.2.5
3.2.2.1.
Support for Multiple Manufacturing Calendars
3.2.2.2.
Support for Additional Category Sets
3.2.2.3.
Enhancements to New Material Plan
3.2.2.4.
Project Driven Supply Chain Dashboard
3.2.2.5.
Supply Chain Analyst Dashboard Enhancements
3.2.2.6.
New OBIEE Versions
3.2.3. Release 12.2.6
3.2.3.1.
Policy Planning Dashboard
3.2.3.2.
Support for creating APCC scenarios with multiple SPP Plans
3.2.3.3.
New Profile Option to specify Category Set for Policy Planning dashboard
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Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning
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3.3.1. Release 12.1.1

3.3.1.1.
Oracle Transportation Management Integration
3.3.1.2.
Optimization Enhancements
3.3.1.3.
Contiguous Processing
3.3.1.4.
Minimum Remaining Shelf Life
3.3.1.5.
Distribution Planning Scalability Enhancements
3.3.1.6.
End Item Substitution Enhancements
3.3.1.7.
Production Schedules as Inputs
3.3.1.8.
Safety Lead Time
3.3.1.9.
Customization of Horizontal Plan
3.3.1.10.
Supply Tolerancing Enhancements
3.3.1.11.
Buy Order Processing Lead Time Backward Compatibility
3.3.2. Release 12.1.2
3.3.2.1.
Release Recommendations for Internal Requisitions
3.3.2.2.
Turn Off Planned Order Creation
3.3.2.3.
Consume Purchase Orders in First In, First Out Sequence
3.3.3. Release 12.1.3
3.3.3.1.
Forecast Spreading Based on Shipping Calendar
3.3.3.2.
Excluding Planned Orders from Supply Tolerancing
3.3.3.3.
Maximize Use-Up of Substitute Components
3.3.3.4.
Distribution Planning Enhanced Order Modifier Support
3.3.4. Release 12.1.3+
3.3.4.1.
Forecast Explosion Enhancements
3.3.4.2.
Collections Enhancements for Asset Intensive Planning
3.3.4.3.
Maintenance Plan Inputs to ASCP
3.3.4.4.
Returns Forecast
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3.4.
3.3.4.5.
Repair Planning
3.3.4.6.
Respect CMRO Reservations
3.3.4.7.
New Order Types for Asset Intensive Planning
3.3.4.8.
New Supply/Demand Attributes for Asset Intensive Planning
3.3.4.9.
Horizontal Plan Enhancements for Asset Intensive Planning
3.3.4.10.
Exceptions for Asset Intensive Planning
3.3.4.11.
Release Enhancements for Asset Intensive Planning
3.3.4.12.
Display of Recipe Information
3.3.4.13.
Integration to Rapid Planning
3.3.4.14.
New Material Plan
3.3.4.15.
New Resource Plan
3.3.4.16.
Customized Demand and Supply Export to Excel
3.3.4.17.
Enhanced Consideration of Recipe Effectivity Dates
3.3.4.18.
Post-processing Lead Time for Make Orders
3.3.4.19.
Forecast Spreading Based on User-defined Calendar
3.3.4.20.
Maintenance Work Order Aggregation
3.3.4.21.
Critical Path Information in Enforce Demand Due Date Plans
3.3.4.22.
Profile Option to Enable Post-processing Lead Time for Make Orders
3.3.4.23.
Minimum Remaining Shelf Life for Forecasts
3.3.4.24.
Parallel Collections
3.3.5. Release 12.2
3.3.5.1.
Supplier Capacity Consumption Enhancement
3.3.5.2.
Enhanced Exception Management
3.3.5.3.
Access to Advanced UI Screens from EBS Navigator
3.3.5.4.
Enhanced Access to Advanced UI Screens from Planner Workbench
3.3.6. Release 12.2.4
3.3.6.1.
Support for Premium Resource Capacity Constraints
3.3.6.2.
Support for Warehouse Capacity Constraints
3.3.6.3.
Minimum Remaining Shelf Life (MRSL) Enhancements
3.3.6.4.
Enforcing Process Effective Dates
3.3.7. Release 12.2.4.1
3.3.7.1.
Integration between Primavera P6 and Advanced Supply Chain Planning
3.3.7.2.
Minimum Remaining Shelf Life for Distribution Planning
3.3.8. Release 12.2.5
3.3.8.1.
Maximize Resource Utilization in Day Level Planning
3.3.8.2.
Collections Filters
3.3.8.3.
Demand Schedule-Specific Forecast Processing
3.3.8.4.
New Supply Planning Work Area
3.3.8.5.
ASCP ADF UI - Enhanced Supplies and Demands View
3.3.8.6.
ASCP ADF UI - Personal Queries
3.3.8.7.
ASCP ADF UI - Plan Summary
3.3.8.8.
ASCP ADF UI Plan Options
3.3.8.9.
ASCP ADF UI Exceptions Management
3.3.8.10.
Project Netting Enhancements
3.3.8.11.
Expanded Reservations in Day Level Planning
3.3.8.12.
Purchasing Integration Enhancements
3.3.9. Release 12.2.6
3.3.9.1.
Master Scheduling Enhancements
3.3.9.2.
Exception-related Attributes in Supplies and Demands ADF UI
3.3.9.3.
Improvements to Favorites ADF UI
3.3.9.4.
Product Definition ADF UI
3.3.9.5.
Supply Chain Bill ADF UI
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3.4.1. Release 12.1.1

3.4.1.1.
Export Exception Details
3.4.1.2.
Detailed Supply Commit Based on ASCP Pegging
3.4.1.3.
Search Exceptions by Buyer and Planner
3.4.2. Release 12.1.2
3.4.2.1.
Rich User Interface Enhancements
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3.5.
3.6.
Oracle Demand Planning
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3.5.1. Release 12.1.1

3.5.1.1.
Clear Data in Worksheets
3.5.1.2.
Default Even Allocation Over Time
3.5.1.3.
Plan Security by Responsibility and Organization
3.5.1.4.
Sort by Product in Planning Percentages Worksheet
3.5.1.5.
Data Selection Tools for Region Copy Selector
3.5.1.6.
Prevent Planners from Editing Measures in View Scope
3.5.2. Release 12.2.5
3.5.2.1.
Retirement of Oracle Demand Planning
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Oracle Demand Signal Repository
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3.6.2. Release 12.1.1
3.6.2.1.
Customer Organization Hierarchy
3.6.2.2.
Multiple Calendar Support
3.6.2.3.
Customer Item Hierarchy
3.6.2.4.
Manufacturer Item Hierarchy
3.6.2.5.
Multiple Currency Support
3.6.2.6.
Alternate Units of Measure
3.6.2.7.
Authorized Distribution
3.6.2.8.
Sales Allocation
3.6.2.9.
Sales Facts
3.6.2.10.
Shipments
3.6.2.11.
Orders
3.6.2.12.
Inventory
3.6.2.13.
Sales Forecasts
3.6.2.14.
Promotion Plans
3.6.2.15.
Category Sales Analysis Dashboard
3.6.2.16.
Product to Category Coverage Reports
3.6.2.17.
Category Growth Analysis Reports
3.6.2.18.
Category Sales by Type Reports
3.6.2.19.
Average Price Analysis Report
3.6.2.20.
Top and Bottom Performers Reports
3.6.2.21.
Ad-Hoc Reporting
3.6.2.22.
Sales Scorecard
3.6.2.23.
Supply Chain Scorecard
3.6.2.24.
Operations Scorecard
3.6.2.25.
Demantra Demand Management Integration
3.6.2.26.
Retail Merchandising System (RMS) Integration
3.6.2.27.
Web Services Integration
3.6.3. Release 12.1.2
3.6.3.1.
Exception Management Dashboard
3.6.3.2.
All Commodity Volume (ACV) / External Measures
3.6.3.3.
TDLinx Store/Outlet Adapter
3.6.3.4.
Scorecard Enhancements (Goals & Thresholds)
3.6.3.5.
Store Clusters
3.6.3.6.
Item Clusters
3.6.3.7.
Replenishment Rules
3.6.3.8.
Allocation Rules
3.6.4. Release 12.1.3
3.6.4.1.
Manufacturer Promotions
3.6.4.2.
Manufacturer Shipments
3.6.4.3.
Customer Shipment Facts
3.6.4.4.
Third Party Distributors
3.6.4.5.
Alternate Organization Hierarchy
3.6.4.6.
Forecast Type and Purpose Code
3.6.4.7.
User Defined Fields
3.6.4.8.
Type 2 Slowly Changing Dimensions
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3.8.
3.9.
3.10.
3.11.
3.6.5. Release 12.2

3.6.5.1.
Uptake of ODI
3.6.6. Release 12.2.5
3.6.6.1.
New OBIEE Versions
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Oracle Demantra All Products
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3.7.1. Release 12.2

3.7.1.1.
Calendar Month Support in Weekly System
3.7.1.2.
Import from Excel
3.7.1.3.
Engine Performance Improvements
3.7.1.4.
Subset forecasting
3.7.1.5.
Analytical Engine on Solaris 10
3.7.1.6.
Improved Multi-Language Support
3.7.1.7.
Technology Stack
3.7.1.8.
Demand Variability Definition
3.7.1.9.
Configure Rolling Profile Groups
3.7.1.10.
Integration Data Profile Hints
3.7.1.11.
Database Performance Improvements
3.7.1.12.
Asynchronous Workflow Support
3.7.2. Release 12.2.4
3.7.2.1.
User Access Control
3.7.2.2.
Support Additional Demantra Hierarchies in APCC
3.7.2.3.
Launch Management to Support New Product Introductions
3.7.3. Release 12.2.5
3.7.3.1.
Oracle Alta Look and Feel
3.7.3.2.
Global Instance Support
3.7.3.3.
Workflow Recoverability
3.7.3.4.
Improved Security and Single Sign on Support
3.7.3.5.
Collect Data Above Site Level
3.7.4. Release 12.2.6
3.7.4.1.
Remove Applet Dependency
3.7.4.2.
Demantra Anywhere Enhancements
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3.8.1. Release 12.2

3.8.1.1.
Enhanced Integration with Advanced Planning Command Center
3.8.2. Release 12.2.5
3.8.2.1.
Publish Intermittency Flag to IO
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Oracle Demantra In-Memory Consumption Driven Planning
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3.9.1. Release 12.2.4

3.9.1.1.
Store Level Forecasting and Fulfillment
3.9.1.2.
BLE Clustering
3.9.1.3.
Analytical Engine 64 bit
3.9.1.4.
Engine performance Improvements
3.9.1.5.
General Level with Daily Information in a Weekly System
3.9.1.6.
BLE Context Passing
3.9.1.7.
BLE Net Change
3.9.1.8.
New Store Introduction
3.9.1.9.
New Item at Store Introduction
3.9.2. Release 12.2.5
3.9.2.1.
Removal of Dependency on Oracle Engineered Systems
3.9.2.2.
New OBIEE Versions
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Oracle Demantra Real-time Sales and Operations Planning
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3.10.1. Release 12.2

3.10.1.1.
Improved Cost Modeling
3.10.1.2.
Enhanced Integration with Advanced Planning Command Center
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Oracle Demantra Predictive Trade Planning
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3.11.1. Release 12.2
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3.12.
3.13.
3.14.
3.15.
3.11.1.1.
Enabling Dynamic Open Link capabilities and Demantra Anywhere
3.11.2. Release 12.2.4
3.11.2.1.
Support Trade Hierarchies and Data in APCC
3.11.2.2.
Streamlined Promotion Creation and Improved Method Usability
3.11.2.3.
Calendar Enhancements
3.11.2.4.
Streamlined Simulation
3.11.2.5.
Enhanced Support for Shipment and Consumption Planning
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3.12.1. Release 12.2

3.12.1.1.
Enabling Nodal Tuning
3.12.1.2.
Enhancements to Optimization
3.12.1.3.
Calendar Optimization
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Oracle Global Order Promising
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3.13.1. Release 12.1.3

3.13.1.1.
Enhanced Forward ATP
3.13.2. Release 12.1.3+
3.13.2.1.
Asset Intensive Planning Enhancements
3.13.3. Release 12.2.5
3.13.3.1.
Account for ECO Dates in Forward ATP
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Oracle In-Memory Performance Driven Planning
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3.14.2. Release 12.2.4
3.14.2.1.
Dramatic Improvement in Performance
3.14.2.2.
Complete Support for Oracle Real Application Clusters
3.14.2.3.
Performance Improvement Through Parallel Architecture
3.14.2.4.
New Visualizations in Advanced Planning Command Center
3.14.3. Release 12.2.5
3.14.3.1.
Removal of Dependency on Oracle Engineered Systems
3.14.3.2.
New OBIEE Versions
3.14.4. Release 12.2.6
3.14.4.1.
Retirement of Oracle In-Memory Performance Driven Planning
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Oracle Inventory Optimization
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3.15.1. Release 12.1.1

3.15.1.1.
Support for Intermittent Demands
3.15.2. Release 12.1.3
3.15.2.1.
Enhanced Budget Constraints
3.15.3. Release 12.1.3+
3.15.3.1.
Asset Intensive Planning Enhancements
3.15.3.2.
Warehouse Capacity Constraints
3.15.3.3.
Accounting for Cycle Stock in Safety Stock Calculations
3.15.3.4.
Publishing Warehouse Capacity and Cycle Stock Facts to APCC
3.15.3.5.
Warehouse Capacity and Cycle Stock Reports
3.15.4. Release 12.2.4
3.15.4.1.
Accounting for Supply Variability in Warehouse Capacity Constraints
3.15.5. Release 12.2.5
3.15.5.1.
Receive Intermittency Flag from DM
3.15.5.2.
3.15.6. Release 12.2.6
3.15.6.1.
Policy Planning support
3.15.6.2.
Policy Parameter specifications through the Policy Parameter Set
3.15.6.3.
Plan Option Changes
3.15.6.4.
New profile to determine Loss Function based safety stock calculation
3.15.6.5.
Two tiered Service Level specification
3.15.6.6.
New fields in IMM to specify Policy Parameters
3.15.6.7.
Calculation of Policy Parameters
3.15.6.8.
New Material Plan to view Policy Parameters
3.15.6.9.
Additional links from Inventory Planner responsibility
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3.16.
3.17.
Additional group for viewing Policy Parameters in the IMM
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3.16.1. Release 12.2.5

3.16.1.1.
Retirement of Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling
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Oracle Production Scheduling
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3.17.1. Release 12.1.1

3.17.1.1.
Units of Measure on Items
3.17.1.2.
Enhanced Alerts
3.17.1.3.
Work Order Centric KPI Comparisons
3.17.1.4.
Access Operation and Routings from Operation Instances
3.17.1.5.
Auto-create Work Orders Directly from Demands
3.17.1.6.
Find Functionality for Model Objects
3.17.1.7.
Visibility to Demand Fulfilled via Starting Inventory
3.17.1.8.
Automatic Reconciliation of Schedule Backlog
3.17.1.9.
Batchable Resources
3.17.1.10. Consistent Resource Assignment within a Portion of a Routing
3.17.1.11. Resource-specific Cycle Times for Campaign Run Optimization
3.17.1.12. Minimize Work Order Schedule Infeasibilities
3.17.1.13. Disable Units of Effort for Setup and Cleanup Operations
3.17.1.14. Resource All of Sets
3.17.1.15. Hard Links between Work Orders
3.17.1.16. Dynamic Throughput Rates on Resources
3.17.1.17. PS Data Connector Port to Sun, HP and AIX
3.17.1.18. Export Selected Model Data during Schedule Publish
3.17.1.19. PS XML Model Unique Extension
3.17.1.20. Enhanced Auto-generated Routings
3.17.1.21. Selective Work Order Release to Production
3.17.2. Release 12.1.2
3.17.2.1.
Resource Business Objectives
3.17.2.2.
Production Scheduling as a Web Service Call
3.17.2.3.
Undo Functionality for Manual Scheduling
3.17.2.4.
Attribute Based Sequence Dependent Setups
3.17.2.5.
Visualization of Campaign Run Optimization Cycle Boundaries
3.17.2.6.
New Alert Type and Drilldowns
3.17.2.7.
Drilldowns from the Work Order Editor to the Gantt Charts
3.17.2.8.
Mass Change on Items and Resources
3.17.3. Release 12.1.3
3.17.3.1.
Maintenance Work Order Scheduling
3.17.3.2.
Disable Multiple Release from the Same Plan for the Same Order
3.17.3.3.
User Defined Ideal Sequence
3.17.3.4.
Supply Tolerancing
3.17.3.5.
Control Application of Purchase Item Order Multiples beyond Lead Time
3.17.3.6.
Improved Operation Status Logic in OPM integration
3.17.3.7.
Advanced Work Order Filtering
3.17.4. Release 12.1.3+
3.17.4.1.
Collections from Oracle CMRO
3.17.4.2.
Consideration of Visit Priorities
3.17.4.3.
Maintenance Exceptions
3.17.4.4.
Critical Path Visualization
3.17.4.5.
Maintenance Key Performance Indicators
3.17.4.6.
Inventory Reservations
3.17.4.7.
Visualization of Related Work Orders
3.17.4.8.
Improved Operation Visualization
3.17.4.9.
Oracle Enterprise Asset Maintenance Integration
3.17.4.10. Resource Sequence View
3.17.4.11. Shift Utilization Reporting
3.17.4.12. Usability Enhancements
3.17.4.13. Improved Treatment of Firm Work Orders
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3.18.
3.17.4.14. Visibility to Maintenance Visit Status

3.17.4.15. Allow Offloading Flag in the Work Order BOM
3.17.5. Release 12.2.4
3.17.5.1.
Multi-Stage Synchronization
3.17.5.2.
Manual Scheduling Mode
3.17.5.3.
Resource Sequence View Enhancements
3.17.5.4.
Work Order Filter by Attribute and Dimming/Hiding Control
3.17.5.5.
Exception Framework: Filtering and Additional Fields
3.17.5.6.
Combined View Resource Gantt and Item Graph: Show Produced/Consumed Operations
3.17.5.7.
Work Order Merge Mode
3.17.5.8.
Production Pegging View: Drill Down from Supply Event
3.17.5.9.
Navigate between Operations while Operation Properties Page is Open
3.17.5.10. Pegging Details in Operation Properties Page
3.17.5.11. Middle-Mouse Button Draws Vertical Line in Schedule Views
3.17.5.12. Work Order Mass Change of Firm Status
3.17.5.13. Consistent Where Used Tabs in Object Properties
3.17.5.14. New Where Used Tab in Shared Storage Space Properties Page
3.17.5.15. New Solver Options: Scheduling Bucket and Pre-build Policy
3.17.5.16. Solve Time Limit and Display of Incomplete Schedule
3.17.5.17. Display Item Code and Description
3.17.6. Release 12.2.5
3.17.6.1.
3.17.6.2.
Post Publish Customization Hooks
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3.18.2. Release 12.1.3
3.18.2.1.
Fast Simulation
3.18.2.2.
Flexible User Interface
3.18.2.3.
Simulation Sets
3.18.2.4.
Mass Edits
3.18.2.5.
Plan Comparisons
3.18.2.6.
Aggregate, Editable Material Horizontal View
3.18.2.7.
All-in-one Supply/Demand View
3.18.2.8.
Integration with Advanced Planning Command Center
3.18.2.9.
Unconstrained Planning
3.18.2.10. Constrained Planning
3.18.2.11. Demand Forecasts
3.18.2.12. Respect Demand Priority Rules
3.18.2.13. Demand and Supply Pegging
3.18.2.14. Supply Chain Sourcing
3.18.2.15. Supplier Capacity
3.18.2.16. Bills of Material and BOM Effectivity
3.18.2.17. By-products and Co-products
3.18.2.18. Routing Operation and Resource Scheduling
3.18.2.19. End Item Substitution
3.18.2.20. Lead Times and Planning Time Fence
3.18.2.21. Order Modifiers
3.18.2.22. Safety Stock Lead Time
3.18.2.23. Shipping, Receiving and Carrier Calendars
3.18.2.24. Planner Action: Firm Existing Supplies
3.18.2.25. Planner Action: Firm Planned Supplies
3.18.2.26. Release New Planned Orders and Reschedule Recommendations
3.18.2.27. Exceptions
3.18.2.28. Embedded Analytics
3.18.2.29. Late Demand Diagnosis
3.18.2.30. Global Forecasting
3.18.2.31. Configure to Order
3.18.2.32. Default Order Sizing
3.18.2.33. Inventory Reservations
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3.19.
3.18.2.34. Clear to Build

3.18.2.35. Rapid Planning Sales and Operations Planning Integration
3.18.2.36. Rapid Planning Global Order Promising Integration
3.18.2.37. Order Comparison
3.18.2.38. Multi-Planner Collaboration
3.18.2.39. Functional and Data Security
3.18.3. Release 12.1.3+
3.18.3.1.
Demand Pull-In and Upside Processing
3.18.3.2.
Favorite Lists
3.18.3.3.
Safety Stock Enhancements
3.18.3.4.
Simulation Edits of Additional Item Attributes
3.18.3.5.
Simulation Edits of Approved Supplier Lists and Supplier Capacity
3.18.3.6.
Simulation Edits of Processes
3.18.3.7.
Mass Update Enhancements for Resource Availability
3.18.3.8.
Mass Update Enhancements for Firm Date on Demands and Supplies
3.18.3.9.
Scheduling Rapid Planning Runs in Batch Mode
3.18.3.10. Enhanced Search Capability
3.18.3.11. Material Plan Display Order
3.18.3.12. Display of Decimal Precision
3.18.3.13. Last Saved Information for Plan Options
3.18.3.14. Blow Through Phantom Items in Clear to Build
3.18.3.15. Global Forecasting Display in the Material Plan
3.18.3.16. Auto-release of Planning Recommendations
3.18.3.17. Natural Time Fence
3.18.3.18. Multiple Analytics Layouts per User
3.18.3.19. Enhanced Sales Order Comparison View
3.18.3.20. Revenue by Week
3.18.3.21. Quantity-based Safety Stock
3.18.3.22. Integration to Inventory Optimization
3.18.3.23. Flexible Consumption of Substitute Component Supplies
3.18.3.24. Integration to Collaborative Planning
3.18.3.25. Integration to Advanced Supply Chain Planning
3.18.3.26. Enhanced Integration to Advanced Supply Chain Planning
3.18.3.27. Fixed Days Supply Order Modifier
3.18.3.28. Enforce Sourcing Splits
3.18.4. Release 12.2
3.18.4.1.
Clear to Build Analysis Enhancements
3.18.4.2.
Save Plan Performance Enhancement
3.18.5. Release 12.2.4
3.18.5.1.
Clear to Build Enhancements
3.18.5.2.
Ship Sets
3.18.5.3.
Batch Simulation and Plan Copy
3.18.5.4.
Support for Externally Generated Demand Priorities
3.18.6. Release 12.2.5
3.18.6.1.
Support for Line Rates
3.18.6.2.
Support for Engineering Change Orders (ECO) based on Use Up Effectivity
3.18.6.3.
Totals in Horizontal Plan
3.18.6.4.
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3.19.2. Release 12.1.1
3.19.2.1.
Integrated Demand and Supply Planning
3.19.2.2.
Service Parts Planning Workbench
3.19.2.3.
Integration to Spares Management for External Repairs
3.19.2.4.
Integration to Depot Repair for Internal Repairs
3.19.2.5.
Support for Part Condition
3.19.2.6.
Criticality Matrix
3.19.2.7.
Support for Supersessions
3.19.2.8.
Returns Forecasts
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3.19.2.9.
Minimize New Buys
3.19.2.10. Life Time Buys
3.19.2.11. Planner Work Lists
3.19.2.12. Integration with Collaborative Planning
3.19.2.13. Supersession Chain-Specific Replanning
3.19.2.14. Execution Net Change Planning
3.19.3. Release 12.1.2
3.19.3.1.
Multi-process Inline Forecasting
3.19.3.2.
Intermittent Demand Flag
3.19.3.3.
Planner Worklist Enhancement
3.19.4. Release 12.1.3
3.19.4.1.
Re-order Point-based Parts Planning
3.19.4.2.
Import into a Simulation Set
3.19.4.3.
Integration with Advanced Supply Chain Planning
3.19.4.4.
Integration with APCC - Service Parts Planner Dashboard
3.19.5. Release 12.1.3+
3.19.5.1.
Fair Share
3.19.5.2.
Query-based Auto-release
3.19.5.3.
Collect Installed Base under Contract
3.19.5.4.
Collect Field Replaceable Unit Bills of Material
3.19.5.5.
Supersession Notes
3.19.5.6.
Reserved Safety Stock
3.19.5.7.
Sourcing Priorities for Inventory Rebalancing
3.19.5.8.
Avoidance of Circular Rebalancing
3.19.6. Release 12.2.4
3.19.6.1.
Integration to Enterprise Asset Management
3.19.6.2.
Exhaust Existing Supplies (Repair First)
3.19.6.3.
Rebalancing Source Priority (Replenish before Rebalance)
3.19.7. Release 12.2.5
3.19.7.1.
Parts Classification
3.19.7.2.
Stocking Thresholds
3.19.7.3.
Fair Share Enhancements
3.19.7.4.
Exceptions Enhancements
3.19.7.5.
Preserve Manual Forecasts
3.19.8. Release 12.2.6
3.19.8.1.
Policy Planning: Summary of key features
3.19.8.2.
Plan Option Changes
3.19.8.3.
SPP Plans as Demand Schedules to other SPP Plans
3.19.8.4.
Reading Policy Parameters from Oracle Inventory Optimization
3.19.8.5.
Considering Policy Parameters specified in Item Attribute Mass Maintenance
3.19.8.6.
Policy Planning related Measures in SPP
3.19.8.7.
Editable Measures and Overrides in Policy Planning
3.19.8.8.
Policy Types considered in SPP Policy Planning
3.19.8.9.
Single and Time Phased Replenishments
3.19.8.10. Enhancement to Parts Classification functionality
3.19.8.11. New Service Parts Planning Work Area
3.19.8.12. SPP ADF UI Plan Options
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3.19.8.13.
3.19.8.14.
3.19.8.15.
3.19.8.16.
3.19.8.17.
3.19.8.18.
3.19.8.19.
3.19.8.20.
3.19.8.21.
3.19.8.22.
3.19.8.23.
3.20.
3.21.
SPP ADF UI Items View

SPP ADF UI Material Plan
SPP ADF UI - Supplies and Demands
SPP ADF UI - Favorites including Plan Summary
SPP ADF UI - Preferences
SPP ADF UI Replan Options
SPP ADF UI Create Plan
SPP ADF UI Copy Plan
SPP ADF UI Launch Plan
SPP ADF UI Release Plan
SPP ADF UI Seeded Layouts
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3.20.1. Release 12.1.1

3.20.1.1.
Supply Chain Risk Management
3.20.1.2.
Alerts
3.20.1.3.
Key Performance Indicators
3.20.1.4.
Usability Enhancements
3.20.2. Release 12.1.2
3.20.2.1.
Aggregate Assignment Set and Lane Definition
3.20.3. Release 12.2
3.20.3.1.
Specify Scenario File in the Plan Options
3.20.3.2.
Solver Upgrade
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3.21.1. Release 12.2.5

3.21.1.1.
User Interface for Setups
3.21.1.2.
Support for Alternates
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1.
Disclaimer
This Release Content Document (RCD) describes product features that are proposed for
the specified release of the Oracle E-Business Suite. This document describes new or
changed functionality only. Existing functionality from prior releases is not described. It
is intended solely to help you assess the business benefits of upgrading to the specified
release of the Oracle E-Business Suite.
This document in any form, software or printed matter, contains proprietary information
that is the exclusive property of Oracle. Your access to and use of this confidential
material is subject to the terms and conditions of your Oracle Software License and
Service Agreement, which has been executed and with which you agree to comply. This
document and information contained herein may not be disclosed, copied, reproduced or
distributed to anyone outside Oracle without prior written consent of Oracle. This
document is not part of your license agreement nor can it be incorporated into any
contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates.
This document is for informational purposes only and is intended solely to assist you in
planning for the implementation and upgrade of the product features described. It is not
a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied
upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any
features or functionality described in this document remains at the sole discretion of
Oracle.
Due to the nature of the product architecture, it may not be possible to safely include all
features described in this document without risking significant destabilization of the
code.
Purpose of Document
2.
Introduction
2.1.
Purpose of Document
This Release Content Document (RCD) communicates information about new or
changed functionality introduced in Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2, and
in subsequent Release Update Packs (RUPs) and off-cycle patches.
The features and enhancements described in this document are grouped by product, and
then by the release in which they first became available, for example, Release 12.1.1.
Purpose of Document
3.
New and Changed Features in Value Chain Planning

3.1.

3.1.1.
Release 12.1.1
3.1.1.1. Backward Compatibility to 11i10
Oracle Value Chain Planning Release 12.1.1 supports, through a Collections backward
compatibility patch, the configuration where the source is E-Business Suite 11i10, and
the destination (planning server) is Release 12.1.1. This backward compatibility applies
to Advanced Supply Chain Planning, Distribution Planning (see exclusion below), RealTime Sales and Operations Planning, Demand Management, Demand Planning,
Inventory Optimization, Global Order Promising, Collaborative Planning, Advanced
Planning Command Center, and Service Parts Planning.
Specific capabilities not supported in this configuration are:
Advanced Supply Chain Planning Oracle Transportation Management

Integration
Distribution Planning release of cancel requisition recommendations
Service Parts Planning integration to Spares Management
Service Parts Planning integration to Depot Repair
11i10 backward compatibility does not extend to Oracle Value Chain Planning Release
12.2.
3.1.2.
Release 12.2.5
3.1.2.1. New Look and Feel Based on Alta Skin
The user interface screens in Oracle VCP based on ADF technology have been migrated
to an all new Alta look and feel that supports a modern, simplified interface. This is the
same user interface skin used in recent Oracle Cloud products and a number of other
innovative mobile applications. Its main features are:
Fewer elements and cleaner layout

Minimal user interface chrome with fewer nested borders and lines
Less chrome means faster loading of critical content
Multi-device support with flowing page layout
New icon system complements clean page design
Mobile-friendly, with larger touch targets and flexible page widths
Simplified component structure and more open space keep focus on data
Browser and mobile technology support
Flexibility with simpler, modular, components
New ADF-based versions of some Advanced Supply Chain Planning screens previously
available only in Forms have been created. These also take advantage of the Alta look
and feel.
Selected screens from products with non-ADF-based user interfaces (Demantra products,
Production Scheduling) sport new color and graphical element themes that match those
of the Oracle Alta skin.
3.2.

3.2.1.
Product Overview
Most supply chain planning processes, considered in their entirety, consist of multiple
decision-making sub-processes often performed by different groups that are chained
together. For example, a typical sales and operations planning cycle consists of
forecasting performed by different lines of business such as sales, marketing, finance and
manufacturing and distribution, a consensus demand review, inventory planning and
review, supply planning and review, and executive review. These sub-processes may be
supported by different underlying supply chain planning applications (Demand
Management, Inventory Optimization, Strategic Network Optimization, Service Parts
Planning and Advanced Supply Chain Planning.) The overall planning processes are
difficult to orchestrate because the planning data required are buried in multiple
underlying supply chain planning applications and because the human stakeholders come
from multiple organizations.
Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center is a new product that pulls together
planning outputs from multiple E-Business Suite supply chain planning applications and
makes them available for reporting and analysis within a unified user interface based on
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE). The planning outputs are
viewable via seeded role-based dashboards, and are also accessible to custom OBIEE
reports and dashboards constructed by the user. Seeded dashboards support the Sales and
Operations Planning and Supply Chain Plan Analysis business processes.
Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center offers an extensive list of web services that
decompose Oracle Advanced Planning capabilities into atomic functional pieces (for
example, run collections, generate a statistical forecast, run a supply chain plan, archive
a plan.) These web services are leveraged by seeded Oracle Business Process Execution
Language (BPEL) processes that can be used out of the box to automate Sales and
Operations Planning and Forecast, Inventory and Supply Planning business flows. Users
can also create an infinite variety of custom BPEL processes to automate and orchestrate
their specific in-house planning flows (for example, hub and spoke planning).
Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center provides extensive plan and scenario
comparison capabilities. It also allows you to assign manual activities required for the
evaluation and execution of alternative business scenarios and monitor and orchestrate
the completion of those activities.
Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center provides:
a robust reporting and analysis framework for supply chain planning;
the ability to automate, orchestrate, monitor and review the result of complex,
inter-organizational and inter-disciplinary planning processes that span multiple
supply chain planning applications (including external applications).
3.2.2.
Release 12.1.1
3.2.2.1. Sales and Operations Planning Dashboard
The Sales and Operations Planning Dashboard included with Advanced Planning
Command Center provides all participants in the Sales and Operations Planning process
with interactive access to summary and detailed data required when executing the
demand review, supply review and executive review phases of an S&OP cycle.
The Demand Review page answers questions such as:
How have my sales, marketing, manufacturing/distribution, financial, and

consensus forecasts changed over time?
Is our backlog increasing?
How are we tracking to forecast?
The Supply Review page answers questions such as:
Are we supply constrained?

Where are our resource constraints?
Are we producing to plan?
The Executive Review page answers questions such as:
Are we on plan financially?

For which product categories are we revenue targets?
Dashboard level reports provide easy comparison of S&OP scenarios.

Reports in the Sales and Operations Planning Dashboard drill directly into underlying
Demantra Real-Time Sales and Operations Planning worksheets, Advanced Supply
Chain Planning (ASCP) plans and Strategic Network Optimization (SNO) plans for
seamless extended analysis.
The following reports are available at the page level in the Sales and Operations
Planning Dashboard:
Executive Review
Executive Summary
Consolidated Analysis
Profit and Loss
Constrained Forecast Comparison
Cumulative Budget Tracking
Key Performance Indicators
Forecast Accuracy
Customer Service
Inventory and Production KPI
Top Difference - Operating Plan and Budget by Category
Profitability KPI
Cost Breakdown KPI
Demand Review
Forecast Comparison
Forecast Accuracy
Projected Backlog
Top Forecast Attainment by Category

Forecast Scenario Comparison
Top Abs Diff Consensus Forecast and Budget by Category
Consensus Forecast Difference by Customer
Consensus Forecast Difference by Customer
Supply Review
Consolidated Analysis
Demand Fill
Production to Plan by Organization
Production Plan
Top Resource Utilization
Top Supplier Capacity Utilization
Consolidated Analysis Scenario Comparison
Bottom Demand Fill % by Customer
Supply Change by Category
Production Plan Comparison by Organization
3.2.2.2. Supply Chain Analyst Dashboard

The Supply Chain Analyst (SCA) Dashboard included with Advanced Planning
Command Center provides easy access to summary and trend data for Advanced Supply
Chain Planning and Strategic Network Optimization plans. It enables easy comparisons
between plans.
The SCA Dashboard has the following pages and reports:
Plan Health
shipment and production trends

demand and supply summary
resource summary
exceptions summary
Demand and Supply
demand and supply summary

demand change by customer
supply change by category
demand and supply trends
demand by customer
supply by category
Resources
resource summary
most utilized resources
least utilized resources
resources with most change in utilization
resource utilization trend
Exceptions
demand exceptions summary

inventory exceptions summary
alternate exceptions summary
reschedule exceptions summary

resource exceptions summary
exceptions summary by category
exceptions summary by organization
Historical Performance
key supply chain performance metrics (shipments to plan, production to plan,

resource utilization, inventory value, days of cover)
supply chain metrics trend
Scenario Analysis
This page is similar to the Plan Health page. It allows you to compare demand
and supply summary information, resource information, and exceptions across
scenarios instead of across plans. (A scenario is a grouping of plans whose
results should be added together and viewed as a whole.)
3.2.2.3. Analytical Framework

APCC provides a central Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)-based
repository that automatically pulls plan data from a wide cross-section of Advanced
Planning applications (Demand Management, Real-Time Sales and Operations Planning,
Advanced Supply Chain Planning, Inventory Optimization and Strategic Network
Optimization), as well as execution data (orders, shipments, inventory, WIP completions,
etc.) from Oracle E-Business Suite. APCC contains more than 200 measures (both stored
measures that are read into APCC and measures such as costed inventory that are
derived), rationalized against a consistent set of dimensions. More than 20 dimensions
are seeded.
The APCC analytical framework repository allows completely user-configurable
reporting against Advanced Planning data, serves as the foundation for the seeded Sales
and Operations Planning and Supply Chain Analyst Dashboards, and allows you to view
data from multiple underlying Advanced Planning applications simultaneously in a
unified interface.
3.2.2.4. Scenario Management
You can group multiple plans of different types together into a scenario, and then use
that scenario to group and filter data in APCC dashboards and reports. Typical scenarios
might be: a Demantra Demand Management consensus forecast, an Inventory
Optimization plan, and an Advanced Supply Chain Planning plan that together evaluate a
sales and operations planning scenario; or one "hub" and a number of "spoke" ASCP
plans whose outputs need to be fused together to provide visibility to planning results for
the entire supply chain.
Scenario Sets are groupings of related scenarios (for example, alternate supply/demand
scenarios being evaluated within a particular sales and operations planning cycle). You
can also use scenario sets to group and filter data in APCC dashboards and reports.
3.2.2.5. Supply Chain Planning Web Services
Many key Advanced Planning functions have now been made accessible via web
services. These web services are callable from user-defined Business Process Execution
Language (BPEL) flows, and therefore permit limitless automation of supply chain
planning business flows.
The specific web services that have been enabled are:
Check concurrent program status

Launch ASCP and Demantra batch collections
Global Order Promising
Launch plan management batch processes such as copy/purge plans
Launch Strategic Network Optimization batch processes
Manage planning process scenarios
Launch Service Parts Planning batch processes
Launch Inventory Optimization batch processes
Launch Distribution Planning batch processes
Launch Advanced Supply Chain Planning batch processes
Upload external data into APS (forecasts, safety stock, planned supply)
Launch Demantra process (launch Demantra workflow, assign alternative name
to Demantra scenario in planning server)
3.2.2.6. Seeded BPEL Processes

Two seeded BPEL processes take leverage the supply chain planning web services
offered by APCC to automate and orchestrate key supply chain planning flows.
The Forecast, Inventory, and Supply Planning BPEL process automates a sequence of
running collections, generating a forecast in Demantra Demand Management (DM),
running an Inventory Optimization (IO) plan utilizing the DM output as input, running an
Advanced Supply Chain Planning plan using the DM and IO plan outputs as input.
The Sales and Operations Planning BPEL process runs collections, creates financial
forecast review, sales forecast review, marketing forecast review, and demand forecast
review activities and assigns them to key stakeholders, uploads the consensus forecast
from Demantra Real-Time Sales & Operations Planning (RT S&OP) to the planning
server, runs a Strategic Network Optimization (SNO) plan with the RT S&OP consensus
forecast as input, pulls the SNO constrained forecast/production plan output back into
RT S&OP, then creates consensus demand review and executive review activities and
assigns them to the appropriate stakeholders.
3.2.2.7. Process Automation
You can create planning processes and attach to them seeded or custom BPEL processes.
Planning processes allow you to launch or halt associated BPEL processes, to enable
completely flexible planning automation. The Planning Process user interface allows you
to specify input parameters such as plan names to the underlying BPEL processes, see
the key steps of the underlying BPEL process, assign process steps to owners, and
monitor the progress of the BPEL process as it runs.
3.2.2.8. Activity Management
Process automation steps can be assigned to individuals using the Planning Process user
interface. Such assignments become system activities with owning individuals. You can
also assign arbitrary manual activities to individuals, optionally tied to a scenario or
scenario set. Activities support file attachments, to allow more complete descriptions of
required steps or inclusion of supplemental information. Assigned activities can be
updated with progress status by the assignees and can be flexibly queried within the
APCC Activities screen for monitoring purposes. Planners working with APCC
dashboards and reports benefit from an iBot that informs them of open activities assigned
to them. They can drill from a display of activities in the APCC reporting layer directly
into the APCC Activities screen for further detail. APCC thus provides a comprehensive
way to stay on top of all the system and manual activities needed to complete complex
supply chain planning processes and scenario evaluations.
3.2.3.
Release 12.1.2
3.2.3.1. Compatibility with 11.5.10 Planning Server
APS 11.5.10
Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center Release 12.1.2 supports, through a

Collections backward compatibility patch, the configuration where the Planning Server
(where all the other APS modules are on) is 11.5.10, the source Oracle E-Business Suite
is also on 11.5.10 and only the Advanced Planning Command Center is on 12.1.2.) The
deployment configuration is as shown below.
APS Operational Data Store

11.5.10
Oracle Demantra 7.1/7.2
Advanced Supply Chain

Planning 11.5.10
Collect into both

instances
APS 12.1
MultipleEBS
EBS(11.5.10)
(11.5.10)
Multiple
Legacyinstances
instances
ororLegacy
Out-of-box
Integration.
User Option
at Plan
launch to
push
APS Operational Data Store

12.1
Advanced Planning
Command Center 12.1
This deployment configuration will be subject to the following specific limitations.

1. No Contextual Drilldowns from the Dashboards into the planning applications. This
will be available only in the configuration where the planning server is upgraded to
12.1.2 and APCC is deployed in the same instance.
2. Need to collect into both APCC and APS instances. However, collections into APCC
is only required for dimension keys. So the collection frequency could be less for
APCC.
3. No support for Strategic Network Optimization in APCC.
4. The New Planning Web Services and BPEL Processes in APCC instance (in
Processes tab in Advanced Planning Scenario Manager) cannot use Plans and
Forecasts from APS 11.5.10 even if they are published to APCC. But users can still
build scenarios from these plans and forecasts from 11.5.10.
3.2.3.2. Integration to Third Party Planning Systems
You can now deploy APCC against third party planning systems. The APCC OBIEE fact
repository can be loaded either via a new flat file (.csv) upload user interface, or via a
new Import Plan Summary concurrent program.
3.2.3.3. Ability to Run APCC Standalone

For 11.5.10 and R12.1.2 customers, APCC now provides a complete, out-of-box
integration to a separate, standalone 12.1.2 APCC instance. The key
assumptions/limitations here are:
1. All dimensions are collected (or loaded using legacy uploads) into the APCC
instance.
2. The EBS source instance setups (including instance codes) are identical in the
11.5.10 and 12.1.2 instances.
3. The drill-downs into other applications (Advanced Supply Chain Planning /
Inventory Optimization / Demand Management) will not work.
4. This will be made available only for Demand Management, Advanced Supply
Chain Planning and Inventory Optimization.
3.2.3.4. Rich User Interface Enhancements
APCC incorporates new rich user interface capabilities of E-Business Suite 12.1.2. These
include a redesigned applications home page with more efficient navigation, multi-level
navigation menus with saved favorites, "look-ahead" lists of values that automatically
complete partial user entries, and inline file attachments for process activities.
3.2.4.
Release 12.1.3
3.2.4.1. Analysis of Inventory and Service Levels
The current Supply Chain Analyst (SCA) dashboard in APCC has been enhanced with
new measures and related reports to support Inventory Analysis workflows. The
following new reports are included in a new tab in the SCA dashboard.
o
o
o
o
o
o
Inventory Performance Summary

Top N Service Level Short Fall by Category
Top N - Inventory Value
Safety Stock Postponement Analysis
Inventory Measures Trend
Inventory Measures Trend by Category-Organization
Some of the new measures introduced as part of this include the following:
o
o
o
o
o
Safety Stock (Days)

Percent Safety Stock - Demand Variability
Percent Safety Stock - Supplier Lead Time Variability
Percent Safety Stock - Manufacturing Lead Time Variability
Percent Safety Stock - Transportation Lead Time Variability
3.2.4.2. Analysis of Excess and Obsolescence

The current Supply Chain Analyst (SCA) dashboard in APCC has been enhanced with
new measures and related reports to support analysis of Excess and Obsolete inventory.
The following new reports are included in the SCA dashboard.
o
o
o
o
o
Excess and Obsolescence Summary

Excess Details
Obsolescence Details
Excess Details across Plans
Obsolescence Details across Plans
Some of the new measures introduced as part of this include the following:
10
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Demand within Obsolescence horizon

Demand within Excess Horizon
Excess On-order in units and value in multiple currencies
Excess On-hand in units and value in multiple currencies
Obsolete On-order in units and value in multiple currencies
Obsolete On-hand in units and value in multiple currencies
Total Excess in units and value in multiple currencies
Total Obsolescence in units and value in multiple currencies
3.2.4.3. Enhanced Sales and Operations Planning Dashboard

The Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) dashboard is enhanced to include the
following new measures:
o
o
o
Shipment history - Lag by 52 week

Operating Plan
Financial Forecast
In addition, the existing reports have been updated with new usability enhancements and
new navigations to more drill-down reports. Also, a new tab called Financial Review has
been added with the following reports
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Financial Summary
Operating Plan and Financial Forecast Comparison
Top % Difference - Operating Plan and Budget by Category
Financial Trend Analysis
Profit & Loss Monthly
Margin Difference by Category
Year-over-Year Financials
Financial Forecast and Budget Comparison
Top % Difference - Budget and Annual Plan by Organization
Top Revenue
Cost by Organization
Bottom Margin
Profitability KPI
Cost Breakdown KPI
This new Financial Review page enables planners and executives to answer questions
like:
o
o
o
o
o
Are we on plan financially?

How are product categories performing financially?
What has changed financially since last fiscal quarter/month?
How/Where/Why has profitability changed?
Is there any need to revise financial forecast?
3.2.4.4. Supply Chain Risk Management Dashboard

The Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) dashboard is a new dashboard and enables
users to review and compare key metrics in a single interface, providing true Enterprise
Planning capabilities to the SCRM discipline.
It enables executives and planners to answer questions like:
o
o
o
What is the impact to my margins if there is a sudden drop in demand?

When do I return to profitability?
What is the cost difference between sourcing strategies in the event of the
demand drop?
11
o
o
o
What impact does increased lead times have on my inventory strategy?

What is the impact of off-shoring to my Total Delivered Cost?
What is the impact of off-shoring to my Margins?
The following new measures are introduced as part of this feature:

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Facility Startup/Shutdown Costs

Fixed Costs
Count of Sources
Carrying Cost without Postponement
Safety Stock without Postponement
Inventory Budget
Product Miles
The dashboard contains four different tabs - Executive Review, Inventory Analysis,
Supply Chain Sourcing and Glossary.
3.2.4.5. Revenue Gap Analysis
This feature enables Supply Chain Analysts and Sales and Operations Planners to do
additional reporting and analysis to close gaps between the current shipment rate and the
revenue targets established as part of the sales and operations plan. This is most critical
as the end of a period or quarter approaches and gaps remain.
The Supply Chain Analyst (SCA) dashboard has been enhanced to add the following
reports in the Scenario analysis tab:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Backlog Analysis Units & Value

Bookings Performance Units & Value
Current Shipment Plan
Demand and Supply Summary
Demand Utilization Units & Value
Demand Utilization Split Baseline Plan
Left to Book - By Quarter
Sales Order Analysis Units & Value
Shipment Performance Units & Value
Supply Utilization Units & Value
The Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) dashboard has also been enhanced to add /
modify the following reports:
o
o
Current Shipment Plan

Supply Summary
3.2.4.6. Collaboration Workspaces for Unstructured Collaboration

This feature lets users to quickly band into ad-hoc, virtual groups for specific planning
tasks and allows those groups to share structured and unstructured content. Each group
has access to a single, flexible portal-like user interface that brings together components
of various planning applications and a variety of collaboration tools.
These collaborative group spaces support customized Worklists, Group Calendars,
Documents, Discussions, Tags, Issues and Notes. In addition, the group space home page
has navigation links to applications such as Rapid Planning and Sales and Operations
Planning, and to APCC dashboards.
Each group space is linked to a Scenario created in Advanced Planning Command Center
and users can choose to auto-create a group space when a scenario is created.
12
3.2.4.7. Enhanced Exceptions Analysis

The Supply Chain Analyst Dashboard has been enhanced to include additional measures
and reports in support of improved exception analysis. Two new reports have been added
as part of this feature:
o
o
Item Exceptions Summary

Resource Exceptions Summary
In addition to the above, the following reports have been enhanced with additional
page/report filters:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Demand Exceptions Summary

Inventory Exceptions Summary
Alternate Exceptions Summary
Resource Exceptions Summary
Reschedules Exceptions Summary
Exception Summary by Category
Exception Summary by Organization
3.2.4.8. Integration with Rapid Planning

Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center now offers pre-built integration with Rapid
Planning. Rapid Planning plans can be archived and published to Advanced Planning
Command Center. These archived versions can then be viewed in all related reports and
dashboards.
The Advanced Planning Command Centers Supply Chain Analyst dashboard supports
drill-down directly into the Rapid Planning application.
All Rapid Planning simulation plans can be used in the Process Automation functionality
to build process flows in Advanced Planning Command Center.
3.2.4.9. Plan Versus Collected Data Comparison
Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center now offers a view of key supply and
demand measures based on the latest transaction data collected into the Operational Data
Store. These measures are available in the Supply Chain Analyst Dashboard under the
plan name of "Collections". Users can compare them with Plans to get insights into the
variances between what is in a Plan (including changes introduced due to plan
recommendations and user changes) and the latest real-time transactional data. An
example of this type of analysis may include a comparison of expected receipts of
material in the next few weeks based on the Plan versus what is currently in the
execution system (as brought over to Value Chain Planning via Collections).
3.2.5.
Release 12.1.3+
3.2.5.1. New Dimension End Item
This is a new one-level dimension that enables users to build reports for analysis by the
Finished Good items as derived from the pegging generated in an ASCP plan. This
feature is available for ASCP plans only, and is enabled for the following two measures
only:
Order Quantity
13
Total Supply
Using the Order Quantity measure and the Order Type filter, users can analyze all
upstream component supplies (such as On Hand, Shipment Receipts, Purchase Orders,
and Planned Orders) and see the breakdown by End Items (Finished Goods) that are
driving the component demand.
This dimension is available in the seeded Advanced Planning Catalog. There are no new
seeded reports that use this new dimension.
Note: This dimension is enabled only when the profile option "MSC: Enable Model and
End Item Dimensions in APCC" is set to Yes.
3.2.5.2. New Dimension Parent Model
This is a new one-level dimension that enables users to build reports for analysis of
Options in ATO models by the Parent Model based on forecast explosion in an ASCP
Plan. This feature is available in ASCP plans only, and is enabled for the following two
measures only:
Order Quantity
Total Supply
Using the Order Quantity measure and the Order Type filter, users can analyze all option
supplies (such as On Hand, Shipment Receipts, Purchase Orders, and Planned Orders)
and see the breakdown by Parent ATO Models that are driving this option demand.
This dimension is available in the seeded Advanced Planning Catalog. There are no new
seeded reports that use this new dimension.
In the case where the Options are manufactured assemblies, even their components will
have the break-up by the Parent Model so that end users can analyze all upstream
components and understand the source of their demand by viewing the break-up by the
Parent Model.
Note: This dimension is enabled only for those options and key components that are
assigned to a special category set. The name of the category set is based on the profile
option "MSC: APCC Key Component Category Set."
Note: This dimension is enabled only when the profile option "MSC: Enable Model &
End Item dimensions in APCC" is set to Yes.
3.2.5.3. ASCP Material Plan
From APCC, you can access a new Material Plan for ASCP plans that supports analysis
and mass editing of supply and demand information for a group of items or product
categories. You can:
Edit a group of end item orders to arrive at a total master schedule by

period
Edit a group of component orders for a given supplier to meet price break
quantities
14
Edit a group of planned orders to get to a consolidated container shipment

quantity
The new Material Plan displays demand and supply for the selected items in a bucketed
fashion including the totals. The Material Plan allows in-place editing. You can update
demand quantities (forecasts, manual demands) and supply quantities (planned
orders). Changes to the bucketed values are allocated down using a proportional rule
and the underlying planned orders will be firmed.
The new Material Plan opens in a separate browser window:
Key features of the new Material Plan are:
User-defined layouts
Page filters of Organization, Category Set, Category
Ability to hide/show totals for selected items/categories
Color coding to highlight editable cells and user edits
You can navigate to the new Material Plan from Supply Chain Analyst dashboard reports
like Demand and Supply Totals by Category and Aggregate Horizontal Plan,
carrying in the context of a specific organization or category. You can also access the
new Material Plan from the new ASCP Plan Actions section of the Plan Health
Summary and Demand and Supply Tabs.
You can integrate the new Material Plan into custom dashboards and reports.
3.2.5.4. ASCP Resource Plan
From APCC, you can access a new Resource Plan for ASCP plans that supports analysis
of resource availability and requirements by day, week or period. The Resource Plan
displays resource information in a time-bucketed fashion. It allows direct in-place editing
of resource availability. Edits to the bucketed availability values are allocated down by
increasing the available hours of every underlying day to a maximum of 24 hours per
resource unit and then increasing the number of resource units, if necessary.
The new Resource Plan opens in a separate browser window:
15
Key features of the new Resource Plan are:
Page filters of Organization, Department, Resource
Ability to hide/show totals for selected departments, resources
In Advanced Planning Command Center, the new Resource Plan can be accessed from
the Supply Chain Analyst dashboard report Most Utilized Resources, carrying in the
context of a specific resource. It is also accessible from the new ASCP Plan Actions
section of the Plan Health Summary and Demand and Supply Tabs.
You can integrate the new Resource Plan into custom dashboards and reports.
3.2.5.5. Item Simulation Set Window
Using a new Item Simulation Set window, you can quickly edit key item attributes such
as order modifiers and lead times, and then save those edits into a Simulation Set. This
Simulation Set can then be referenced in the plan option of an ASCP plan, causing ASCP
to consider the Simulation Set edits as item attribute overrides for the plan.
The key features included in the new Item Simulation Set window are:
Basic and Advanced Search, with an ability to save searches

Mass Edit of multiple items and multiple attributes in a single user action
In Advanced Planning Command Center, the new Item Simulation Set window can be
accessed from the Supply Chain Analyst dashboard using the link in the ASCP Plan
Actions section of the Plan Health Summary and Demand and Supply Tabs.
16
3.2.5.6. ASCP Orders Window

You can drill into individual orders from any aggregate material quantity report in
APCC. You can not only see the breakup by order, but also edit priority, adjust the firm
dates/quantities, mark orders for release, as well as release orders. The new ASCP
Orders window displays only certain key attributes of the orders, and does not display
any pegging related information.
The Orders window opens in a separate browser window:
The key features included in the Orders Window are:
Basic and Advanced Search, with an ability to save searches

Edit, Firm, and Implement Release recommendations
In Advanced Planning Command Center, the new Orders window can be accessed from
the Supply Chain Analyst dashboard using the link in the ASCP Plan Actions section
of the Plan Health Summary and Demand and Supply Tabs.
You can integrate the Orders window into custom dashboards and reports.
3.2.5.7. Related Exceptions
You can analyze late demands in a plan by drilling to root causes. This is achieved by
drilling from exceptions of type Late Replenishment for Forecast and Late
Replenishment for Sales Order to Related Material Constraints or Related Resource
Constraints. This navigation is relevant only for constrained ASCP plans.
This drill-down is enabled in the reports Exceptions by Organizations and Exceptions
by Items, which are drill-down reports from the Demand Exceptions Summary in the
Exceptions tab.
For the late demands in the selected Organization or Item, the drill-down navigates to the
following new windows with the context described below:
Related Material Constraints: Navigates to the new Orders window (described

above) using the context of all upstream components of the selected demands
that have a material constraint exception.
Related Resource Constraints: Navigates to the new Resource Plan (described
above) using the context of all upstream resources used in the supplies pegged to
the selected demands that have a resource constraint exception.
17
3.2.5.8. Launch Plan

You can now launch an ASCP plan directly from the APCC Supply Chain Analyst
dashboard, from the Launch Plan link in the ASCP Plan Actions section of the Plan
Health Summary or Demands and Supply dashboard pages.
Launch plan options include an ability to run either a batch replan (using the "Net
Change Simulation" option) or a full replan with snapshot.
Net Change Simulation is the recommended option when you have done simulation edits
such as material quantities/dates or resource availability. The full replan option is
recommended when you have done updates to item attributes in the simulation set.
3.2.5.9. Parallel Processing of Plan Archival
During Plan Archival in Advanced Planning Command Center, there are several
predecessor tasks that need to be completed before the complete plan is archived. In
previous releases, the current archival process ensured the following sequence amongst
these entities:
With this enhancement, there will be considerable improvement in throughput as these

entities are now processed in parallel as follows:
18
3.2.5.10. Configurable Time Levels During Plan Archival

Prior to 12.1.3.9, in APCC, many facts were processed during archival at day level.
These included supplies, demands, exceptions, and resource facts. However, Advanced
Planning Command Center users typically view information at higher levels of Period
and Week. Hence there was a lot of redundant information being processed and stored in
APCC.
Archival is now supported only at either Manufacturing Weeks or Periods. You can
select the archival level.
Even when you select the Week level, the archival process will still support roll up of
data into months (in the fiscal period hierarchy) by breaking down the weeks into smaller
reporting units wherever there are month boundaries as shown below:
Hence the month totals will still be accurate and not get skewed because of the time
granularity selected during archival.
3.2.5.11. Turn Off Archival of Complex Measures
Some of the more complex measures involve intense computation during the APCC
Extract, Transform, Load process. If you do not require these measures, you can now
turn off these their computation. These measures are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Supplier Capacity Net Available Cum

Supplier Capacity Available
Supplier Capacity Utilization %
Count of Sources
Count of Items Single Sourced
Net Resource Availability Cum
Constrained Forecast Cum (Qty and Value)
Budget Shortfall (Qty and Value)
You can turn off the computation of these measures during archival in two ways:
Method 1 New Configuration User Interface
19
Method 2 Profiles
You can also use the following profiles to configure selection of these measures for
archival. These are all site level profiles.
MSC: APCC - Enable Cumulative Measures in Archive (controls measures

1,6,7,8 above)
MSC: APCC Archive SCRM Measures (controls 4,5 above)
MSC: APCC Archive Supplier Capacity Measures (controls 2,3 above)
The configuration done in the User Interface above (Method 1) overrides the profiles
(Method 2.)
3.2.5.12. Configurable Currency Conversions
Whenever you do not need currency conversions from functional currency to reporting
currency, APCC now supports a configuration option (available in the Configuration
User Interface shown above) which lets you either convert based on time-phased rates
based on the fact dates, or use a single rate as of the plan start date, or skip the
conversion completely.
3.2.6.
Release 12.2
3.2.6.1. Plan-specific Forecasting Measures
This feature enables all forecasting measures (not just Consensus Forecast) from
Demantra Demand Management and Demantra Real-time Sales and Operations Planning
to be analyzed in Advanced Planning Command Center, striped by Demand Plan.
Users can analyze, compare or finally purge these plans like any other supply plan. This
enhances the analysis that users can do in APCC, as it is now possible to easily compare
sales forecast, projected backlog, and financial forecast measures across scenarios.
You can provide a plan name as a parameter in the new Demantra workflow processes
called Publish S&OP-APCC Measures (for RT S&OP) and Publish DM-APCC
Measures (for DM). These serve the same purpose as the current workflow Export
OBI-EE Data and the concurrent program Assign Plan Name.
20
3.2.6.2. Custom Series from Demantra DM and RT S&OP

You can configure the integration data profiles in Demantra to publish custom series
created in either DM or RT S&OP to APCC. By default, this feature collects any 15
measures (10 forecasting measures and 5 historical measures) that you choose. You can
alter the mix or add more measures by running a new concurrent program, Collect
Demantra customization information to APCC. The selected series must not have any
complex calculations or client expressions in Demantra.
3.2.6.3. Support for Custom Demantra Product Hierarchy
You can now bring an additional product hierarchy from Demantra into APCC. For
example, the product category hierarchy available in APCC as default is a two-level
hierarchy. You can now create a new four-level hierarchy such as Item < Product
SubGroup < Product Group < Product Line in Demantra and easily bring it into APCC
for use in analysis. This is limited to one custom product hierarchy and supports a
maximum of 10 levels.
You must set the profile MSC: Additional Demantra Item Hierarchy in APCC to the
name of the hierarchy in Demantra and then run the standard Refresh APCC
Materialized Views concurrent program to make that custom hierarchy available in
APCC. None of the seeded reports or dashboards use this custom hierarchy.
3.2.6.4. Integration with Distribution Planning
In Release 12.2, DRP plans can be published to Advanced Planning Command Center.
This will enable DRP users to leverage APCC to analyze DRP plans through custom
reports and dashboards. The concurrent program Archive Plan Summary will now
support DRP plan types. There is no automatic publish of DRP plans to APCC at the
time of DRP plan launch. Only the following DRP plan measures will be published to
APCC:
Order Quantity (all DRP order types)

Exception Count (all DRP exception types)
Exception Quantity/Value (reporting/functional currencies)
Inventory Turns
Scheduled Receipts
On Hand
Carrying Cost (reporting/functional currencies)
Purchasing Cost (reporting/functional currencies)
Total Supply Chain Cost (reporting/functional currencies)
Revenues (reporting/functional currencies)
Gross Margin (reporting/functional currencies)
Gross Margin %
Total Supply
Total Demand
Projected Available Balance (units, value and days of supply)
Fill Rate
The following measures are specific to DRP plans and will also be published to APCC:
Maximum Inventory Level (Units)

Maximum Inventory Level (Days of Supply)
Target Inventory Level (Units)
Target Inventory Level (Days of Supply)
21
The seeded reports and dashboards in APCC are not designed for DRP plans or scenarios
with DRP plans. You should build custom reports or dashboards for analyzing DRP
plans. You can also use the spreadsheet file upload capabilities to load DRP plan data
into APCC.
3.2.7.
Release 12.2.4
3.2.7.1. Custom Hierarchies
In this release the custom product hierarchy feature in APCC has been extended so that
users can upload the custom product hierarchy using csv files. Users will be able to
upload multiple product hierarchies. However, APCC will use one hierarchy at any given
time. This is governed by the profile "MSC: Additional Item Hierarchy in APCC".
Similarly, users will now be able to upload custom organization and customer hierarchies
into APCC using csv files. These hierarchies can have a maximum of 10 levels each.
These organization and customer hierarchies can alternatively be collected from
Demantra. The names of the hierarchies are governed by the profiles "MSC: Additional
Customer Hierarchy in APCC" and "MSC: Additional Organization Hierarchy in
APCC". You must run the concurrent program "Refresh APCC Materialized Views"
after setting up these profiles.
3.2.7.2. Custom Measures
Currently you can bring custom measures from Demantra into APCC using the
concurrent program Collect Demantra Publish Information to APCC". Starting in
Release 12.2.4, you can also upload custom Supply related measures with the following
granularity:
Item, Org, Date, Supplier Site, Source Org, Order Type
These measures can be Non-Plan related (similar to history measures in Demantra) or

can be Plan-specific.
3.2.7.3. Projected On Hand
In Release 12.2.4, APCC will have three new measures related to Projected On Hand:
Projected On Hand
Projected On Hand Value
Projected On Hand Value Reporting Currency
Projected On Hand is calculated as the quantity (in units) on a given day based on
beginning on hand, total demand, and current scheduled receipts, and not including any
planned orders, reschedules or cancellations. The dimensionality will be Item,
Organization, Date. These measures will be available for ASCP and RP plans only.
3.2.7.4. Total Demand Fulfilled
In Release 12.2.4, APCC will have a new measures related to Demand Fulfillment:
22
For a given item org, it is calculated as the sum of upstream pegged supply quantities by
date (to all demands for this item org). The granularity is Item, Organization, Date. This
measure provides information about exact, incremental supply availability dates based on
pegging that the Constrained Forecast does not. It is available for ASCP and RP plans
only.
3.2.7.5. Build Plan

This new report uses the End Item Dimension to provide useful insight to planners. It
includes the ability to analyze the following measures by End Item, Item (component),
Organization and Date:
Total Supply
Total Demand
Projected Available Balance
These measure values will show the quantities for each component item across all end
items. They are still published to APCC at the Item, Org, Day level. In the Build Plan,
they are aggregated to the Item, Org, Week level.
This report will be part of a new tab called Demand Fulfillment in the Supply Chain
Analyst Dashboard.
3.2.7.6. Order Details
To enable contextual drill from APCC dashboards and reports to order level details,
APCC now offers a new measure group called Order Details with the following order
attributes enabled as measures:
Order Priority
Order Number
Line Number
Requested Date
Suggested Due Date
Need By Date
Days Late
Order Qty
Firm Date
Firm Qty
Source Org
The dimensional attributes of these measures will be:
Item
Organization
23
Order Type
Source Supplier
Source Supplier Site
Customer
Customer Site
A new report called Order Details will be made available as a detail report with
contextual drilldown from the Build Plan.
3.2.7.7. Archive DRP Plans to APCC
Starting in Release 12.2.4, DRP plans can be archived to APCC at the time of plan run,
similar to ASCP plans. The DRP plan option Calculate Key Performance Indicators
will now be used to determine whether to trigger archival of DRP plan during its plan
run.
If this is set to Yes, then after the plan run, archive plan summary will be automatically
launched for that plan.
In addition, when a DRP plan is launched, users will have the option to keep the previous
version of the plan archive around (for comparison purposes) or overwrite the previous
version with the current version. This is done using the new plan launch parameter
Archive Current Version of Plan Summary, similar to ASCP Plans. The default value
for this parameter is No.
3.2.7.8. Support for Predictive Trade Planning Measures
Companies are trying to become more demand-driven, lower out-of-stocks at the store
shelf and improve execution of promotions and new product introductions. The benefit is
a more demand-driven enterprise with increased revenue and reduced costs. Demantra
Predictive Trade Planning (PTP) enables users to create and track promotions and
provides some reporting capability. Analysts and executives need to be able to slice and
dice promotional data in a variety of ways. Integrating Oracle Demantra Predictive
Trade Planning with Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center provides this
functionality.
A new dashboard, Trade Analyst Dashboard, contains reports and graphs for analyzing
promotion effectiveness, promotion performance, top and bottom performers, promotion
detail and lift decomposition.
Aggregate Promotion measures are available in the Answers area of the Real Time
S&OP dashboard.
The integration includes the measures in the following table:
Measure
% Spend
Definition
Promotional spending as a percentage of promotional
sales.
24
% Spend Planned
Planned promotional spending as a percentage of

promotional sales. This is a snapshot of the planned value
before the promotion was run. It is used to compare to the
actual results once the promotion is completed.
Base Event Value
Base sales during the promotion. This represents the sales

that would occur even if the promotion was not run.
Base Event Value Planned
Planned base sales during the promotion. This represents

the sales that would occur even if the promotion was not
run. This is a snapshot of the planned value before the
promotion was run. It is used to compare to the actual
results once the promotion is completed.
Base Event Volume
Base volume during the promotion. This represents the

volume that would occur even if the promotion was not
run. This is a snapshot of the planned value before the
Base Value
The sales that would occur in the absence of any

promotional activity.
Base Volume
The volume that would occur in the absence of any

promotional activity.
Buydown $
The variable portion of the cost for the promotion. This is

the promotional spending that is based on the amount of
volume sold during the promotion.
CPIU
Cost Per Incremental Unit. The total cost of the

promotion divided by the incremental volume sold as a
result of the promotion.
CPIU Planned
Planned Cost Per Incremental Unit. The planned total cost

of the promotion divided by the planned incremental
volume resulting from the promotion. This is a snapshot
of the planned value before the promotion was run. It is
used to compare to the actual results once the promotion
is completed.
Event Spend
Total cost of the promotion. Includes variable (buydown)

and fixed costs.
Event Spend Planned
Planned total cost of the promotion. Includes variable

(buydown) and fixed costs. This is a snapshot of the
planned value before the promotion was run. It is used to
compare to the actual results once the promotion is
completed.
Fixed Cost
The fixed portion of the cost for the promotion. This is the
promotional spending that does not vary based on the
amount of volume sold during the promotion. This is
typically the vehicle cost for the promotion.
25
Incremental Event Value
Incremental sales resulting from the promotion. These are

the sales above base that are generated by the promotion.
Incremental Event Value

Planned
Planned incremental sales resulting from the promotion.

These are the planned sales above base that are generated
by the promotion. This is a snapshot of the planned value
Incremental Event Volume
Incremental volume resulting from the promotion. This is

the volume above base that is generated by the promotion.
Incremental Event Volume

Planned
Planned incremental volume resulting from the

promotion. This is the planned volume above base that is
generated by the promotion. This is a snapshot of the
planned value before the promotion was run. It is used to
compare to the actual results once the promotion is
completed.
Incremental Manufacturer
Profit
Incremental profit to the manufacturer due to the

promotion.
Incremental Manufacturer
Profit Planned
Planned incremental profit to the manufacturer due to the

promotion. This is a snapshot of the planned value before
the promotion was run. It is used to compare to the actual
Lift
Percentage increase in sales due to promotion.
Lift Planned
Planned percentage increase in sales due to promotion.

This is a snapshot of the planned value before the
List Price
The regular price that the manufacturer charges for the

product.
Manufacturer List Price
The regular price that the manufacturer charges for the

product.
Manufacturer Profit
Manufacturer's profit from the promotion.
Manufacturer Profit
Planned
Planned manufacturer's profit from the promotion. This is

a snapshot of the planned value before the promotion was
run. It is used to compare to the actual results once the
promotion is completed.
Net Incremental
Manufacturer Profit
Net incremental profit for the manufacturer, after

considering cannibalization and pre- and post-effects.
Price Decrease Level
The percentage decrease from regular retail price to

promoted retail price represented in 5% increments.
Calculated as: ((Regular Price Promoted Price) /
Promoted Price)) * 100 rounded to nearest 5%.
26
Price Discount Percentage
The percentage decrease from regular retail price to

promoted retail price. Calculated as: ( (Regular Price
Promoted Price) / Promoted Price) * 100.
Promoted Price
Retail sale price of the promoted product.
Promotional
Cannibalization Value
Forecast
Reduction in revenue to a non- promoted product as the

result of a promotion.
Promotional
Cannibalization Volume
Forecast
Reduction in volume to a non- promoted product as the

result of a promotion.
Promotional Net
Incremental Value
Forecast
Promotional incremental value adjusted for

cannibalization and pre-post effect.
Promotional Pre-Post
Effect Value Forecast
Reduction in revenue before or after a promotion.

Typically due to pantry loading or forward buy.
Promotional Pre- Post

Effect Volume Forecast
Reduction in volume before or after a promotion.

Typically due to pantry loading or forward buy.
Regular Non-Promoted
Price
The regular retail price for the product when there is no

promotion running; dimensioned by Promotion.
Regular Price
The regular retail price for the product when there is no

promotion running.
Total Event Value
Total sales of the promotion. Includes base and

incremental sales.
Total Event Value Planned Planned total sales of the promotion. Includes base and
incremental sales. This is a snapshot of the planned value
3.2.1.
Total Event Volume
Total volume of the promotion. Includes base and

incremental volume.
Total Event Volume

Planned
Planned total volume of the promotion. Includes base and

incremental volume. This is a snapshot of the planned
value before the promotion was run. It is used to compare
to the actual results once the promotion is completed.
Release 12.2.4.1
3.2.1.1. High Volume Detailed Reporting
You can now view plan output at the individual order and individual exception level.
Order and exception-level information can be flexibly grouped along standard planning
dimensions and hierarchies such as product and org, and also along user-specified non-
27
planning attributes (for example, customer order hold status.) This allows you see in a
single place both planning and execution information about supply chain orders.
3.2.2.
Release 12.2.5
3.2.2.1. Support for Multiple Manufacturing Calendars
Prior to 12.2.5, APCC used a single manufacturing calendar based on a profile option
(MSC: APCC Calendar Code) to determine the aggregations on the manufacturing
calendar hierarchy. This is a global setting used for all inventory organizations.
With this enhancement, the Organization-specific calendar is used for aggregation of
data from day-level to week-level during plan archival but will support multiple
manufacturing calendars to aggregate data from week to period level in the reports. As a
result, users can consolidate data across organizations and view them in a common
calendar across the enterprise or view them in different reports using organization
specific calendars.
The following seeded reports will now support a page prompt so that users can select a
calendar:
Aggregate Horizontal Plan

Detailed Horizontal Plan
In these reports, bucketing defaults to the default calendar based on the profile (current
behavior), but you can change to a different calendar using a drop down menu at the top.
3.2.2.2. Support for Additional Category Sets
Prior to 12.2.5, APCC supported 3 category sets for aggregating data in the product
hierarchy. With this enhancement, you can now use 5 category sets (2 additional
category sets). However, only one category set will have the data pre-aggregated
(controlled by the profile MSC: APCC Category Set 1). The 5 category sets used in
APCC will be based on the profiles MSC: APCC Category Set 1 through 5.
3.2.2.3. Enhancements to New Material Plan
All drill downs from APCC to the New Material Plan will now support a category
context. This will apply to the linked reports (Aggregate Horizontal Plan, Detailed
Horizontal Plan). Customers can also use this feature to invoke the material plan from
custom reports with category context.
A new item filter has also been added to the new material plan to support further drill
down to one or more items.
3.2.2.4. Project Driven Supply Chain Dashboard
In Release VCP 12.2.4.1, integration between Primavera P6 and Advanced Supply Chain
Planning (ASCP) was made available. This integration enables project managers to
easily communicate project level demand for engineered products and materials to
supply chain planners and supply chain planners to provide supply updates back to
project managers.
In Release VCP 12.2.5.1, a new Project Driven Supply Chain dashboard is available in
Advanced Planning Command Center (APCC) to further facilitate the process of
28
collaboration between project managers and supply chain planners and help maximize on
time delivery and minimize supply costs for companies that deal with large scale
projects.
This new dashboard will have the following content:
Project Performance Summary: A tabular view of key project level supply chain
performance information such as the on-time delivery status of the project, the number of
days late, the total number of orders and the number of orders that are late for each
project. From this view, planners can drill down to see supply and demand summaries by
order type and also see the individual orders.
Exceptions Summary by Project: A summary view of the count of exception types by
project. Planners can further drill down to view exceptions summary by Item, Category
or Organization.
Top N Late Demands Ordered by Value: A list of the top N project specific demands that
are late. The order with the highest order value shows up first in the list. From a demand
in this list, planners can drill down to the ASCP Supplies and Demands screen to see the
pegged supplies and also evaluate the critical supplies that are causing the demand to be
delayed.
Top N Late Purchase Orders (By Days Late): A list of the top N purchase orders pegged
to project demands that are late (relative to their Need by Date). The list is ordered by
Days Late with the purchase orders that is most delayed showing in the first row.
Resource Utilization Summary: A summary view of the resources that are most utilized
in the ASCP plan with the resource that has the maximum resource utilization showing
on the top of the list. Note that the resource utilization is not filtered by the project; it is
the total resource utilization across all project and non project supplies planned on that
resource.
3.2.2.5. Supply Chain Analyst Dashboard Enhancements
Purchasing Cost by Period Report
A new report has been added to display planned purchases by manufacturing period:
29
The report has the following dimensions and facts: Plan and time as dimensions,
purchasing cost as fact. The report is filtered to include the baseline and comparison
plans.
On Hand Days of Cover Report
A new report has been added to show a summary view of days of cover:
The report has the following dimensions and facts: Plan, Organization, Item as
dimensions, on hand days of cover as a fact. The report is filtered to include the baseline
and comparison plans.
Purchasing Cost by Period Report
A new report shows planned purchases by period:
The report has the following dimensions and facts: plan, supplier, organization,
manufacturing period, and order type as dimensions, order quantity as fact. The report is
filtered to only include order types of purchase order, purchase requisition, and planned
30
orders where supplier is not null. Orders with supplier unassigned are also filtered out.
The report is filtered to include the baseline and comparison plans.
Resource Utilization Report
A new report shows utilization by resource:
The report has the following dimensions and facts: Plan, organization, resource
description, and manufacturing period as dimensions, resource utilization % - total as a
fact. The report is filtered to include the baseline and comparison plans.
Planned Production Report
A new report shows planned production by category by organization.
The report has the following dimensions and facts: Plan, organization, category
description, and manufacturing period as dimensions, production plan as a fact.
31
Plan Health Summary Re-Layout

The Plan Health Summary tab has been re-arranged to add new content, remove content
duplicated on other tabs, and to better utilize the page.
Demand and Supply Tab Re-Layout
The Demand and Supply tab has been re-arranged to add new content, remove content
duplicated on other tabs, and to better utilize the page.
Resources Tab Re-Layout
The Resources tab has been re-arranged to add new content, remove content duplicated
on other tabs, and to better utilize the page.
Updated Links to the Planner Workbench
Where possible, links that take users from reports in APCC to detailed views in the
Advanced Supply Chain Planning Planner Workbench have been updated to point to the
ADF versions of those views.
3.2.2.6. New OBIEE Versions
Releases 12.2.5 / 12.2.5.1 of APCC are certified with OBIEE 11.1.1.7 and OBIEE
11.1.1.9.
3.2.3.
Release 12.2.6
3.2.3.1. Policy Planning Dashboard
A new Policy Planning dashboard has been introduced in this release to view metrics
associated with Policy driven SPP Plans. The new dashboard will have the following
analytics:
Plan Estimation: The Plan Estimation Analytic displays the performance of the Policy
Plan and compares it with Targets. It displays, by Category, the Target Service Level
(%) which is specified as an input to Oracle Inventory Optimization (IO) through the
Policy Parameter Set, the Estimated Service Level (%) which is calculated based on
inventory levels within the SPP Policy Plan, the Estimated Stock, which is an
average value of the average expected inventory, and the Uncovered Demand and
Uncovered Variance, which are measures of the extent to which the forecasted
demand and its variance may not be covered through projected inventory values. You
can drill down from this Analytic to view data by Item, Organization and across
time.
Policy Execution: The Policy Execution analytic is a view into the current execution
details associated with the Policy Plan. It displays, by Category, the On-Hand,
Scheduled Receipts and Planned Orders from the Plan. You can drill from this
Analytic to view data by Item, Organization and across time.
Policy Monitoring: The Policy Monitoring analytic provides visibility into how Policy
Plan targets and current Plan results compare with historical metrics. The analytic
displays Estimated Service Level (%) and Estimated Stock as derived from the Plan,
the input Target Fill Rate (%) and Target Stock (corresponding to the Target Fill
Rate (%), and the Actual Fill Rate (%) and Actual Stock. The Actual Fill Rate (%) is
32
calculated using historical shipment data which can be collected from EBS Order
Management or loaded through legacy loads. The Actual Stock shows the current onhand availability.
Besides the Analytics described above, the new Policy Planning Dashboard has a
selector region at the page level that enables selection of the Scenario, the Organization
and the date range to view analytics. Another region has links to enable viewing, creating
and launching SPP and IO Plans, as well as managing Policy Parameter Set and Item
Simulation set data.
3.2.3.2. Support for creating APCC scenarios with multiple SPP Plans
A Policy Planning setup could consist of multiple SPP Plans. To analyze data from
multiple plans together in the Policy Planning dashboard, they can be grouped into a
scenario within APCC. The scenario can be associated with the Policy Planning
dashboard by setting the Analyze In value to Service Parts Planning
3.2.3.3. New Profile Option to specify Category Set for Policy Planning dashboard
A new profile called MSC: Category Set for Policy Planning APCC Reports has been
introduced. The categories for which data is shown in the Policy Planning dashboard are
derived from this category set. The Category Set value in this profile must be set to the
same Category Set that is used to define Policy Parameters in the Policy Parameters Set.
3.3.

3.3.1.
Release 12.1.1
3.3.1.1. Oracle Transportation Management Integration
Most planning systems have no visibility to delays in transportation and their impact to
manufacturing utilization or customer service. With this release ASCP will:
Leverage Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) Supply Chain Event

Management to obtain real-time, projected material arrival dates
Provide a Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) process and associated

web services to consume events and generate planning exceptions to provide
planners real time visibility to transportation delays
Use the updated dates in ASCP interactive planning calculations to calculate the
impact of transportation delays on downstream orders and take corrective action
3.3.1.2. Optimization Enhancements

Oracle ASCP enables planners to efficiently manage many products and supply chain
locations by intelligently selecting alternate sources, manufacturing processes, bills of
material, and substitute items. With this release, ASCP's automated decision-making
capabilities have been enhanced in the following ways.
3.3.1.2.1. Day-Level Planning
33
A new "day-level" planning mode allows ASCP to automate the selection of

alternates while generating planning results at the day level of granularity. This
planning mode skips the final detailed scheduling solution phase that is now
undertaken with any constrained or optimized plan run. For customers for whom
day-level planning results are sufficiently detailed, this is a way to run plans in a
shorter amount of time than was previously possible (due to the fact that the final
detailed scheduling phase is skipped).
3.3.1.2.2. More Accurate Offloading to Alternates
It is often desired to offload to alternate sources or processes only once a primary
source or process runs out of capacity. ASCP now does a more accurate job of
offloading: it offloads primary sources and processes more fully before offloading to
alternates, and planning results show fewer instances of primary source/process
overloading before offloading to alternates.
3.3.1.3. Contiguous Processing
In the process industries, many products need to be processed contiguously from raw
materials to finished goods, because intermediate products may be unstable or because
intermediate products are transported from process to process without any provision for
storage in between.
With this release, ASCP respects Oracle Process Manufacturing standard and max delays
between routings. This allows you to cap the maximum time duration between upstream
and downstream make supplies and enforce contiguous processing. You can also enforce
a minimum (standard) delay between make supplies in order to accurately reflect
processing constraints such as cool-down periods.
3.3.1.4. Minimum Remaining Shelf Life
Products such as groceries and pharmaceuticals have limited shelf lives. Customers of
such products typically impose rules that dictate that when such products arrive at the
customer site, they must have a certain minimum duration of remaining shelf life, so that
there will be enough time for the end consumer to buy and use the products. ASCP now
supports minimum remaining shelf life (MRSL) constraints specified at the itemorganization, item-customer site and sales order levels. Item-organization and itemcustomer site-level MRSLs are specified via item attribute simulation sets. Sales orderlevel MRSLs can only be entered via customization that populates a new column in the
MSC_SALES_ORDERS table on the planning server. This feature is supported for sales
order demands only.
3.3.1.5. Distribution Planning Scalability Enhancements
Distribution enterprises often need to manage large numbers of locations and items: the
number of locations may be in the thousands; the number of items at each location may
be in the tens of thousands or more. Planning in such an environment requires a focus on
scalability.
With this release, Distribution Planning incorporates the following scalability
enhancements. First, the phase of planning that calculates the independent and dependent
demands at each distribution location and allocates scarce supply to those demands has
been made multi-process, in order to take advantage of the parallelization capabilities of
multi-processor hardware configurations. Such a configuration can either be a single
34
planning server with multiple processors, or multiple servers logically linked together via
Real Application Clusters. The partitioning of the distribution planning problem into
pieces that can be solved in parallel is done automatically.
In conjunction with the above change, the load consolidation phase of Distribution
Planning has been decoupled from the demand push-down and supply allocation phase
mentioned above and is now also done concurrently in a multi-process fashion.
Functionally, this may reduce how well Distribution Planning is able to consolidate loads
relative to its base behavior in Release 12, because the consolidation calculations in
downstream supply chain layers now no longer factor in the consolidation outputs from
upstream layers. This is a trade-off that the user optionally makes for the sake of better
performance.
The above behavior is optional, and is enabled via profile options.
3.3.1.6. End Item Substitution Enhancements
Use-up of on hand inventory is critical to controlling storage and obsolescence costs at
many companies. One way in which ASCP helps in this regards is to recommend the use
of available substitute item supplies when the demanded item is not on hand. Prior to this
release, such end-item substitution recommendations made by ASCP could not be
automatically released back and implemented in Order Management. With this release,
the ASCP sales order release process has been enhanced to support the passing back of
ASCP substitute item recommendations back to the associated sales orders in Order
Management.
ASCP also supports an option to recognize explicitly modeled item substitution
relationships only and thus turn off the inference of chained substitutions. If Item B is a
substitute for Item A, and Item C is a substitute for Item B, it is now possible to
configure ASCP to not infer that Item C is a substitute for Item A.
When searching for end-item substitute supplies, ASCP can optionally search for them in
ascending order of substitution relationship date effectivity. This provides a mechanism
for dictating the item order of ASCP's search for end-item substitutes.
This capability is not supported for R12.0.x source instances. It is supported for R12.1.1
and 11i10 source instances.
3.3.1.7. Production Schedules as Inputs
You can now publish planned orders directly from Production Scheduling into an ASCP
plan. Planned orders scheduled in PS come into ASCP as firm planned orders. This
allows ASCP plans to remain consistent with short-term scheduling decisions made in
PS.
3.3.1.8. Safety Lead Time
In lieu of generating supplies to meet target safety stock quantities, ASCP now offers the
option of hedging against uncertain demand by generating supplies to meet demands
ahead of time. The amount of time that demands are met ahead of time is the "safety lead
time", and is specified via the Safety Stock Percent item attribute (100% per one day of
safety lead time). This feature is turned on via the MSO: Use Safety Lead Time profile
option.
35
3.3.1.9. Customization of Horizontal Plan

ASCP supports the ability to customize the row labels and numbers displayed in the
horizontal plan. One typical application of this capability is to display demands and
supplies in alternate units of measure.
A new custom row in the horizontal plan allows a user to display a custom order type
(for example, Projected Available Balance Dollar Value) and label it appropriately. The
custom row can be selectively displayed, by user or by preference. The logic to calculate
custom order type data values must be provided by the user via a custom PL/SQL
program unit that is pointed to by the profile option MSC: Horizontal Plan Extension
Program. The same mechanism can be used to customize data values in standard rows of
the horizontal plan.
3.3.1.10. Supply Tolerancing Enhancements
In the process industries, process variability often creates supply output quantities that
vary about a nominal amount. For example, a "10,000 pound" coil of aluminum sheet
may actually come out to be 9,950 pounds or 10,035 pounds. The planning requirements
are to be able to tolerate minor discrepancies between demand and supply so as to
prevent unnecessary production and impractical supply splits. For example, a demand for
10,000 pounds should be considered to be satisfied completely by a 9,950 pound coil.
When the same demand is satisfied with a 10,035 pound coil, planning should not
recommend that the extra 35 pounds be split off to be used to satisfy other demands.
ASCP supports the concept of supply tolerancing through Shortage Tolerance and
Excess Tolerance Percent pegging controls that dictate when demands and supplies are
considered to be fully pegged. In the example with the 9,950 pound coil above, ASCP
will still generate a recommendation for an extra 10,000 pound coil to cover the supply
deficit, but will peg that supply to excess so that it is moved to the end of the planning
horizon. This prevents the planner from accidentally releasing unneeded work to the
production floor.
Supply tolerancing support where Shortage and Excess Tolerance Percentages are input
as global profile option values is existing capability. New with this release is the ability
for the user to optionally specify Shortage and Excess Tolerance Percentages (via
customization) at the item-organization level in the staging table
MSC_ST_SYSTEM_ITEMS. If these values are populated, ASCP will look at these
staging table values in lieu of the profile option values.
Also new is ASCP's ability to delay the satisfaction of 'small' demands until sufficient
outstanding demand has accumulated to warrant the production of a standard-sized batch.
'Small' is defined to be a percentage of the Fixed Lot Multiple order modifier. This
percentage can be entered (via customization) in the planner server table
MSC_SYSTEM_ITEMS.
3.3.1.11. Buy Order Processing Lead Time Backward Compatibility
In 11i9 the processing lead time for buy planned orders was offset based on the org
manufacturing calendar. Starting in 11i10, the processing lead time for buy planned
orders was offset based on the Supplier Capacity Calendar, if it was assigned on the
Approved Supplier List. Otherwise the processing lead time was offset based on a 24x7
calendar. In order to preserve behavior compatibility with 11i9 for customers who may
have set their buy item processing lead times assuming org manufacturing calendar
36
offsetting and are upgrading from 11i9 to R12.1.1, a new profile option MSC: Buy Order
Processing Lead Time Calendar allows you to either revert back to the 11i9 behavior
(when it is set to 'Org Manufacturing Calendar') or use the 11i10 behavior (when it is set
to 'Supplier Capacity Calendar').
3.3.2.
Release 12.1.2
3.3.2.1. Release Recommendations for Internal Requisitions
You can now release reschedule in, reschedule out, and cancellation recommendations
for internal requisitions. Previously, Oracle Purchasing did not support changes to an
internal requisition after the corresponding internal sales order had been created in
Oracle Order Management. This restriction has now been removed. ASCP's
recommendations for internal orders can now be successfully released from the planner
workbench. You can also release manual overrides of internal requisition date and
quantity.
3.3.2.2. Turn Off Planned Order Creation
You can turn off planned order creation for an item via the new Item Mass Maintenance
item attribute "New Planned Order Creation". The permissible values are: Create New
Planned Orders (default) and Do Not Create New Planned Orders. Use cases for this
capability are:
A by-product defined in the BOM can be used as downstream component. The

requirement is to ensure that while all available supplies of the by-product are
consumed, no supplies for this item are purchased. In addition, Sales Orders can
be taken for the by-product and shipped as supplies are available, but no new
supplies should be manufactured to meet Sales Order demand.
To enable phasing out of item components and their replacement with newer
ingredients, it is required that there be no new order or build for the phased out
item. The existing supply of the phased out item is to be used up.
No new supplies for certain products are to be made, but available stock can be
distributed and sold.
This feature is only available in the Constrained (Without Scheduling) planning mode. It
is not available in the Unconstrained, Constrained (Classic), Constrained (Classic) With
Decision Rules and Optimized (Classic), and Constrained (With Scheduling) planning
modes. It is also not available in Distribution Planning.
3.3.2.3. Consume Purchase Orders in First In, First Out Sequence
Standard ASCP behavior matches supplies to demands in a way that minimizes
inventory. For example, if within a week there is a demand of 1 on Friday, and purchase
order supplies of 1 each on Monday and Thursday, ASCP would match the Thursday
purchase order to the Friday demand and recommend the cancellation of the Monday
purchase order.
With this (optional) feature, ASCP would match the Monday purchase order to the
Friday demand and recommend the cancellation of the Thursday purchase order. Use of
existing purchase order supplies in this chronological fashion applies across substitute
components: if the Monday and Thursday purchase orders in our example are in fact
37
different items but substitute components, ASCP would still consume the Monday
purchase order and cancel the Thursday purchase order.
This feature is useful for minimizing the impact of purchase order change
recommendations on suppliers.
3.3.3.
Release 12.1.3
3.3.3.1. Forecast Spreading Based on Shipping Calendar
Before this release ASCP supported forecast spreading based on only manufacturing
calendar.
In this release a new profile option MSC: Forecast Spreading Calendar enables users
to spread forecasts based on the shipping calendar in addition to the manufacturing
calendar. The list of values for this profile option includes:
Organization Manufacturing Calendar This is the default value. The system will use
the organization manufacturing calendar for spreading the forecast.
Organization Shipping Calendar The system will use the organization shipping
calendar for spreading the forecast.
Note A forecast for a non-working day in the manufacturing calendar is moved to the
previous working day.
Example: Consider an organization with a manufacturing calendar that has both Saturday
and Sunday as non-working days. On the other hand the shipping calendar has only
Sunday as the only non-working day of the week. Based on the shipping calendar, a
forecast of 480 units for period 3 (March) is spread evenly to daily buckets from Monday
to Saturday (total of 24 buckets). That results in the daily forecast quantity of 20
(480 / 24 = 20). Since Saturday is not a working day based on the manufacturing
calendar, therefore ASCP moves and adds up the Saturdays forecasts to Fridays
forecasts (20 + 20 = 40). The result is shown in the following table:
Date
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesda
y
Thursda
y
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Forecast
Date
20
10
Forecast
Date
Forecast
11
20
17
Forecast
Date
20
12
20
18
20
24
20
20
20
20
13
19
25
20
20
40
20
16
0
22
40
28
20
0
15
21
27
20
40
14
20
26
20
20
23
0
29
40
30
0
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3.3.3.2. Excluding Planned Orders from Supply Tolerancing

Before this release the Shortage Tolerance Percent and Excess Tolerance Percent were
applied to all order types including planned orders.
With this release ASCP provides a profile option called MSC: Apply shortage and
excess tolerance percentages to planned orders. The list of values for this profile option
includes:
Yes The shortage tolerance and excess percentages are applied to all supplies including
planned orders. This is the default value.
No The shortage tolerance and excess percentages are applied only to existing supplies
(such as On Hand, WIP).
When this profile option is set to No, it allows ASCP to generate planned orders that
satisfy 100% of demand, while matching existing supplies (which may have irregular
quantities due to actual process yields) to demands using a supply tolerance.
Example Consider an item with 2 demands:
Demand1= 10200 Demand2= 10200
Fixed Order Quantity = 2000
MSC: Demand Satisfied Percent Threshold for Pegging = 98
Shortage Tolerance Quantity = 10200 (100 98) / 100 = 204
MSC: Minimum Supply/Demand Percent for Pegging = 0.0018
Excess Tolerance Quantity = 10200 0.0018 = 1836
If the profile option MSC: Apply shortage and excess tolerance percentages to planned
orders is set to No, ASCP creates 6 planned orders of 2000 to satisfy Demand1 of
10200. In this case Demand1 is satisfied completely and the excess of 1800 (12000
10200) is used to satisfy Demand2 ignoring the excess tolerance percent even though
1800 < 1836.
On the other hand, if the profile option is set to Yes, then ASCP initially creates 6
planned orders to satisfy Demand1, but it uses (pegs) only 5 of those to satisfy this
demand since (10200 10000) < 204. In this case Demand1 is satisfied with an allowed
shortage of 200. The other planned order of 2000 is used for satisfying Demand2.
3.3.3.3. Maximize Use-Up of Substitute Components
With this release ASCP provides a new profile option called MSO: Use up existing
supply of primary components before substitute that allows you to maximize usage of
substitute components. The list of values for this profile option includes:
Yes ASCP uses the existing supply of primary components before substitute
components. This is the default value.
No ASCP uses the existing supply of substitute components before primary
components.
39
If this profile option is set to No, and there is no existing supply for substitute
components, ASCP generates new planned orders for the primary components before
substitute components.
In addition to the above profile option, you need to set the following 2 profile options to
use this feature:
1 MSO: Use Existing Supplies in Alternate BOM/Subs. Comp
This profile option allows you to control how the existing supplies in substitute
components / alternate BOM paths are used by ASCP. You need to set the value of this
profile option to 0 (consider both existing substitute component supplies and existing
alternate BOM component supplies) or 1 (consider existing substitute component
supplies but not existing alternate BOM component supplies) to use this enhancement.
Values 2 (consider neither existing substitute component supplies nor existing alternate
BOM component supplies) and 3 (consider existing alternate BOM component supplies
but not existing substitute component supplies) are not compatible with this feature.
2 MSO: Postpone Use of Alternates to Latest Possible Time
This profile option enables ASCP to plan supplies with respect to the timing of
alternates usage. You need to set the value of this profile option to No to use this
feature.
ASCP behavior with respect to this feature is summarized as follows:
With the feature turned off (MSO: Use up existing supply of primary components before
substitute = Yes):
1. Use on hand and scheduled receipts of primary components
2. Use on hand and scheduled receipts of substitute components
3. Generate new planned orders for primary components
4. Generate new planned orders for substitute components
With the feature turned on (MSO: Use up existing supply of primary components before
substitute = No):
1. Use on hand and scheduled receipts of substitute components
2. Use on hand and scheduled receipts of primary components
3. Generate new planned orders for primary components
4. Generate new planned orders for substitute components
Note that the on hand of a substitute component will not be used if it is less than the
Minimum Order Quantity, Fixed Order Quantity, or Fixed Lot Multiplier. The on hand
of a substitute component may be partially used if it is greater than the order modifiers
but it is not a multiple of them.
This enhancement is only available with the Constrained (Without Scheduling) planning
mode.
40
3.3.3.4. Distribution Planning Enhanced Order Modifier Support

Distribution planning now supports two more order modifiers: maximum order quantity
and minimum order quantity. This is in addition to the currently supported fixed lot
multiplier and round order modifiers. Users can specify maximum and minimum order
quantity as an item attribute. Users can also choose to specify each newly supported
order modifier on the supply allocation rule. Order modifiers specified on a supply
allocation rule are applied to transfers between organizations.
3.3.4.
Release 12.1.3+
3.3.4.1. Forecast Explosion Enhancements
The enhancements to the forecast explosion process in ASCP include:
While exploding forecasts of ATO Models, ASCP traces the exploded forecasts
of option classes and options to the top model forecast that is the source of the
original demand. This information is used for reporting and analysis in
Advanced Planning Command Center.
Note: When using Demantra Demand Management to feed forecasts into
Advanced Supply Chain Planning, the seeded data integration profile publishes
both the Model forecasts and the exploded forecasts by default. When using this
option to explode forecasts in ASCP, users will need to set up a custom profile to
not publish the exploded forecast demand so that there is no double counting of
dependent demand.
The forecast explosion process will now be able to use the Planning percentages
from Demantra Demand Management (if published). If the planning percentages
from Demantra are not available, the explosion will use the usages on the Bills
of Material as the default.
Note: The Planning Percentages need to be published from Demantra using a
custom data integration profile. The seeded profile does not publish this by
default.
These features are valid for local and global forecasts and also in both simple, singleorganization models and multi-level, multi-organization models.
Both these enhancements are available only when the plan option 'Explode Forecast' is
turned on and the forecast control for the Options and Option Classes is set to Consume
and Derive.
3.3.4.2. Collections Enhancements for Asset Intensive Planning
ASCP has been enhanced to support planning of maintenance and repair activities in
Asset Intensive industries. Integration of ASCP with Complex Maintenance Repair and
Overhaul (CMRO) and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) has been enhanced to
support asset intensive planning. Following is a summary of the key enhancements made
in this release to support Asset Intensive Planning.
The Collections process has been enhanced to collect new entities that allow ASCP to
better support asset intensive planning - Asset and Activity items, Sub-inventory default
locator statuses, EAM Budget Forecast, EAM Production Work Orders, Repair Bill of
Materials / Routings (defined in EAM), CMRO Unit Maintenance Plan, CMRO
41
Production Work Orders, CMRO Reservations, CMRO Outside Processing Supplies /

Demands.
3.3.4.3. Maintenance Plan Inputs to ASCP
Users can specify the set of Maintenance plans that should be considered by ASCP when
planning. This set could include the CMRO Unit Maintenance Plan, the list of all
simulation plans created in CMRO and Budget Forecast scenarios created in EAM and
the production work orders in CMRO and EAM. The EAM and CMRO Maintenance
plans are represented as Maintenance Work Orders in ASCP. The materials requirements
and resource requirements associated with these maintenance work orders drive planning
decisions in ASCP.
3.3.4.4. Returns Forecast
A returns forecast represents the forecasted return of defective items into the
maintenance supply chain. Users can specify that ASCP calculate a returns forecast
automatically based on a projected removal of defective parts. This projected removal is
calculated by aggregating the projected removals by rebuildable item by planning time
bucket across all maintenance work orders that have demands for rebuildable items. It is
also possible for users to provide the returns forecast to ASCP in the form of a flat file
loaded via legacy collections and specified as input to ASCP. The returns forecast
determines the extent to which ASCP can satisfy demand for usable items by repairing
defective items.
3.3.4.5. Repair Planning
ASCP will distinguish between defective and usable inventory of the same item. ASCP
can plan to repair defective parts to create usable parts to satisfy demand for usable parts.
This is enabled through the use of a Repair-At sourcing rule. The repair process can be
represented as a lead time only process. Optionally, a BOM / Routing can also be
specified for the repair process.
3.3.4.6. Respect CMRO Reservations
In CMRO, it is possible to reserve on hand supply, work order supply or internal
requisition supply to a downstream work order demand. ASCP collects these reservations
and will respect them when making planning decisions.
3.3.4.7. New Order Types for Asset Intensive Planning

New order types: Following are new order types that have been introduced in ASCP to
support asset intensive planning and the integration with EAM and CMRO.
Order Type
Description
Maintenance Work Order
Supply order representing either CMRO Visit WO, EAM

Maintenance Work Order, CMRO UMP Forecast Work
Order or EAM Budget Forecast WO
Maintenance Work Order

Demand
Demand Order representing the material demand

generated by maintenance work orders
Part Demand
Demand Order representing the demand for defective

parts generated by maintenance work orders
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Planned Repair Work

Order
Planned order that represents a repair activity
Planned Part Demand
Demand for defective items generated by a planned

repair work order
Returns Forecast
Forecasted Supply of the defective item (either

calculated by ASCP or input to the plan)
External Repair Order
The supply corresponding to usable items being

returned from a Outside Processing Vendor
3.3.4.8. New Supply/Demand Attributes for Asset Intensive Planning

Planners can review maintenance related supplies and demands. The following attributes
allow planners to filter the set of maintenance supplies/demands for more detailed
review.
Operating Fleet: The name of the operating fleet to which the asset is assigned to
(CMRO Only)
Maintenance Plan: The name of the maintenance plan that is the source of this
maintenance work order
Maintenance Requirement: The originating Maintenance Requirement that

resulted in this Maintenance Work Order (CMRO Only)
Visit: The name of the visit to which this maintenance work order is associated
with (CMRO Only)
Produce to Stock: Value of Yes indicates that the maintenance work order
produces supply. Typically these are maintenance work orders created for repair.
Value of No indicates that the maintenance work order does not create
supplies
Part Condition: Usable or Defective depending on the type of supply
Activity Type: The type of activity. Activities of type Rebuild are considered
by ASCP to represent the repair process (EAM Only)
Activity Name: The name of the activity (EAM Only)
Asset Group: The group to which the asset belongs to (EAM Only)
Class Code: The charge code associated with the asset.
3.3.4.9. Horizontal Plan Enhancements for Asset Intensive Planning

Planners can take advantage of maintenance specific measures available for viewing in
the Item and Resource Horizontal plan. In the Item horizontal plan, the following new
measures are available Planned Repair Work Orders, Defective part demand, Returns
Forecast, Defective On Hand, Defectives in-transit, Projected Available Balance
(Defectives), Maintenance Work Orders, Maintenance Work Order Demand, Planned
Defective Transfer Orders, Planned Defective Part Demand, External Repair Orders. In
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the Resource Horizontal Plan the following new measures are available Maintenance
Work Order, Planned Repair Work Order, External Repair Orders.
3.3.4.10. Exceptions for Asset Intensive Planning
Planners can take advantage of new exception messages related to maintenance planning:
Late Replenishment to Maintenance Work Order Demand, Maintenance Work Order
Resource Overloaded, and Work Order Uses Substitute Component. In addition several
existing exception messages have been enhanced to separately report exceptions for
defective parts vs. usable parts.
3.3.4.11. Release Enhancements for Asset Intensive Planning
The release process has been enhanced to release planned repair work orders to the
execution system. Users can specify whether they want to use CMRO or EAM as their
execution system for repair work orders and the release process will integrate with the
specified execution system. The CMRO Planning Workbench has been enhanced to
provide visibility to the planned repair work orders released from ASCP and allow
CMRO Repair planners to create corresponding Maintenance Work Orders in CMRO
using the ASCP recommendations.
3.3.4.12. Display of Recipe Information
Oracle Process Manufacturing Recipes, Formulas, Routings, and their corresponding
versions are now displayed in the Supply/Demand and Process Effectivity windows in
the existing Alternate BOM and Alternate Routing columns. These are displayed in both
the Planner Workbench and the Collections Workbench.
The display formats for these columns are:
Alternate BOM column: Recipe/Recipe Version, Formula/Formula Version
Alternate Routing column: Recipe/Recipe Version, Routing/Routing Version
3.3.4.13. Integration to Rapid Planning

With this integration, it is possible to use Rapid Planning to perform simulations on top
of a supply chain plan created using Advanced Supply Chain Planning. You can continue
to use ASCP as your daily or weekly planning engine and use Rapid Planning for intraday or intra-week simulations of changes to your business such as changes to demands /
supplies and capacities. Users will be able to create a baseline Rapid Planning plan that
mirrors the ASCP plan on which they want to perform simulations on through a copy
process that copies demands and supplies into Rapid Planning from a reference ASCP
plan. Users can then specify changes to the plan inputs such as new or changed
demands/supplies/capacity. Before running a Rapid Planning simulation with these
changed inputs, users can also specify what portion of the baseline ASCP plan output
should be considered frozen (and thereby not allowed to be changed by the Rapid
Planning simulation process). The results of the Rapid Planning simulation can be
released to the source systems and/or fed into the next ASCP plan run as firm planned
orders. Users can also compare the extent to which the simulation has changed the
baseline ASCP plan through the plan analysis and order comparison capabilities within
Rapid Planning.
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3.3.4.14. New Material Plan

A new Material Plan supports analysis and mass editing of supply and demand
information for a group of items or product categories. You can:
Edit a group of end item orders to arrive at a total master schedule by

period
Edit a group of component orders for a given supplier to meet price break
quantities
Edit a group of planned orders to get to a consolidated container shipment
quantity
The new Material Plan displays demand and supply for the selected items in a bucketed
fashion including the totals. The Material Plan allows in-place editing. You can update
demand quantities (forecasts, manual demands) and supply quantities (planned
orders). Changes to the bucketed values are allocated down using a proportional rule
and the underlying planned orders will be firmed.
The new Material Plan opens in a separate browser window:
Key features of the new Material Plan are:
Page filters of Organization, Category Set, Category
Ability to hide/show totals for selected items/categories
You can access the new Material Plan from the ASCP Planner Workbench within the
Navigator Tree both from Plans (Category/Item Nodes) and Queries (results of Item
Query).
3.3.4.15. New Resource Plan
A new Resource Plan supports analysis of resource availability and requirements by day,
week or period. The Resource Plan displays resource information in a time-bucketed
fashion. It allows direct in-place editing of resource availability. Edits to the bucketed
availability values are allocated down by increasing the available hours of every
45
underlying day to a maximum of 24 hours per resource unit and then increasing the
number of resource units, if necessary.
The new Resource Plan opens in a separate browser window:
Key features of the new Resource Plan are:
Page filters of Organization, Department, Resource
Ability to hide/show totals for selected departments, resources
The new Resource Plan can be accessed from the ASCP Planner Workbench within the
Navigator Tree both from Plans (Department/Resource Nodes) and Queries (results of
Resource Query).
3.3.4.16. Customized Demand and Supply Export to Excel
Many planners use Excel to summarize and analyze ASCP plan output. This feature
greatly enhances the integration to Excel from the ASCP Planner Workbench by
enabling the following:
User-defined aggregation levels for export. The aggregation can be based on

either a component item category or a parent item category (either sub-assembly
or end-item category). The aggregation is flexible enough to support multiple
category sets at the same time. This enables analyses such as, All supplies of
wafers by wafer type and by package/pin type going into different integrated
circuit categories (finished goods), which is a powerful tool to analyze complex
BOM fan-outs, etc.
User-defined filters for export. The filters can be attributes of an Item, End Item
or Order.
User-defined columns for export. The columns can be of an Item, End Item,
Order or an End Demand
Visibility to up/down stream supply chain information by enabling the pegging

links in the export.
You can create these Excel Worksheets using a new setup menu called Define
Worksheets:
46
Multiple worksheets may be associated to a plan using the Reporting tab in ASCP Plan
options. This enables these named worksheets to be pre-built after every plan run so that
you can have them ready to be opened whenever needed.
You can access these worksheets from the ASCP Planner Workbench using the Export
to Excel option under the Tools menu. For APCC users, these worksheets are also
accessible from the Supply Chain Analyst Dashboard using the Worksheets link in
ASCP Plan Actions under the Plan Health Summary and Demand and Supply Tabs.
3.3.4.17. Enhanced Consideration of Recipe Effectivity Dates
Constrained plans in ASCP are not guaranteed to respect recipe effectivity dates because
recipe selection and detailed timing of supplies are performed in distinct optimization
and detailed scheduling phases respectively. One mechanism that may contribute to
supply creation in ASCP plans outside recipe effectivity date boundaries is the
optimization phase reaching back in time to build a supply early in order to consume on
hand of components before their use in the formula expires, followed by the detailed
scheduling phase right aligning the supply in order to minimize work in process (but
violating the effectivity date boundaries of the selected formula/recipe in the process.)
This enhancement eliminates the above mechanism by optionally preventing ASCPs
optimization phase from building supplies early. This results in fewer instances of recipe
effectivity date violations.
This enhancement in controlled by the following profile option:
MSO: Allow early builds to consume existing supplies of phased-out components
and sources
The profile option values are:
Profile Value
Description
Yes
ASCP builds early to consume existing supplies before they become

obsolete. This is the default value.
No
ASCP does not build early to consume existing supplies.
Even if the profile option is set to No, ASCPs optimization phase may still elect to
build early if that is the only way to satisfy demand on time given capacity constraints.
47
3.3.4.18. Post-processing Lead Time for Make Orders

There are various post production activities such as quality control analysis and shipping
preparation activities that are not typically modeled as part of an item routing. In these
scenarios the post-processing lead time allows you to account for such activities when
supplies are planned.
You need to use the Item Attributes Mass Maintenance window to specify the postprocessing lead time for make items.
Note The Post-processing lead time is defaulted to zero in the Master Item and
Organization Item windows for make items and cannot be modified in the source.
ASCP populates the date representing the point in time between the end of the last real
operation and the post processing step into the existing Suggested Dock Date field.
In case of Enforce Demand Due Date plans, the lead time may be compressed to satisfy
the demand on time. The order of compression is from left to right (starts with preprocessing lead time and ends with post-processing lead time.)
This functionality is only supported for ASCP.
3.3.4.19. Forecast Spreading Based on User-defined Calendar
With this release you can instruct ASCP to spread a forecast based on a user-defined
calendar. This is added to the already available options of Manufacturing Calendar and
Shipping Calendar.
You can specify a user-defined calendar for each planned organization in the
Organizations tab of the Plan Options window. The Forecast Spreading Calendar
specified in the Organizations tab overrides the forecast spreading calendar option
(Manufacturing Calendar or Shipping Calendar) that is specified via the profile option
MSC: Forecast Spreading Calendar.
3.3.4.20. Maintenance Work Order Aggregation
Maintenance Work Order Aggregation significantly reduces plan run times for Asset
Intensive Planning.
Large enterprises have large volumes of forecasted maintenance work orders. For supply
chain planning purposes, consolidating these work orders into monthly aggregate work
orders allows their material and resource requirements to be planned for much more
efficiently, without compromising plan quality. Such aggregation of EAM and CMRO
forecasted maintenance work orders is now done automatically by Collections. EAM
forecast work orders are aggregated by Item, Org, Month, Maintenance Plan, Asset
Group, and Class Code. CMRO forecast work orders are aggregated by Item, Org,
Month, Maintenance Plan, Maintenance Requirement, and Operating Fleet.
Beyond the Collections process, within the ASCP plan run itself, you can optionally
further aggregate maintenance work orders for even greater computational savings. You
can aggregate actual maintenance work orders, not just forecasted maintenance work
orders. You can drop Asset Group and Class Code distinctions between EAM work
orders, resulting in further work order consolidation. Similarly, you can drop
Maintenance Requirement and Operating Fleet distinctions between CMRO work orders.
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3.3.4.21. Critical Path Information in Enforce Demand Due Date Plans

ASCP computes a critical path for late demands in plans with Enforce Capacity
Constraints turned on.
With Release 12.1.3.9, the critical path computation has been extended to include late
demands in Enforce Demand Due Date plans. Demands can be satisfied late in Enforce
Demand Due Date plans if the profile option MSO: Lead Time Control is set to Do Not
Violate minimum processing time. Since EDD plans do not constrain by resource and
supplier capacity, the critical path will indicate the longest lead time path in the pegging
chain between the lowest level components/ingredients and the finished product supply.
Planners can view the critical path details both in the Critical Activities screen as well as
in the Gantt chart. The navigational details and information displayed are the same as in
Enforce Capacity Constraints plans with the addition of three new attributes in the
Critical Activities window, namely: Unconstrained Latest Possible Completion Time,
Unconstrained Earliest Possible Completion Time and Days Late (Unconstrained). The
Days Late (Unconstrained) is the difference between the supply due date and the
Unconstrained Latest Possible Completion Time.
3.3.4.22. Profile Option to Enable Post-processing Lead Time for Make Orders
In this release you can instruct Advanced Supply Chain Planning whether to include the
post-processing lead time when planning for make orders. This is achieved by using the
following new profile option:
MSC: Include postprocessing lead time when planning for make orders
The profile option values are:
Profile
Value
Description
No
(Default)
ASCP does not include post-processing lead time when

planning for make orders.
Yes
ASCP includes post-processing lead time when planning for

make orders.
3.3.4.23. Minimum Remaining Shelf Life for Forecasts

there will be enough time for the end consumer to buy and use the products.
ASCP now supports minimum remaining shelf life (MRSL) constraints specified at the
item-organization, and item-customer site levels for forecasts in addition to sales orders.
Item-organization and item-customer site level MRSLs are specified via item attribute
simulation sets. Additionally MRSL can be specified at the sales order level. Sales orderlevel MRSLs can only be entered via customization that populates a new column in the
MSC_SALES_ORDERS table on the planning server.
MRSL Assumptions / Restrictions
49
ASCP does not support shelf life enhancements with projects.
When using priority pegging, Supply Window Size and Demand Window Size
should be set to 1.
The profile option MSO: Net All Firm Supplies Before Creating Planned Order is
not honored when ASCP plans with respect to MRSL.
During the demand / supply netting process, ASCP assumes that the shelf life of an
item is much larger than the minimum remaining shelf life of demands for this item.
MRSL and safety stock planning cannot be enabled for the same item. If an item has
demands with MRSL requirements, safety stock for that item will not be planned.
MRSL functionality is designed to work in a single echelon planning environment

for independent demands only. This means:
o
Alternate sourcing decisions will not take MRSL into account. MRSL of on
hand inventory in different source orgs will not be considered when making
sourcing decisions at the destination organization.
Shelf life of inventory that is in transit is not considered. In transit supplies

are assumed to have a full shelf life remaining.
MRSL is not considered for dependent demands at source organizations

associated with planned transfer orders created at the destination
organization.
3.3.4.24. Parallel Collections

In a company with independent business groups or regions, each business group may
wish to run its Collections and Planning processes completely independently, without
having to coordinate the timing of these activities across business groups. This set of
Collections enhancements enables independent Collections and Planning by business
group in a company with a single global EBS source instance and multiple VCP planning
instances (one planning instance per business group.)
1. Parallel Collections One Source, Multiple VCP Instances on One Shared
Physical Destination Server
In the above scenario, volumes and performance requirements permitting, at least
some of the multiple VCP planning instances may be housed in one single shared
physical destination server.
You can now execute multiple runs of Collections from the same physical
destination server in parallel. All of the data are pulled from the same EBS source
instance into the single physical destination planning server. For example, in one run
you may pull data for Items and Sales Orders for organizations M1 and M2 and in
another parallel run you may pull data for the same entities for organizations M3and
M4. It is recommended that the set of organizations associated with each planning
instance to be mutually exclusive.
The efficiency of the parallel Collections runs is enhanced by the following source
instance profile option:
50
MRP: Max Age of Materialized View Before Refresh (minutes)

If a Collections run starts and the ages of the Collections materialized views on the
source for the entities to be collected are both consistent and less than the value of
this profile option, then the Refresh Collections Snapshots portion of Collections
processing will be skipped and Collections will run faster overall.
The default value for this profile option is NULL. This means that Refresh
Collections Snapshots runs with each Collections run.
In order to perform Parallel Collections, the System Administrator must remove the
following incompatibilities:
Concurrent Program
Refresh Collection
Snapshots
Request Set Planning Data
Collection
Incompatibility
Refresh Collection
Snapshots
Collection
Source / Destination
Source
Destination
2. Parallel Collections One Source, Multiple VCP Instances Each on Its Own
Physical Destination Server
Volumes and performance requirements may dictate that for at least some of the
VCP planning instances, each must be housed in its own physical destination server.
By manually removing the seeded incompatibilities, you can now also run multiple
parallel Collections from different physical destination servers, with each
Collections run pulling data from a single shared source EBS instance.
The parallel runs are controlled by the same profile option mentioned above:
MRP: Max Age of Materialized View Before Refresh (minutes)
3. ODS Load Running in Parallel with Memory Based Snapshot
In previous releases, there was a seeded Concurrent Request incompatibility between
Collections and Plan Run (specifically, between ODS Load and Memory Based
Snapshot.) This was put in place to avoid the possibility of Collections overwriting
data that is in the process of being read in for the Plan Run.
With this release, in order to support the multiple VCP planning instances on one
shared physical destination server configuration, this incompatibility has been
removed. This allows a plan to be run in one VCP planning instance while
Collections is running in another VCP planning instance (on the same physical
destination server.)
The specific incompatibilities that must be removed by the System Administrator
are:
Concurrent Program
Planning ODS Load
Planning ODS Load
Planning ODS Load
Incompatibility
Memory-Based Snapshot
Memory Based Snapshot
64 bit AIX
Destination
Destination
Destination
51
Planning ODS Load

Planning ODS Load
Planning ODS Load
64 bit HP
64 bit HP-Itanium
64 bit Linux
64 bit Sun
Destination
Destination
Destination
However, within the same VCP planning instance, the separation of Collections and
Plan Run must be maintained in order to prevent a plan being run against
inconsistent input data. With this release, when overlapping Collections (ODS Load)
and Plan Run (Memory Based Snapshot) requests are submitted for the same VCP
planning instance, the second request will wait for the first request to complete
before starting. You can specify the wait time using the following profile option:
MSC: MBS and ODS Load Contention Wait Time (minutes)
The ODS Load program will error out if the Memory Based Snapshot program does
not finish within the user-specified wait time. Similarly the Memory Based Snapshot
program will error out if the ODS Load program does not finish within the userspecified wait time.
The default value for the profile option is NULL. This means the Memory Based
Snapshot will wait for the ODS Load or vice versa indefinitely.
4. Legacy Collections Running In Line with Standard Collections
This enhancement allows you to include collection of supplementary legacy file data
just by launching Standard Collections, without having to launch two separate
Collections processes (Standard Collections and Legacy Collections.)
Specifically you can load data for Forecasts, MPS, and MDS via flat files in line
with loading other entities using Standard Collections.
There are 3 profile options that are used with this feature:
MSC: Enable Parallel Legacy Collections The profile option values are:
No: This is the default value
Yes: You can use this feature when the value of this profile option is set to Yes. In
this case the system displays the following additional values for the collection
entities Forecasts, MPS, and MDS:
Legacy Flat File
Legacy Pre-Staged
When the Legacy Flat File value is selected, you need to use the following profile
option to specify a legacy flat file directory which contains your legacy flat files:
MSC: Legacy Flat File Directory
The flat file names are:
52
MDS DemandMDS.dat, DesignatorMDS.dat
MPS PlannedOrderSupply.dat, DesignatorPlanOrder.dat
Forecast DemandForecast.dat, Designator.dat
You need to select the Legacy Pre-Staged value when your Forecasts, MPS, and
MDS data are loaded to staging tables already.
You also need to specify the path to the $MSC_TOP directory which is used to
locate the control files used by MSCLDM to load data into the staging tables. This is
accomplished by using the following profile option:
MSC: MSC_TOP Directory
In order to use "Legacy Collections Running In Line with Standard Collections", the
system administrator must manually remove the following incompatibilities:
Concurrent Program
Collection
Collection
3.3.5.
Incompatibility
Pre-Process Monitor
Destination
Flat File Loader
Destination
Release 12.2
3.3.5.1. Supplier Capacity Consumption Enhancement
A new profile option is introduced to control supplier capacity consumption by purchase
orders. This provides more flexibility for users to decide how supplier capacity should
be consumed by purchase orders inside and outside the planning time fence. The profile
also allows users to decide whether to consume supplier capacity with all purchase
orders or only unacknowledged purchase orders.
With this enhancement, the existing profile option MSC: Purchase Order Dock Date
Calculation Preference does not affect supplier capacity consumption. The two choices,
Promise Date and Need by Date, only determine which date is selected from the
purchase order to use within planning as the suggested dock date.
The new profile option MSC: Supplier Capacity Consumption by Purchase Orders has
four settings. You can select Yes and all purchase orders consume supplier capacity or
No Consumption (default) and then no purchase orders consume supplier capacity. If
you select Unacknowledged Purchase Orders Only then this behavior is similar to
current behavior where purchase orders without a promise date consume supplier
capacity.
The newest choice is Purchase Orders outside Lead Time Only. With this choice,
ASCP does not consume supplier capacity with any purchase order which has a dock
date inside of the item or supplier-item lead time. If the purchase order dock date is
outside of lead time, then the purchase order consumes supplier capacity. Users can set
supplier capacity to accumulate at lead time and only purchase orders outside of lead
time consume supplier capacity. The supplier capacity horizontal plan is enhanced to
display the supplier capacity consumption based on the new profile option.
53
3.3.5.2. Enhanced Exception Management

Prior to this enhancement, ASCP generated all exceptions for all items and resources
with attached exception sets. You can now control which exceptions ASCP generates,
thus saving the computational burden of generating unneeded exceptions.
A new window called Exception Group allows you to select specific exceptions from a
list of available exceptions. You can save the Exception Group and attach it to plans
using a new plan option field. When the plan is run, ASCP generates only the exceptions
listed in the Exception Group.
The Exception Group allows you to further limit the number of exceptions generated by
restricting the generated exceptions to only selected
Organizations
Item Categories
and to those with dates within a specified
Exception Time Fence (Days)
3.3.5.3. Access to Advanced UI Screens from EBS Navigator

In Release 12.1.3.8, new ASCP Plan Launch and Item Simulation Set screens featuring
high information density and highly interactive edit capabilities were introduced and
made accessible from Advanced Planning Command Center. These screens are now
accessible from a Web Tools menu option in the EBS Navigator, under the Advanced
Supply Chain Planner responsibility.
3.3.5.4. Enhanced Access to Advanced UI Screens from Planner Workbench
In Release 12.1.3.8, new Item Simulation Set and Orders screens featuring high
information density and highly interactive edit capabilities were introduced and made
accessible from Advanced Planning Command Center. These screens are now directly
accessible from the ASCP Planner Workbench.
You can access the new Orders screen from the Supply/Demand Pegging Tree, the Items
view, and the Sources view. The Orders screen is populated with context from the
selection in the invoking view. This gives you different ways to find key orders and
efficiently view, edit and release them.
You can access the new Item Simulation Set screen from the Items, Supply/Demand,
Sources and Orders views. The Item Simulation Set screen is populated with context
from the selection in the invoking view. This gives you different ways to find key items
and efficiently change their planning attributes for simulation purposes.
3.3.6.
Release 12.2.4
3.3.6.1. Support for Premium Resource Capacity Constraints
Many companies have the need to distinguish between regular or baseline resource
capacity that represents their normal operating tempo and overtime or premium capacity
that can be added on if required. Typically, premium capacity is expensive and its use
should be minimized and restricted only to cater to business needs such as improving on
time demand satisfaction.
54
In Release 12.2.4, Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning will support the notion of
regular and premium capacity for a given production resource. Users can specify a
premium capacity percentage at the Resource level. Premium Capacity is calculated by
multiplying the regular capacity (in hours) by the premium capacity percentage value.
For example if the regular capacity is 16 hours per day and the premium capacity
percentage is 20%, the premium capacity is assumed to be 3.2 hours. This feature is only
supported in constrained plans with the Constrained Mode set to Constrained without
Detailed Scheduling.
Advanced Supply Chain Planning will first use all of the available regular capacity when
planning supplies to satisfy demands on time. Once the use of regular capacity has been
maximized, ASCP will attempt to use premium capacity to satisfy demands on time.
When the use of regular and premium capacity is still not sufficient to satisfy demands
on time, demands will be satisfied late and in each successive planning time bucket after
the demand due date, the use of regular capacity will be maximized before using
premium capacity. ASCP will also first search for regular capacity availability across
alternate sources, alternate routings and alternate resources before resorting to the use of
premium capacity.
Exception messages will be generated for those Resource / planning time bucket
combinations in which premium capacity is used. Planners will be able to identify
instances where the premium capacity has been used but total capacity (regular plus
premium) is not exceeded and other instances where the total capacity is also exceeded.
Information on regular and premium capacity availability and usage is exported to
Advanced Planning Command Center as part of the Archive Plan process.
3.3.6.2. Support for Warehouse Capacity Constraints
Many companies have the need to constrain the supply chain plan by the amount of
available warehouse capacity. This is especially true for companies dealing with high
unit volume products manufactured in facilities that have minimal available storage
space, thereby creating the need to ship products out to distribution centers immediately
or soon after production completion. Many companies also have the need to separately
account for available storage space by storage type such as Frozen, Refrigerated and
Dry goods storage spaces.
In Release 12.2.4, Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning will account for Warehouse
Capacity constraints in the planning process. Planners can instruct the planning process
(through plan option setting) to consider these constraints at the Organization level or at
Category-Organization level. The Category in this case refers to a storage category
such as Frozen, Refrigerated or Dry storage. The Organization level warehouse capacity
is a setting within the EBS Inventory Organization parameters form and the
Organization-Category level capacity can be specified in the Storage Capacity form in
the planning instance. This feature is available only in constrained plans with the
Constrained Mode set to Constrained without Detailed Scheduling
Advanced Supply Chain Planning will apply the warehouse capacity constraint to the
sum of {Projected Available Balance * item unit volume} across all items in an
organization or organization-category (depending on the level at which the warehouse
capacity is specified). In doing so, ASCP will often need to plan shipment of items from
upstream locations (Plants) to downstream locations (Distribution Centers) ahead of
when these shipments are required to satisfy the demands at the downstream locations.
When performing this pull ahead of shipments to address the warehouse capacity
constraints, ASCP will attempt to minimize the overall excess inventory in the supply
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chain. When required to choose between different items to pull ahead, ASCP will pick
items that have the highest (unit volume / standard cost) ratio. This choice will maximize
impact on reducing warehouse capacity consumption at the locations with the constraints
and minimize the impact on increasing inventory cost in the supply chain.
Planners will be able to view the details of warehouse capacity consumption at the Item,
Category and Organization levels in the Material Plan user interface. The information
will be presented both in terms of absolute value (the volume used) and the percentage
value (the percentage of available warehouse capacity used). ASCP will also generate
exception messages for instances where the warehouse capacity was violated.
Information on warehouse capacity availability and consumption is exported to
Advanced Planning Command Center as part of the Archive Plan process.
3.3.6.3. Minimum Remaining Shelf Life (MRSL) Enhancements
Release 12.2.4 provides the following enhancements for MRSL:
1. MRSL Support for Multi Echelon Supply Chain
2. Consideration of MRSL in Making Sourcing Decisions
3. Consideration of Safety Stock in Conjunction with MRSL
4. Ingredient Based MRSL
These enhancements are available for the plan Constraints Mode of Constrained
(Without Detailed Scheduling).
MRSL Support for Multi Echelon Supply Chain Before this enhancement, ASCP
did not consider the expiration dates of on hand lots that are moved to an in-transit
status. The in-transit supply was assumed to have full shelf life remaining starting
from the due date of the supply at the destination organization.
With Release 12.2.4, supplies expiry dates are determined based on the following rules:
1. All supplies expiry dates in the source organization are based on the item/org shelf
life specified in the source organization (Item/Lot Expiry Date in the source org).
2. All supplies expiry dates in the destination organization are based on the item/org
shelf life specified in the destination organization (Item/Lot Expiry Date in the
destination org). Note that if there is no shelf life defined in the destination org, the
planning engine considers infinite shelf life.
3. All in-transit supplies expiry dates from the source organization to the destination
organization are based on the item/org shelf life of the item in the destination
organization.
With respect to these rules, there is no collection or snapshot impact for this
enhancement in Release 12.2.4.
Consideration of MRSL in Making Sourcing Decisions Before this enhancement,
ASCPs decision rules engine that makes sourcing decisions to guide the supply /
demand netting, was not cognizant of MRSL. With this enhancement, shelf life and
MRSL requirements of demands are taken into account when making sourcing decisions
leading to consistency between the sourcing and netting logic within ASCP.
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Consideration of Safety Stock in Conjunction with MRSL Before this

enhancement, ASCP did not plan safety stock for items that have MRSL specifications
on demands. With this enhancement, ASCP plans for safety stock in conjunction with
MRSL. In addition you can ensure that supplies used for fulfilling safety stock demand
have enough remaining shelf life so they serve as a useful hedge against unanticipated
real demand (which also have MRSL requirements).
You can specify the Safety Stock MRSL at the Item-Org level in the Item Attributes
Mass Maintenance (IMM) window. This is accomplished via a new field called Safety
Stock MRSL.
Ingredient Based MRSL Before this enhancement, ASCP supported MRSL for the
end item based on the user specified value for the item. With this enhancement, user can
specify an ingredient in a formula (a component in a BOM) which its shelf life
determines the expiry date of the product. This ingredient is called MRSL ingredient.
Note The MRSL ingredient is not necessarily in the final product formula. It could be
an ingredient of any intermediate ingredient that feeds the final product.
Example Consider the final product P with 2 ingredients in its formula, I1 and IM1.
Ingredient IM1 is an Intermediate Ingredient with 2 ingredients in its formula, I2 and I3:
Product P Formula
Intermediate Ingredient IM1 Formula
I1
I2
IM1
I3
You can select any one of the four ingredients (I1, IM1, I2, or I3) as the MRSL
Ingredient for the Product P.
This is accomplished by using a new field in the Item Attributes Mass Maintenance
window at the Item-Org level called MRSL Ingredient. You can enter data manually or
upload an Excel spreadsheet to populate this field using the import capability of IMM.
3.3.6.4. Enforcing Process Effective Dates
The Process Effective Date Ranges enhancement introduced in Release 12.1.3.8 aligned
the timing of the supplies to the Process Effective Dates in the optimization phase of the
planning process. The goal of Release 12.2.4 enhancement is to repair any violation of
the process effective date range constraints during the scheduling process as much as
possible.
Specifically ASCP enforces the Process Effective Start Dates with respect to all other
planning constraints. This enhancement is available for both EDD and ECC plan in the
plan modes Constrained (With Detailed Scheduling) and Constrained (Classic).
A new exception called Process effective date range violated is generated when
process effective date range constraints are not respected by the planning engine.
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ASCP enforces the Process Effective Date Range constraints in conjunction with other
planning constraints. The order of respecting these constraints depends on the type of the
plan:
Order of Constraints in EDD Plan
1. Firmed Dates
2. Demand Due Dates (Adjusted Demand Due Date when the profile option MSO:
Lead Time Control is set to Do Not Violate Minimum Processing Times)
3. Precedence Constraints (Based on Pegging)
4. Required Processing Times
5. Effective Date Ranges
6. Min Start Times (PTF, Current Date)
Note ASCP planning engine initially attempts to find a solution that respects PTF,
Current Date, and Effective Date Ranges. If a feasible solution cannot be found then
the planning engine may violate PTF, Current Date, or both in order to respect the
Effective Date Ranges.
7. Resource Constraints
Note ASCP planning engine initially attempts to find a solution that respects
Resource Constraints and Effective Date Ranges. If a feasible solution cannot be
found then the planning engine may violate Resource Constraints in order to respect
the Effective Date Ranges.
Order of constraints in ECC Plan

1. Firmed Dates
2. Min Start Times (PTF, Current Date)
3. Precedence Constraints (Based on Pegging)
4. Required Processing Times
5. Resource Constraints
6. Effective Date Ranges
7. Demand Due Dates
Note ASCP planning engine initially attempts to find a solution that respects
Demand Due Dates and Effective Date Ranges. If a feasible solution cannot be found
then the planning engine may violate Demand Due Dates in order to respect the
Effective Date Ranges.
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Note The order of constraints in EDD plan is also applied to upstream orders of all
firm dates in ECC plan as well.
Note The MRSL and Hard Link constraints are considered before the Process Effective
Date Range constraints. In other words, the Process Effective Date Ranges could be
violated due to MRSL or Hard Link constraints.
3.3.7.
Release 12.2.4.1
3.3.7.1. Integration between Primavera P6 and Advanced Supply Chain Planning
In many industries, such as High Tech, Engineering and Construction, Oil and Gas,
Utilities and others, projects constitute a large portion of the overall revenue for
organizations. Supply chain planning processes in such organizations need to cater to the
needs of the various projects being undertaken by the organization; ensuring that
demands for materials and resources imposed by these projects are met on time.
An important part of ensuring a tight collaboration between the project management arm
of the organization and the supply chain arm is to enable planning processes that go
across these two functions. In other words,
Demands for items required by project activities, or items that represent contract
deliverables to end customers, need to be communicated to the supply chain planning
system from the project management system
Supply availability dates for these items as determined by the supply chain planning
systems need to be communicated back to the project management system
Release 12.2.4 will provide an integration between Primavera P6 (the Project

Management system) and Advanced Supply Chain Planning (the Supply Chain Planning
system).
Project managers and planners create and maintain a work breakdown structure (WBS)
in Primavera P6. Activities at the lowest level in the WBS represent the set of activities
required to meet the deliverables of the project. Some of these activities have associated
material requirements. These material requirements need to be communicated to the
supply chain planning system as material demands associated with the project. Other
activities in the WBS may be present to track key end item deliverables. These end items
are often manufactured or procured in the supply chain. Demand for these end item
deliverables should also be communicated from the project plan to the supply chain
planning system. Demand for end item deliverables originating from Primavera P6
should also be reconciled against sales orders for these end item deliverables that may
exist in the Project accounting and execution system (like EBS Projects / Order
Management).
The supply chain planning process will plan for supplies to meet the project demands.
Constraints in the supply chain and the hard pegged vs. soft pegged nature of different
items will result in supplies being planned for different dates/quantities. This supply
information needs to be fed back to the Primavera P6 project plan. The project manager,
armed with visibility to the supply constraints can make appropriate project rescheduling
decisions.
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This closed loop process will drive efficiency into the supply chain management and
project management processes, reduce inventory and supply chain costs and improve on
time fulfillment of project deliverables.
3.3.7.2. Minimum Remaining Shelf Life for Distribution Planning
there will be enough time for the end consumer to buy and use the products.
Distribution Planning now supports minimum remaining shelf life (MRSL) constraints
specified at the item-organization, and item-customer site levels for forecasts and sales
orders.
Item-organization and item-customer site level MRSLs are specified via item attribute
simulation sets. Additionally MRSL can be specified at the sales order level. Sales orderlevel MRSLs can only be entered via customization that populates a new column in the
MSC_SALES_ORDERS table on the planning server. Item attribute simulation set
MRSL values are applied to customer specific forecasts.
During fair share allocation among competing customer demands, the supply MRSL
values are considered and supply with insufficient MRSL is not allocated to customer
demands.
MRSL Assumptions and Restrictions
3.3.8.
Distribution planning does not support shelf life enhancements with projects.
MRSL and safety stock planning can be enabled for the same item.
MRSL functionality is designed to work in a multi-echelon planning environment for

independent and dependent demands. This means:
o
Alternate sourcing decisions will take MRSL into account. MRSL of on

hand inventory in different source orgs will be considered when making
sourcing decisions at the destination organization.
Shelf life of inventory that is in transit is considered. In transit supplies are

assumed to have the MRSL of the inventory lot in the source organization.
MRSL is considered for dependent demands at source organizations

associated with planned transfer orders created at the destination
organization.
Release 12.2.5
3.3.8.1. Maximize Resource Utilization in Day Level Planning
Manufacturing companies in highly capital intensive industries often have large startup
and shutdown costs for capital assets. Such companies need the supply chain planning
process to maximize resource utilization at the expense of building up inventory. This is
also often referred to as front loading, which is the pull ahead of a set of planned
production activities so as to maximize resource utilization in the front end of the
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planning horizon. Such planning behavior is also desired by companies in highly labor
intensive industries who require the ability to keep the workforce utilized at a constant or
stable utilization level due to constraints imposed by labor contracts and other external
factors.
In Release 12.2.5, ASCP provides planners the capability to maximize resource
utilization when the planning mode is Constrained without Detailed Scheduling. A
new plan option Maximize Resource Utilization (checkbox) is added to the Constraints
tab in plan options. Planners can check this plan option to activate this feature.
When the plan option is checked, ASCP will pull ahead supplies to earlier time buckets
in order to maximize resource utilization. This will be done at the expense of building
inventory ahead of the demand dates. When making the decision to pre-build, ASCP will
respect any upstream supply chain constraints such as purchasing lead times and supplier
capacities. The front loading of resources will also be influenced by upstream and
downstream capacity constraints. For example if an upstream resource is the capacity
bottleneck, it may not be possible to fully front load a downstream resource, even if that
resource has available capacity. ASCP will also maximize the use of alternates in an
attempt to maximize resource utilization. For example, alternate resource capacity in
earlier time buckets will be utilized even if the primary resource has available capacity in
later time buckets to satisfy the demand on time. When performing the pull ahead of
supplies to maximize resource utilization, ASCP will prefer to pull in work orders first
before pulling in planned orders.
3.3.8.2. Collections Filters
In Release 12.2.5, you can filter collected data by category sets for each instance. This
enhancement is available for Oracle Standard and Continuous Collections.
The following sections describe Collections behavior with respect to different type of
collections:
Complete Refresh The Collections process removes all previously collected data and
collects only the category sets specified in the Category Sets window. As a result only
the data for the specified category sets are available for the planning process.
Targeted Refresh The Collections process removes all previously collected data for
all category sets except for the category sets specified in the Category Sets window.
Then the Targeted Refresh collection is done for the specified category sets. As a result
only the data for these category sets are available for the planning process.
Note In the Targeted Refresh collection, the collection process is run for specific
entities. So when a new list of category sets (changed list) is specified for an instance,
the Targeted Refresh collection should be run for all entities. Otherwise the previously
collected data for the unwanted category sets are not wiped out. In addition the data
collected for the new category sets in the list will not include the data for all entities.
Net Change Refresh The Collections process collects the net change data for the
category sets specified in the Category Sets window. The data for all other category sets
remain intact. As a result the data for all category sets are available for the planning
process.
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Note- This type of collection is not recommended when a new list of category sets is
specified since there will be unwanted data of the old category sets and missing data of
the new category sets.
3.3.8.3. Demand Schedule-Specific Forecast Processing
In Release 12.2.5, you can specify forecast processing options (Backward Days, Forward
Days, Spread Forecast Evenly, Consume by Forecast Bucket, and Explode Forecast) in
the Organizations tab of the Plan Options window at the organization and global demand
schedule levels, in addition to the plan level options specified in the Main tab.
Note ASCP uses the plan level values specified for the forecast processing options if
the Demand Schedules region values are NULL. This rule is also applied to the Global
Demand Schedules. This means the Demand Schedules and Global Demand
Schedules forecast processing plan options have priority over the Main Tab plan
options.
This feature is available for all ASCP panning modes.
3.3.8.4. New Supply Planning Work Area
You now have access to an all-new ADF-based planning work area called the Supply
Planning Work Area. This will allow you to access and analyze plans in a simple,
browser based UI.
The new Supply Planning work area is completely configurable via user-defined page
layouts, and will have the following capabilities:
View/Edit Plan Options

View/Edit Supplies and Demands
View/Edit Exception Summary and Details
View/Edit Material Plan
View Resource Plan
View/Edit Personal Queries and Results including Plan Summary
View/Edit Item Simulation Sets
Run Plan
Please refer to the individual sections below for details on each of the above pages.
The Forms-based Planner Workbench will still be accessible using the old navigation.
3.3.8.5. ASCP ADF UI - Enhanced Supplies and Demands View
Starting with the 12.1.3.8 release, you could view orders via an ADF-based supplies and
demands UI. This UI provided a flat list of supply and demand orders but didnt show
how the supplies and demands were related.
The Supplies and Demands view has been enhanced to include a pegging view in
addition to the existing flat table view. You can switch between supply pegging and
demand pegging views to show the relationships between supplies and demands.
In addition to the available pre-seeded table layouts, you can create your own custom
table layouts that define which supply and demand columns are visible and the order in
which the columns appear. This gives you the flexibility to have multiple layouts
tailored to business needs.
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3.3.8.6. ASCP ADF UI - Personal Queries

The new Supply Planning Work Area supports Personal Queries. You can use queries of
different types: Orders, Exceptions, Items, Resources and Suppliers. You can create new
Personal Queries or update existing Personal Queries using a new ADF setup UI. All
previously existing Personal Queries will be migrated to the new ADF UI.
You can group Personal Queries into a custom list for easy access. The Personal Query
results view is now configurable. You can view a user-defined list of attributes based on
the query setup.
You can define a new type of Personal Query called Metrics. These queries are primarily
for analytics, and support viewing Plan Summary key performance indicators in
graphical format (line or bar graphs). You can create multiple metrics using different key
measures. Each metric can be viewed in an Infotile format (graphs in a tiled view with
multiple tiles) or standard format (graphs arranged in a grid like view).
3.3.8.7. ASCP ADF UI - Plan Summary
You can define a new type of Personal Query called Metrics. These queries are primarily
measures. Each metric can be viewed in an Infotile format (with graphs arranged in a
tiled view with associated detailed content graphs beneath) or standard format (with
graphs arranged in a grid view).
3.3.8.8. ASCP ADF UI Plan Options
You can use ASCP from within a new Supply Planning Work Area built using the Alta
UI framework. From within this work area, you can access the new ASCP Plan Options
screen.
The new ASCP Plan Options screen can be used both to create a new plan by clicking on
the Create Plan link in the supply planning work area ASCP Plans tab, and to edit or
view the plan options for an existing plan by clicking on Plan Options.
The set of plan options available is the exact same as the set of plan options available
using the Forms-based Plan Options screen.
3.3.8.9. ASCP ADF UI Exceptions Management
Within the Supply Planning Work Area, you can define Favorite exceptions by
specifying suitable filter conditions for the types of exceptions that you want to review
and the items, resources, customers, suppliers etc. that you want to include as part of
reviewing these exception types. You can also specify group by criteria for viewing a
summary of these exceptions. While reviewing a summary of your favorite exceptions,
you can drill down directly to the various Supply Planning Work Area screens such as
Material Plan, Resource Plan, Supplies and Demands and additionally also drill down to
review the Exception Details in a new Exceptions screen that is also available in the
Supply Planning Work area.
This approach provides you with the flexibility to either use the Exception details screen
or to bypass the screen and navigate directly to screens like Supplies and Demands that
provide an ability to take actions to solve the exception condition.
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For example from viewing a summary of Late Replenishments for Sales Orders at the
Org, Item, Customer, Week level, you can directly drill down to the supplies and
demands view that shows all the late sales orders for the selected Org, Item, Customer,
Week combination and start taking corrective action such as expediting supplies or
adding capacity to improve on time demand satisfaction.
Sometimes, you will need to review the exception in more detail before taking such
action. For example, the exception Sourcing Split Percentage Violated may require
you to review the exception detail to understand the target split percentage between the
Rank 1 and Rank 2 suppliers and the planned percentage split suggested by ASCP. The
new Exceptions screen helps with this analysis.
The Exceptions screen includes a top search panel and a bottom results panel. The search
panel includes commonly used filter criteria such as Exception Type, Item, Category,
Org, Supplier and Customer among others. You can also navigate out from Exception
Details to other screens such as Material Plan, Supplies and Demands and Resource Plan
using the Drill to link in the screen.
3.3.8.10. Project Netting Enhancements
Companies that operate in a project manufacturing environment have specialized
planning needs in the supply planning process such as the ability to hard peg supplies to
demands and the ability to control the use of common, non-project specific supplies in
satisfying project demand. Currently, ASCP offers planners two netting choices,
controlled by the profile option MSC: Use Attribute Based Netting. These two netting
options each offer planners a set of specialized netting features. When the profile option
is set to Yes, you have the ability to apply order modifiers in the supply creation process
when satisfying project demands. When the profile option is set to No, you have the
ability to use Common supplies to satisfy project demand. However, those who have the
need to both use order modifiers and common supplies do not have a clear solution path
and have to choose between one of the two options.
In Release 12.2.5, ASCP provides a single unified project netting approach and the
profile option MSC: Use Attribute Based Netting is retired. There are two new plan
options that will provide the appropriate project netting controls:
Use Common Supplies for Project Demands: This is a checkbox in the Main tab of
plan options. When checked, ASCP will be allowed to use common supplies (i.e.
supplies with no project or task association) to meet project demands. When this
checkbox is unchecked, ASCP will not use Common supplies to meet project demands.
Apply Order Modifiers: This is a plan option with a list of values.
When set to For soft pegged items only, ASCP will not apply any order modifiers for
hard pegged items.
When set to At Reservation level, ASCP will apply order modifiers at the Reservation
level specified in plan options. For example when the Reservation level is Project and
hard pegging level is Project-Task, order modifiers are applied at the Project level and
a planned order (sized according to the specified order modifiers) generated for Project 1
/ Task 1 could potentially peg to a demand of Project 1 / Task 2.
When set to At Hard pegging level, ASCP will apply order modifiers at the hard
pegging level specified in plan options. For example when the Reservation level is
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Project and hard pegging level is Project-Task, order modifiers are applied at the
Project-Task level and a planned order (sized according to the specified order modifiers)
is generated for Project 1 / Task 1 to meet Project 1 / Task 1 demand and a separate
planned order (sized according to the specified order modifiers) is generated for Project
1 / Task 2 to meet Project 1 / Task 2 demand.
ASCP will also attempt to minimize any cross project pegging and any cross task
pegging within a project as it evaluates the various pegging options available when
pegging existing project specific and common supplies to project demands.
Customers upgrading to 12.2.5 will see the new plan options set as follows for their
existing ASCP plans post upgrade. These plan option settings, performed through an
upgrade script, will help preserve functional parity in plan output before and after
upgrade. For customers using MSC: Use Attribute Based Netting = Yes, plan option Use
Common Supplies for Project Demands will be set to No and plan option Apply Order
Modifiers will be set to At Reservation Level. For customers using MSC: Use
Attribute Based Netting = No, plan option Use Common Supplies for Project Demands
will be set to Yes and plan option Apply Order Modifiers will be set to For Soft
Pegged Items only.
3.3.8.11. Expanded Reservations in Day Level Planning
Many companies create supply to demand reservations in their ERP system to represent a
hard linkage between a specific supply and a customer order. This hard linkage is often
driven by the need to capture product or manufacturing characteristics that are required
to fulfill the needs of a customer sales order. Examples include customer specific
labeling requirements, changes requested by the customer to the standard alloy content of
the steel being ordered, specialized packaging requirements, and so on. It is important
that the planning system (ASCP) respects the supply to demand reservations created in
the ERP system. This ensures that decisions made by order takers / manufacturing
supervisors to peg specific work orders / process batches or on hand inventory lots to
specific customer demands is not ignored during the planning process
In this release, ASCP provides the capability to respect reservations. This feature is
available with the planning mode of Constrained without Detailed Scheduling.
The following reservations types are supported in ASCP:
On Hand to Sales Order (this is prior, existing functionality)
On Hand to Internal Sales Order (this is prior, existing functionality)
On Hand to Process batch demand
Om Hand to Maintenance Work Order Demand (this is prior, existing

functionality)
WIP Discrete Job to Sales Order
WIP Discrete Job to Internal Sales Order
Process Batch to Sales Order
Process Batch to Internal Sales Order
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Process Batch to Process Batch Demand
Maintenance Work Order to Maintenance Work Order Demand (this is prior,

existing functionality)
Purchase Requisition to Sales Order
Purchase Requisition to Internal Sales Order
Purchase Requisition to Process Batch Demand
Purchase Requisition to Maintenance Work Order Demand (this is prior,

existing functionality)
Purchase Order to Sales Order
Purchase Order to Internal Sales Order
Purchase Order to Process Batch Demand
In Transit Shipment to Sales Order
In Transit Shipment to Internal Sales Order
In Transit Shipment to Process Batch Demand
The Supply/Demand window now shows two new attributes:

Reserved: This is a Yes/No attribute that indicates if the supply or demand has a
reservation against it.
Reserved Quantity: The total quantity of the supply/demand that is reserved to other
supplies/demands.
If a supply is reserved to multiple demands (or vice versa), the various reservations can
be seen by expanding the pegging tree for the supply (to the see the pegs to the demands
and the reserved quantity for each peg) or the demand (to see the pegs to the supplies and
the reserved quantities for each peg).
3.3.8.12. Purchasing Integration Enhancements
You can optionally release the Firm Flag from ASCP to Oracle Purchasing for purchase
orders. A new profile option called MSC: Release PO Firm Flag to Purchasing
enables this functionality.
UI Behavior for Firming a PO in Supply / Demand Window
Purchase orders in ASCP Supply / Demand window are displayed at the Distribution
Line level. In the purchasing source, the purchase order Firm Flag is available at the
Shipment Line and PO Header.
When you firm a distribution line of a shipment line in the Supply / Demand window; all
distribution lines belonging to that shipment line are firmed automatically. This means
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that the firm flag is defaulted from your selected distribution line to all other distribution
lines in the parent shipment line.
Removing the firm flag from one of the distribution lines in a shipment line removes the
firm flag from all distribution lines in that shipment line.
In addition, the value of the New Date field from your firmed distribution line is
defaulted to the New Date field of all distribution lines belonging to the same shipment
line as your firmed distribution line.
The value of the New Quantity for a distribution line is defaulted from its own line. You
can modify the New Quantity value for any distribution line separately.
Note The Implement Date and Implement Quantity in the Release Properties tab are
defaulted to the New Date and New Quantity from Order tab for any distribution line that
is flagged for release.
Release Behavior for Firming a PO in Supply / Demand Window
When a firmed distribution line is released to purchasing source, the parent shipment line
is firmed. Additionally the value of the New Date of the firmed distribution line replaces
the Need by Date value in the parent shipment line.
Collections Behavior for Firmed Shipment Lines
When a firmed shipment line or a shipment line with a past due shipment date is
collected to VCP, all distribution lines belonging to that shipment line are considered
firm and the distribution line firm flags in the Supply / Demand window are displayed as
checked for the child distribution lines. If the PO header is firmed or the PO header date
is past due, all distribution lines of the PO are collected as firm.
You can use a new profile option called MSC: Remove Promise Date for
Rescheduled Purchase Orders to set Promise Date to NULL in the Purchasing
source for all rescheduled purchase orders. This profile option can be set to Yes or No
(Default). By setting this profile option to Yes and monitoring the Promise Date field in
the Planner Workbench, you can determine whether a supplier has committed to a newly
rescheduled purchase order or not.
This feature requires an EBS 12.2.5 source.
3.3.9.
Release 12.2.6
3.3.9.1. Master Scheduling Enhancements
In this release, ASCP has been enhanced to support constrained master scheduling.
Specifically, ASCP now enables you to:
Define your critical constraints by defining and maintaining bills of resources
Perform rough-cut master planning and simulations

o
Constrain based on critical components, bottleneck resources
Edit a master schedule via drag and drop in a Gantt chart
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Edit a master schedule in a combined view that shows material and

resource requirements for an entire supply chain bill
Recalculate component & resource requirements inline
Replan based on those adjustments
You can define a number of production slots for each aggregate master scheduling time
bucket, and ASCP will help you create a leveled master schedule that respects the timephased slot capacity.
3.3.9.2. Exception-related Attributes in Supplies and Demands ADF UI
The Supplies and Demands ADF UI has been enhanced with additional columns that
display exception-related attributes for each supply or demand order. You can now drill
from the Exceptions view with context directly to relevant supply and demand order
detail, and see exception detail information there alongside the rich selection of standard
order attributes.
When you navigate to Supplies and Demands from Exceptions, the following exceptionrelated attributes will be populated:
Exception type navigating from

Order with Insufficient Lead Time
End Item Minimum Remaining Shelf
Life
Items with Forecast over Consumption
Orders Scheduled to Next Inventory
Point
Demand Quantity not Satisfied
Order Causes Supplier Capacity
Overload
Order Causes Transportation Volume
Capacity Overload
Order Causes Transportation Weight
Capacity Overload
Exception detail available in

S&D
Actual Lead Time
Minimum Lead Time
Minimum Remaining Shelf
Life Shortfall
Over Consumed Quantity
Planned Inventory Point
Quantity Not Satisfied
Supplier Capacity Overload
Volume Capacity Overload
Weight Capacity Overload
3.3.9.3. Improvements to Favorites ADF UI

You can now create Favorites views in Pivot Table format (in addition to the current
Table format) for Exception Type, Order Type favorites only. This feature is not
applicable for other types of Favorites.
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You can now drill down with context from the graphs in a Metrics Favorites (Plan
Summary) view to Supplies and Demands, to the Material Plan, and to Exception
Details, as applicable.
The results of executing an Items Favorites query can now be searched. Supported search
criteria are:
Basic Search
o Item
o Organization
o Category
o Planner
Advanced Search (in addition to the above)
o Description
o Planning Method
o BOM Item Type
Basic Search defaults to the Equals search operator, but Advanced search supports the
following operators.
From the items view, you can drill to Product Definitions, Supply Chain Bill, Supplies
and Demands, Material Plan and Exceptions. The context that is used to drill these UIs is
based on the Scope selector in the toolbar.
If Scope = Item, then the item-organization context will be used.
If Scope = Supply Chain, then all components in the bill of material of the
assembly (including alternates) but excluding any substitute components. The
components listed will be only at the next level (not all levels). The drill
navigation results (in all the UIs listed above) in a sort order where the assembly
rows are at the top and the components rows are listed below. If multiple rows
are selected in the Items view, the sort order will be assembly 1, assembly 1s
components, assembly 2, assembly 2s components etc.
Similar to the Items view, a search region is now available to filter the results of a
Resources Favorites query. The following search criteria are supported:
Basic Search
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o Department
o Resource
o Organization
o Resource Group
Advanced Search (in addition to the above)
o Resource Type
o Owning Department
3.3.9.4. Product Definition ADF UI

The new Product Definition ADF UI consists of 5 sections in an accordion region, and
displays the following information for an item:
Components
Substitute Components
Routing Operations
Operation Resources
End Item Substitutes
3.3.9.5. Supply Chain Bill ADF UI

The Supply Chain Bill view provides a complete, multi-level view of the supply chain
for any end item including the Bills of Material and sourcing of the components across
the supply chain. It includes make, buy and transfers across organizations, and suppliers
based on the assignment set used in the plan.
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3.4.

3.4.1.
Release 12.1.1
3.4.1.1. Export Exception Details
This enhancement enables the export of the Collaborative Planning Exceptions Detail
screen to a .csv file that can be opened in spreadsheet and other external applications.
Data can be exported for one user selected exception class at a time, or for all exception
classes together. The structure of the exported data is similar to what is seen on the
Exception Details screen.
3.4.1.2. Detailed Supply Commit Based on ASCP Pegging
ASCP will publish supply commits to Collaborative Planning based on how end item
supplies are pegged to the end item demands in the ASCP plan. Earlier, ASCP published
only a single supply commit record to Collaborative Planning on the date when the
demand was completely satisfied. With the new behavior, if a demand is satisfied by
pegging against on hand and also a planned production batch, two supply commit records
will be published, corresponding to the individual pegging quantities and dates. This new
behavior is enabled by the profile option MSC: Publish Supply Commit Based on
Pegging Information.
3.4.1.3. Search Exceptions by Buyer and Planner
The search criteria in the exceptions detail screen have been enhanced to include "Buyer
Code" and "Planner Code".
3.4.2.
Release 12.1.2
3.4.2.1. Rich User Interface Enhancements
Oracle Collaborative Planning incorporates new rich user interface capabilities of EBusiness Suite 12.1.2. These include a redesigned applications home page with more
efficient navigation, multi-level navigation menus with saved favorites, and "look-ahead"
lists of values that automatically complete partial user entries.
3.5.

3.5.1.
Release 12.1.1
3.5.1.1. Clear Data in Worksheets
This feature allows the user to clear data from existing cells in a worksheet.
The Fill Data dialog in the worksheet now allows a null entry. The data is replaced with
a null/NA. A recalculate is required to reflect the change across all levels of the
hierarchy.
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3.5.1.2. Default Even Allocation Over Time

This feature gives the user the ability to allocate evenly down the time dimension and use
"first" allocation for other dimensions when an allocation basis is not available.
The profile MSD: Use Classic Even Allocation can now have three values, one of which
signifies that the fallback default allocation for the time dimension will be even. The
three valid choices for the profile are:
Yes, use even allocation

No, use first allocation
No, use first allocation for all dimensions except Time
3.5.1.3. Plan Security by Responsibility and Organization

This feature prevents users from one Business Unit from accessing demand plans set up
for another Business Unit. The Demand Planning System Administrator can now
associate Demand Plan Responsibilities with specific Organizations. Organization(s) are
selected during plan definition. Users can then access only plans defined for the
Organizations associated with their Responsibility.
By default a Responsibility is associated with all Organizations.
3.5.1.4. Sort by Product in Planning Percentages Worksheet
This feature adds a sort capability for Product to the Selector for the Planning Percentage
Worksheet. The user now has the ability to sort the Product dimension in ascending or
descending order to facilitate selection of models and options.
3.5.1.5. Data Selection Tools for Region Copy Selector
This feature makes all the Selector tools available to the user when creating a Region
Copy measure to facilitate data selection.
3.5.1.6. Prevent Planners from Editing Measures in View Scope
This feature allows you to prevent planners from changing worksheet values in measures
in their view scope. Planners can continue to change worksheet values in measures in
their assignment scope. Whether this feature is enabled or not, only values in a demand
planner's assignment scope are passed back to the shared workspace during internal
collaboration.
3.5.2.
Release 12.2.5
3.5.2.1. Retirement of Oracle Demand Planning
Oracle Demand Planning has been retired. Starting with Release 12.2.5, Oracle Demand
Planning will no longer be available. Existing deployments of Oracle Demand Planning
will continue to be supported in accordance with the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy for
E-Business Suite.
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3.6.

3.6.1.
Product Overview
The Oracle Demand Signal Repository (DSR) helps manufacturers collect detailed
retailer and other demand data, analyze it to identify issues and opportunities, and
respond via a SOA-enabled services library.
Typical retail data sources include daily point-of-sale, on-hand inventory, store orders
and receipts, returns, store promotions and sales/order forecasts. The DSR transforms
retailer data into manufacturer terms including manufacturer item identification,
manufacturer hierarchies and calendars. A high-performance data loading facility
cleanses the data and allocates it to a uniform set of dimension levels.
The Demand Signal Repository data model is based upon the Oracle Data Warehouse for
Retail (ODWR) data model, adapted to a manufacturer point of view. An extensive
OBIEE metadata layer sits on top of the ODWR data model, and allows users to develop
custom reports that combine the data in customer-specific ways.
DSR web services provide complementary applications such as Demantra Demand
Management with cleansed retail point of sale, on-hand inventory and other data at daily
store level, or aggregated to a higher level as needed.
3.6.2.
Release 12.1.1
3.6.2.1. Customer Organization Hierarchy
DSR captures customer organizational information as well as customer organizational
hierarchy to allow CG Manufacturers to view customer data based on the customers
perspective of their organization.
The lowest level in the organization hierarchy is the Business Unit which is a single
customer location. While business unit types are user-defined, the two most common
types of business units are stores and customer distribution centers.
DSR captures several business unit attributes such as address, general contact, and VAT
information, as well as store-specific attributes such as store manager, physical
properties (store size, number of window displays, restrooms, etc.). Additionally,
business units can be associated with a distribution channel and/or a market area to allow
analysis by channel or a market area (such as the Los Angeles market).
Each business unit has a physical address. This enables the Business Unit to be analyzed
by a geographic dimension, as well as the organization hierarchy.
The other levels of the organization hierarchy (listed from top to bottom) include: Retail
Group, Chain, Area, Region, District, and finally Business Unit. DSR allows you to
aggregate fact data to any level of the customers organization hierarchy.
The customer organization hierarchy supports the slowly changing dimension (SCD)
type 2 feature. This feature keeps historical data (e.g., sales) associated with the
hierarchical structure in effect at the time, to ensure proper analysis.
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3.6.2.2. Multiple Calendar Support

In addition to the standard Gregorian calendar, DSR also provides additional calendars
types including business, fiscal, advertising, and planning calendar type.
The consumer goods manufacturer can use all calendar types, whereas the only calendar
type that supports customer-specific calendars is the business calendar. By having a
separate business calendar for each customer, the account team or category manager can
view data in terms of the customers week, month, etc.
3.6.2.3. Customer Item Hierarchy
DSR captures customer item information as well as customer item hierarchy to allow
consumer goods manufacturers to view customer data based on the manner in which the
customer organizes their product groupings.
The lowest level in the customer item hierarchy is the SKU. DSR captures several
attributes at the SKU level including price, cost, size, color, style, variety, etc.
Additionally, SKUs can be associated to a brand or group into item clusters to allow
further analysis.
The other levels of the customer item hierarchy (listed from top to bottom) include:
Company, Division, Group, Department, Category, Subcategory, Item and finally SKU.
DSR allows you to aggregate fact data to any level of the customers item hierarchy.
The customer item hierarchy supports the slowly changing dimension (SCD) type 2
feature. This feature keeps historical data (e.g., sales) associated with the hierarchical
structure in effect at the time, to ensure proper analysis.
3.6.2.4. Manufacturer Item Hierarchy
DSR captures the manufacturers item information as well as item hierarchy to allow
consumer goods manufacturers to view data by the product categorization and
descriptions used within their own company.
The lowest level in the manufacturer item hierarchy is the SKU. DSR captures several
attributes at the SKU level which can differ from the retailers SKU attribute values.
The other levels of the manufacturers item hierarchy (listed from top to bottom) include:
Company, Division, Group, Class, Subclass, Item and finally SKU. The manufacturers
item hierarchy is seven levels deep, whereas the customers item hierarchy is eight levels
deep (to accommodate the broad range of products carried by retailers).
Like the customer item hierarchy, the manufacturers item hierarchy also supports the
slowly changing dimension (SCD) type 2 feature. This feature keeps historical data
(e.g., sales) associated with the hierarchical structure in effect at the time, to ensure
proper analysis.
3.6.2.5. Multiple Currency Support
Monetary values within DSR can be represented in one of two currencies. The first is
the retailers corporate currency, whereas each retailer can have a different currency.
The second is the reporting currency of the manufacturer.
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DSR converts values from the retailers currency to the manufacturers reporting
currency based upon a conversion table.
By default, reports will use the manufacturer reporting currency. If needed, the reports
can be customized to replace the reporting currency with the retailer currency.
3.6.2.6. Alternate Units of Measure
In DSR the typical base unit of measure is a saleable unit or Each (EA). DSR supports
alternate units of measure (kilos, liters, stats) to address manufacturing, shipping or
marketing requirements. For example, a beverage company might select volume in liters
as their alternative UOM. Each SKU has a ratio to convert the primary UOM quantity to
the alternate UOM quantity.
3.6.2.7. Authorized Distribution
A system parameter, called discovery mode, controls whether stores must be authorized
to carry an item.
When discovery mode is off, items must be pre-associated with a valid business unit (aka
store) in order to successfully process sales and forecast data for that business unit/item
combination.
When item discovery mode is on, the data loading process will create a new authorized
item/store record the first time that it encounters a SKU at a business unit (store) where it
has never previously been reported.
3.6.2.8. Sales Allocation
Fact data in Demand Signal Repository is always stored at the lowest level by
SKU/Business Unit/Day. Data supplied at an aggregate level is allocated down to the
day during the load process. For example, weekly, chain-level data must be allocated to
a daily, business unit level (either store or DC).
Organization and time-level allocation profiles define the percentage of the aggregate
value to be allocated to each the day or location. Allocation preserves any fractional
quantity, in order for a data value to be the same when re-aggregated to the level at
which it was originally received.
3.6.2.9. Sales Facts
The DSR sales & return process flow loads units sold, units returned and their related
monetary value and cost. Data can be reported at the business unit level (e.g., store) or at
a higher level in the organization for a given day or week. Sales reported at an aggregate
level are allocated to the lowest level (by business unit / day).
3.6.2.10. Shipments
The shipments process flow loads shipped units and monetary amount for a given
business unit/item/day. Shipments are reported against a specific store or distribution
center, no allocation logic is supported for shipment data.
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3.6.2.11. Orders
The orders process flow loads order quantity and monetary amount for a given business
unit/item/day. Orders (like Shipments) are reported against a specific store or
distribution center, again no allocation logic is supported for order data.
3.6.2.12. Inventory
The item inventory process flow loads on-hand, received, in-transit, backordered, and
quality hold quantities, net costs, and retail amounts for a given business
unit/item/location/day. Item Inventory (like Shipments and Orders) are reported against
a specific store or distribution center, so no allocation logic is supported for order data.
3.6.2.13. Sales Forecasts
The sales forecast process flow loads forecasted sales units and their related monetary
value. Like the sales and returns process flow, data can be reported at the business unit
level (e.g., store) or at a higher level in the organization for a given day or week. Sales
forecasted at an aggregate level are allocated to the lowest level (by business unit / day).
3.6.2.14. Promotion Plans
The promotions plan process flow loads information on what promotions are in effect at
a store for an item during a given time period, as well as whether the promotion includes
an associated price discount or not.
3.6.2.15. Category Sales Analysis Dashboard
The Category Management Dashboard displays key measures that are important to a
Category Manager. This includes:
Retailer Net Cost to Gross Margin is a quick reference into the profitability of
each product category carried by the retailer.
Category Coverage provides a breakdown of sales by retailer by product
category.
Product Mix provides a breakdown of sales by product category across retailers.
Product Contribution to Profit lists the top performing products based on
contribution to their respective product category.
Category Sales by Type displays the breakdown by promotional versus nonpromotional sales.
Sales Growth Percent Change to Previous Period displays the growth (or
decline) of this periods sales to the prior period.
Some of the key characteristics of the dashboard include:
Displaying multiple KPIs, or measures, in a single dashboard

Tracking performance relative to pre-defined thresholds
Drill-down capabilities to view supporting data
Ability to view by retailer or manufacturer hierarchy
Automatic delivery of the underlying reports via MS Office tools.
3.6.2.16. Product to Category Coverage Reports

The Product to Category Coverage reports shows the percentage of category, brand or
item penetration (by unit sales and monetary sales) into specific channels of distribution
(e.g. grocery retail, mass merchandiser, drug, wholesale /club, etc.).
76
Two separate reports are available: The Product to Category Coverage by Quarter and
the Product to Category Coverage by Period.
The available filters include:
Time (year, quarter month).

Channel (grocery retail, mass merchandiser, etc.)
Product Category or Item
Item Type (manufacturer item or retailer items)
3.6.2.17. Category Growth Analysis Reports

The Category Growth Analysis reports measure categorys growth by sales volume and
monetary value, across time and to the brand and item levels.
Two reports are available: The Category Growth Analysis by Volume report and the
Category Growth Analysis by Sales report
Time (year, quarter, month).

Product Category
Market Area
3.6.2.18. Category Sales by Type Reports

The Category Sales by Type report shows category sales units and monetary sales by
promotion type. Promotion Sales are sales from the retail POS system that are priced
and/or based on a promotion. Regular Sales are sales from the retail POS system that are
priced at standard Non-Promotion periods or pricing.
Two reports are available: The Category Sales Volume by Type: and the Category
Sales Value by Type report.

Product Category
3.6.2.19. Average Price Analysis Report

The Average Price Analysis report compares unit sales and average retail sales price to
the same period last year.

Product Category
3.6.2.20. Top and Bottom Performers Reports

The top and bottom performers reports provide an immediate view of the top performers
and bottom performers by profit or sales amount.
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Four reports are available:
Top Performers by Profit

Bottom Performers by Profit
Top Performers by Sales
Bottom Performers by Sales
Top Performer (which is the number to display, the default if left blank is 10)
Product Category
Customer
3.6.2.21. Ad-Hoc Reporting

Demand Signal Repository leverages native OBIEE functionality to produce ad-hoc
reports. This includes:
Flexible creation of ad hoc/new reports by end users which can then be

published to a wider audience
Ability to view data in multiple formats, including pivot table, graph, chart, etc.
Ability to drill down to lowest level of detail, based on existing dimensions, like
retail or manufacture item or organization hierarchy
Seamless integration with MS Office tools to export to Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
And the ability to integrate geographic visualization. For example, to show sales
by store, zip code, etc. on a map.
3.6.2.22. Sales Scorecard

The sales scorecard is divided into four sections which the users can filter by customer
and/or date. The four sections are:
Latest Results for the selected company (aka customer).

Latest Results broken down by product category
Overall Company YTD results.
Overall Company YTD results broken down by product Category
The measures displayed in each of the four quadrants include Monetary Sales, Unit
Sales, Category Sales, Category Share, Retailer Gross Margin, Gross Margin Percent,
and Forecast Accuracy.
3.6.2.23. Supply Chain Scorecard
The Supply Chain scorecard shows results against goal comparisons for seven supplychain oriented measures. Like the Sales Scorecard, it is divided into four panels, with the
left panels showing the latest results and the right panels showing values summarized by
year. Also like the Sales Scorecard, the top two sections show company performance;
however, the bottom two sections show performance across all manufacturer products at
the customer organizations region level.
The measures for each of the four sections of the supply chain scorecard include Service
Level, Order Cycle Time, and On-Time Delivery, Inventory Cover, On-hand Inventory,
In-Stock %, and Percent returns
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3.6.2.24. Operations Scorecard

The operations tab is divided into two panels. Operational measures are only available at
supply chain level, not at a more granular level (such as category or region).
All seven measures (Perfect order %, Order change %, Invoice accuracy %, Payment
days, Deduction amount, Item data synchronization % and Item data accuracy %) are
external measures imported into DSR through the ETL process.
3.6.2.25. Demantra Demand Management Integration
Demand Signal Repository has a pre-built outbound integration of aggregated demand
signals to Demantra. Data sent from DSR to Demantra includes:
Retailer Point of Sale Sales and Forecast

Retailer On-Hand Inventory, Orders, Shipments, and Promotions
Distribution Center On Hand-Inventory, Forecast, Shipments
3.6.2.26. Retail Merchandising System (RMS) Integration

The Retail Merchandising System (RMS) Integration provides an out-of the box
integration of EDI 852 data coming from Oracles RMS system into Oracles Demand
Signal Repository (DSR) module. The EDI 852 file from RMS populates DSRs sales
and return data, as well as on-hand inventory.
3.6.2.27. Web Services Integration
If you desire outbound integration with other Oracle or Non-Oracle applications,
Demand Signal Repository includes a standards-based web services integration to
support most common access scenarios including:
3.6.3.
Store POS, Orders, Forecasts, Shipments, and Promotions

On-Hand and In-Transit Inventory, Backorders, and Receipts
Release 12.1.2
3.6.3.1. Exception Management Dashboard
The Exception Management Dashboard automatically sifts through vast amounts of
customer data to quickly detect potential problems in key business processes. Using
OBIEEs iBot functionality, pre-built queries can be run periodically, as needed, to
locate issues and create exceptions.
Once exceptions have been created, the Exception Management Dashboard aggregates
and displays exceptions by customer and product category, listing them in order from
highest to lowest number of exception so users can address the most critical areas first.
The exception types analyzed within the Exception Management Dashboard include:
Out of Stock Exception where on-hand quantity was reported as zero
Imputed Out of Stock Exception where sales are significantly below expected
sales and the probability is very high that the product is out of stock.
Sales Forecast Accuracy Exception where sales forecast accuracy varies

significantly from the average.
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Reorder Point Exception where inventory levels (on-hand plus back order
quantity) are below the customers reorder point.
Overstock Exception where on-hand inventory levels are above the customers
reorder point.
New Item Not Selling Exception which reports on items introduced at the store
within the last 30 days which have no sales.
In-flight Promotional Lift Exception which reports on promoted items whose

sales is less than 110% of average sales.
Promotional Price Deviation Exception which reports where promotion price

is discounted more than 10% of average selling price
From each one of these exception types users have the option to view one of the
following reports to get more information.
The Forecast Accuracy report shows actual versus forecasted sales, deviation
between the two for the selected week as well as prior week.
The Inventory Position report shows the previous weeks ending balance,
receipts, sales and both an expected ending balance and an actual ending
balance. The customers replenishment information (min, max, reorder point,
etc.) is also displayed.
The Item Distribution report shows the number of authorized stores and the
number of authorized stores not selling, in addition to the average sales per store
selling.
The Price Deviation report shows average sales price, promotional price,
quantity sold, actual revenue and expected revenue.
Exception history is retained to allow users to track trends on whether exceptions are
increasing or decreasing.
3.6.3.2. All Commodity Volume (ACV) / External Measures
Many companies using Demand Signal Repository purchase consumption data from
syndicated data providers to analyze market penetration by retailer, geography, product
and time. The set of syndicated consumption data includes pre-calculated ACV
measures as well as other measures such as sales by promotion type, baseline sales, and
coupon sales. Syndicated consumption data can be purchased at various levels of the
product hierarchy and customer organization hierarchy, as well as geographic region or
sub-region.
DSR provides an initial set of 100 generic measures which are renamed during
implementation to match the measures purchased. In addition, the number of measures
can be extended, if needed.
When loading the external measures the product and geography keys supplied by the
syndicated data provider are translated into the appropriate organization, product or
geography hierarchy levels.
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A sample set of measures along with an out-of-the-box report is available to use as is, or
rename and revise based on specific customer needs.
3.6.3.3. TDLinx Store/Outlet Adapter
Demand Signal Repository has created an adapter to load AC Nielsen TDLinx
store/outlet data. As a result, the existing set of business unit (store) attributes were
enhanced to include additional data elements, such as status, sub-channel code, retail
group, as well as other attributes.
The TDLinx store/outlet adapter maps data from the AC Nielson source CSV file to the
Organization Business Unit Interface table. From there the existing Organization
Hierarchy ETL process flow can be used to update the Organization Business Unit
(DDR_R_BSNS_UNIT) target table.
3.6.3.4. Scorecard Enhancements (Goals & Thresholds)
The sales, operations and supply chain scorecards have been enhanced to improve
usability (see illustration below). These enhancements include:
Driving performance indicators (red, yellow green indicators) based on

externally-loaded goals and thresholds.
Monitoring weekly performance results as opposed to daily performance
Color-coded performance indicators which are based on the loaded goals and
thresholds.
Latest Results are now based on weekly results, goals and thresholds.
Previously, the latest results displayed daily values, which was too granular.
Overall Results are now based on YTD results. Previously, the scorecard
compared a yearly goal against the associated measure (e.g., unit sales) for a
given year. This allows users to monitor performance throughout the year
(rather than waiting until the end of the year).
In addition, the following enhancements were made to improve readability:
Both the measure value and the color-coded performance indicator are displayed
on the main scorecard pages
When drilling down from the scorecard, the year filter criterion is passed to the
underlying report. In addition, the associated chart is displayed first (before any
table data)
On the operations scorecard, the Deduction Balance measure has replaced the Deduction
Amount measure.
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3.6.3.5. Store Clusters

DSR supports the ability to group like stores (or distribution centers) together to
execute strategies related to specific store formats, consumer demographics, weather
zones, or other characteristics. Each business unit (store or distribution center) may be
associated to one or more store clusters.
The example below illustrates how stores from different retailers can be assigned to store
clusters based on average income, lifestyle and geographic location. A store cluster
report is available to analyze sales by store cluster type (e.g., Average income, Lifestyle,
Coastal) to see breakdown of sales by each unique cluster.
3.6.3.6. Item Clusters
Similar to store clusters, DSR supports the ability to group like SKUs together to
evaluate sales strategies and promotional activities.
The example below illustrates how SKUs from different product categories can be
assigned to item clusters based on average container material, primary shopper and brand
perception.
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3.6.3.7. Replenishment Rules

DSR supports the loading of customer replenishment rules to provide visibility into the
criteria used by the store or distribution center when reordering products. This
information can be used to determine whether out-of-stocks or overstocks are being
caused by an inappropriate inventory management policy, or to anticipate future order
volumes.
The replenishment rules are used by the exception management workbench to display
over and under stock conditions. The replenishment rules are also accessible to the end
user when building ad-hoc queries.
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3.6.3.8. Allocation Rules

DSR has the ability to allocate POS and sales forecast facts received at an aggregate
level to the business unit / day level. The time allocation and organization allocation
percentages have been exposed in the BI Answers catalog, so end users can view the
percentages that were used when allocating sales facts to the business unit or day level.
3.6.4.
Release 12.1.3
3.6.4.1. Manufacturer Promotions
Oracle Demand Signal Repository has been extended to include the capture and analysis
of Manufacturer Promotions. The functionality within this feature includes:
The ability to load manufacturer promotion information using out of the box
generic interface tables and Oracle Warehouse Builder process flows
The ability to associate sales to a manufacturer promotion to report promoted vs.

non-compliant sales (e.g., sales that should have been promoted)
A new Manufacturer Promotion Dashboard which shows:

o
Weekly sales compliance trend broken down by promoted and noncompliant sales
Manufacturer promotion compliance by product category which displays

promoted and non-promoted sales by product category
Expected vs. actual promotion sales
Expected vs. actual ACV % by manufacturer promotion
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Expected vs. actual sales by promotion type (e.g., display, feature, etc.)
to analyze results by promotion tactic
Promotion compliance by promotion type
Context sensitive drilldowns are available from the manufacturer promotion

dashboard to display:
o
Manufacturer Promotion Summary Results which compare actual

promotion results against expectations at the promotion/customer level.
Manufacturer Promotion Detail Results which compare actual promotion

results against expectations at the promotion/customer/SKU level.
3.6.4.2. Manufacturer Shipments

Manufacturers need visibility into products as they move downstream in the supply chain
to the consumer. In previous releases, Oracle Demand Signal Repository provided
visibility of products at customer locations (either distribution centers or retail stores),
but did not have visibility into shipments leaving the manufacturers facilities.
Oracle Demand Signal Repository has been enhanced to capture manufacturer shipments
to provide end to end visibility of products as they leave the manufacturers site all the
way to the store and ultimate sale to the consumer. The functionality within this feature
includes:
The ability to load the manufacturers organization hierarchy to define locations

from where product is shipped
The ability to load manufacturer shipment information using out of the box
generic interface tables and Oracle Warehouse Builder process flows
A new Shipment Dashboard which shows:

o
Manufacturer shipment trend
Customer sales trend (to compare against manufacturer shipments)
Actual vs. forecasted customer shipments
Customer shipments vs. receipts (by product category and business unit)
to spot potential product diversion issues
Customer shipment throughput of inbound shipments vs. outbound

shipments
3.6.4.3. Customer Shipment Facts

As part of the manufacturer shipments enhancements, customer shipment facts were also
enhanced to capture ship-to location and shipment cost information.
3.6.4.4. Third Party Distributors
Manufacturers may ship product to customers via third party distributors. In previous
releases of Oracle Demand Signal Repository distributors were not distinguishable from
other organizations (e.g., retailers). To provide better visibility into third party
distributors, a new organization type has been created specifically for distributors. In
addition, a new distributor dashboard has been created. The functionality within this
feature includes:
Creation of a new Organization Type for distributors
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The ability to load distributor reference information using out of the box generic
interface tables and Oracle Warehouse Builder process flows. This includes
loading:
o
Distributor organization hierarchy
Distributor item hierarchy
Distributor business calendar
Distributor replenishment rules
The ability to load distributor fact information using out of the box generic
interface tables and Oracle Warehouse Builder process flows. This includes
loading:
o
Distributor shipments
Distributor inventory
Distributor shipment forecast (see Forecast Type and Purpose Code

enhancement)
Creation of a new Distributor dashboard which shows:

o
Manufacturer shipments by distributor
Distributor shipments by customer
Weekly manufacturer shipment trend
Forecast accuracy by distributor
Distributor inventory by product category
Customer shipments by distributor
Distributor throughput (inbound and outbound shipments) by product

Category
Weekly distributor throughput trend
3.6.4.5. Alternate Organization Hierarchy

Since its inaugural release, Oracle Demand Signal Repository has had the ability to
capture and analyze facts based on the customers view of their organization structure.
Manufacturers and their supply chain partners (e.g., syndicated data providers) may have
their own view of how the customers organization is structured for purposes of account
management, promotion planning, collecting and aggregating consumption data, etc.
This view is oftentimes different from how the customer views its organization structure.
The Alternate Organization Hierarchy feature allows alternate views of the customers
organization to co-exist within DSR along with the original customer organization
hierarchy. Facts can be inquired upon using the original customer organization
hierarchy, or one or more alternate organization hierarchies.
The Alternate Organization Hierarchy provides a flexible organization structure, which
can vary depending on the source of the data, or the type of analysis performed. For
example:
Example 1 Syndicated Data Provider. Manufacturers who subscribe to a syndicated
data provider service for account information can load this information into the alternate
organization hierarchy and leave the original customer organization hierarchy untouched,
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so that account teams can still talk to customers in terms of the customers view of their
organization.
Example 2 Customer Buying Organization / Planning Hierarchy. The manufacturers
own view of the customers organization may be based on how the customers buying
organization is structured. When performing activities, such as promotion planning and
execution, the promotion may apply to a level within the retailers organization, which
represents the area for which a buyer is responsible. For example, a retail department
(e.g., giftware, jewelry, etc.) or buying region (e.g., east, west, etc.). One or more of
these views of the customer organization can be loaded to the alternate organization
hierarchy.
The business benefits to having alternate organization hierarchies include:
Ability to view customer data at aggregate levels that represent the various ways
in which the manufacturer conducts business with the customer.
Ability to analyze fact data at a level that is equivalent to other systems in use by
the Manufacturer. For example, to analyze and report on DSR retail demand data
by planning account (i.e., a level in an alternate organization hierarchy), which
would be equivalent to the planning account used in Demantra Predictive Trade
Planning or Siebel Consumer Goods.
The functionality within this feature includes:
The ability to define the types of alternate organization hierarchies to be used

(e.g., AC Nielsen, Buying Organization, etc.)
The ability to configure the DSR repository to expose additional hierarchies

and/or levels and name each level according to desired use (see additional
information below)
The ability to load alternate organization hierarchy information using out of the
box generic interface tables and Oracle Warehouse Builder process flows.
Information loaded includes:
o
The types of alternate organization hierarchies in use
The attributes associated with each account within an alternate

organization hierarchy, including a set of 20 user-defined attributes
which can be customized, and the parent account to which each child
account belongs.
The association between a business unit (e.g., store or distribution

center) and an account in the alternate organization hierarchy.
The ability to associate syndicated consumption data to any account within an

alternate organization hierarchy.
A sample report, called Sales Performance by Account, has been made available
to illustrate how the alternate organization can be used to build other reports.
Additional Information
DSR ships with a sample alternate organization hierarchy exposed in the Answers web
catalog which has four levels exposed. To use additional alternate organization
hierarchies, the DSR repository must be modified to define the number of levels being
used and the names of each level to be exposed. Up to ten levels within an alternate
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organization hierarchy can be exposed without requiring any physical data model
changes.
3.6.4.6. Forecast Type and Purpose Code
Prior to this release of Oracle Demand Signal Repository, forecasts were assumed to be
sales related. In addition, there was no way to distinguish baseline from incremental
forecast. As of this release, Oracle Demand Signal Repository has enhanced the forecast
facts to provide additional types of forecast, as well as defining baseline vs. incremental
forecast. The functionality within this feature includes:
The ability to capture different types of forecasts coming from the

retailer/customer. In one case, the forecast may represent projected store sales,
while in other cases; the forecasts may represent projected orders or shipments
for the distribution centers.
To differentiate the types of forecasts provided by the retailer, the forecast data
contains two additional attributes.
Forecast Purpose. The forecast purpose code indicates whether a

forecast represents a projected sales quantity (for stores), order quantity
(for distribution locations), shipment quantity (for distribution locations)
or a projected receipt quantity (for either stores or DCs).
Forecast Type. The forecast type code indicates whether the forecast
quantity includes only base demand (without promotional volumes),
promotional demand only, or "total" demand (including both base and
promo).
Existing out of the box reports and dashboards were modified to specify that the
forecast data being displayed had a Forecast Purpose code of SALES and a
Forecast Type of TOTAL. This is to maintain parity with the original intent of
the reports.
3.6.4.7. User Defined Fields

To provide flexibility in capturing additional attributes within Oracle Demand Signal
Repository, without requiring changes to the physical data model, a set of 20 userdefined attributes (10 alphanumeric, 10 numeric) have been added to the entities listed
below:
Manufacturer Item Hierarchy (all levels)
Organization Hierarchy (all levels)
Retailer Item Hierarchy (all levels)
Item Cluster Definition
Retailer Cluster Definition
Customer Promotion Plans
Manufacturers needing to capture additional attributes against these entities can

leverage the out of the box interface tables and Oracle Warehouse Builder process flows
without needing to make any customizations.
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3.6.4.8. Type 2 Slowly Changing Dimensions

By default, Oracle Demand Signal Repository supports Type 2 Slowly Changing
Dimensions (SCD) on the following dimensions:
Organization
Manufacturer Item Hierarchy
Customer (Retail) Item Hierarchy
Historically, the Type 2 SCD feature is always turned on for these three dimensions.
With this release, Type 2 SCD functionality can be turned off at implementation time to
give customers the option whether to use this feature or not.
3.6.5.
Release 12.2
3.6.5.1. Uptake of ODI
The data upload mechanism for Oracle Demand Signal Repository as been changed from
Oracle Warehouse Builder to Oracle Data Integrator.
3.6.6.
Release 12.2.5
Oracle Demand Signal Repository is certified with OBIEE 11.1.1.7 and OBIEE 11.1.1.9.
These provide new visualization options such as Performance Tiles for summary data
and data-dense Trellis Charts for use in custom reports.
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3.7.

3.7.1.
Release 12.2
3.7.1.1. Calendar Month Support in Weekly System
Each Oracle Demantra implementation has a core time resolution definition. This
definition drives the resolution of data kept in the system, which in turns drives the
granularity of data available to users, as well as key Demantra processes. Currently this
data granularity serves as the smallest building block upon which all time management
and display is done.
If a customers business requirements include support of both weeks and calendar
months they cannot achieve this using a weekly system, as weeks do not aggregate
wholly into calendar months. Currently the only way to support this requirement is to
have a system where the lowest time resolution is daily.
This release will enhance the Demantra data model to enable supporting week-to- month
calendar rollups. Functionality supported:
Pre-configured Calendar Months time aggregation

View Weekly data via Calendar Months, Quarters and Years
Update data in Calendar Months, Quarters and Years
3.7.1.2. Import from Excel

This release enables customers to import data directly from a file (tab-delimited Unicode
format only; can be named as .xls file) into a compatible worksheet. This will enable
users to quickly import data such as customer forecast, or data they have manipulated in
Excel for mass updates (such as planning percentages). A template for import can be
generated via an enhanced version of the Export to Excel feature.
3.7.1.3. Engine Performance Improvements
This release sets engine pass through as the default configuration for the analytical
engine. With this configuration, the Sales_Data_Engine will not be created for every
engine branch but instead the data will be retrieved from the Sales_Data table directory.
This will reduce configuration time needed to apply this configuration at key customers,
improve implementation delivery times and maintain or improve engine run times.
3.7.1.4. Subset forecasting

Subset forecasting will allow customers who have large data sets which cannot be
completed in a single processing cycle to forecast specific parts of the population
without impacting versioning or requiring a copy of large quantities of data.
3.7.1.5. Analytical Engine on Solaris 10
In this release, we extend our operating system support of the analytical engine to
include Solaris 10.
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3.7.1.6. Improved Multi-Language Support

As a further improvement on language support, Demantra 12.2 includes support for
multiple languages within a single instance. This will enable users to select from a list of
supported languages at login, and review and collaborate in their selected language.
3.7.1.7. Technology Stack
Demantra 12.2 aligns with the EBS Technology Stack, including the following
extensions and version upgrades above existing supported technologies:
Oracle Weblogic 11g

CPLEX 12 for Trade Promotion Optimization
Oracle Connection Manager 11g (OCM)
Oracle Access Manager 11g (replaces SSO)
Internet Explorer 9
Safari 5
Applications Middle Tier JDK: Java 6.0
Applications Client Runtime Java: 6.0
In addition, we will support the following version upgrades:
IBM WebSphere or WebSphere Express 7.0

Tomcat 6.x and 7.0
3.7.1.8. Demand Variability Definition

The user interface for standard error (currently erroneously labeled Safety Stock) is
relocated from the Business Logic Engine (BLE) to the Business Modeler and renamed
to Demand Variability. This will better consolidate all system administrator tasks into
one administrative application.
Further, performance of the procedures that calculate standard error is improved by
implementing multi-threading.
3.7.1.9. Configure Rolling Profile Groups
A new user interface is provided to define Rolling Profile Groups in the Business
Modeler. This new option, as well as the definition of Rolling Data Profiles, is moved
under the Configuration menu in the Business Modeler. Previously, the configuration
of Rolling Data Profiles was found under the Engine menu.
3.7.1.10. Integration Data Profile Hints
Integration Interface hints are defined in the Business Modeler for Data Profiles. System
administrators will be able to define both data and population hints within the Data
Profile wizard.
3.7.1.11. Database Performance Improvements
Database performance can decline due to out-of-order tables or incorrectly defined
primary keys. In this release we provide standard mechanisms for performing database
health checks (both a quick and thorough version) and procedures to rebuild key data
tables like SALES_DATA and MDP_MATRIX if necessary. This procedure will be
dynamically created in Demantra and can be run either while the application server is
live or during a period when the application server is down. The key focus of this design
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is to provide a means of assessing and addressing declines in database performance due

to out-of-order tables.
3.7.1.12. Asynchronous Workflow Support
Currently, workflow steps in Demantra workflows operate in a synchronous mode (i.e.,
they wait for the step to complete before proceeding to the next step in the workflow).
This mode of operation works well for most types of workflow steps currently supported
in the workflow editor. However, there are certain types of workflow steps for which an
asynchronous mode of operation would be useful. Asynchronous mode of operation
means the workflow will not be required to wait for the current step to complete in order
to proceed to the next step in the workflow.
Asynchronous support is provided for the following types of workflow steps:
Launch Workflow Step

User Step
Group Step
Exception Step
Many of these steps are simply used to notify users of data to review or exceptions to
take note of. Once the notification has been sent, the workflow should proceed to
completion rather than wait for the user to mark as Done.
3.7.2.
Release 12.2.4
3.7.2.1. User Access Control
This release provides the ability to prevent a user, or group of users, from logging in to
Oracle Demantra. This ensures that users are not interrupted, suffer poor system
performance or see incomplete data while, for example, system maintenance is scheduled
or when data-intensive processes such as forecast generation are running. This feature
prevents specific users from accessing Demantra worksheets from Collaborator
Workbench and Demantra Anywhere.
Any users that are not explicitly locked out of the system will be able to log in and
access worksheets as usual.
An administrator defines the period of time when users will not be able to access
Demantra worksheets, and when the system will notify affected users (via a Task pop-up
message dialog, and optionally by email) informing them of the date and time when the
system will be unavailable. The administrator also chooses whether specific users, user
groups or all users will be locked out.
If a user is currently making changes in a worksheet when the specified lockout period
begins, they will be prompted to save their work before they are automatically logged out
of the application.
When the specified lockout period ends, users will be able to log in to Demantra and
resume their work. If necessary, an administrator can also manually end the lockout
period before the specified end time.
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3.7.2.2. Support Additional Demantra Hierarchies in APCC

As part of the 12.2.1 release, APCC was enhanced to support displaying a custom
product hierarchy that has been defined in Demantra. This allows more flexible and
seamless integration between Demantra Demand Management or Demantra Sales &
Operations Planning and the Advanced Planning Command Center.
12.2.4 will support two additional custom hierarchies to be brought from Demantra into
APCC. One for the Organization Dimension and one for the Site (Account) dimension.
This will further enhance APCCs ability to display reports which are better focused on
an individual customers needs and align with any customer specific hierarchy they may
have.
3.7.2.3. Launch Management to Support New Product Introductions
This feature extends the current Launch Management feature available for In-Memory
Consumption Driven Planning to Demand Management and Predictive Trade Planning.
Launch Management will allow users to copy data from a source product at a given
site/account to a new product. This will also support a user controlled option to copy
historical promotion information from source product to the target product. The data
copy will be used by the Demantra engine to generate forecasts for newly introduced
products. This feature includes new worksheets where requests can be entered, modified
and reviewed by users.
3.7.3.
Release 12.2.5
3.7.3.1. Oracle Alta Look and Feel
This release refreshes parts of the Demantra user interface to better align with more
modern standards and other Oracle products. The information displayed on screen will
continue to have high informational density but the borders and other objects displayed
will be modified to reduce clutter and create a cleaner more efficient work environment.
Graphs will also be simplified to provide a cleaner view. The modified settings will be
part of preset configurations. You can choose the Demantra look and feel as available
prior to 7.3.1.4, the Demantra 7.3.1.4 look, or the new revised look.
Additional enhancements have been made to the Demantra Anywhere (DA) product.
Functionality which was previously only available in a full worksheet is now available in
Demantra Anywhere worksheets as well. You can execute seeded and custom methods,
enabling much more robust support of a variety of business processes, including
promotion management and new item introduction. In addition, you can call the
Demantra engine to execute simulations for ad-hoc what if analysis.
3.7.3.2. Global Instance Support
As a business grows, its planning processes grow and encompass a larger and larger
global footprint. The complexities of supporting a truly global process with users in
different countries and time zones become apparent. This release of Demantra allows
both worksheets and user initiated actions to respect user locality.
The users time zone difference from general system time will be used to adjust the end
of history and beginning of future for the user. In addition, when a user calls a method or
runs a simulation, the time zone they are in is available and can be used to modify the
process being called.
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3.7.3.3. Workflow Recoverability

Workflows in Demantra are used to enable a wide variety of seeded and custom
processes. The custom processes enable scheduled, triggered and user-initiated multistep processes. If these processes fail, there are currently several options on how to
recover - including stopping the workflow, retrying from the current workflow step, or
skipping to the next step.
This feature enables a failed workflow to start from another step instead. This can
facilitate resetting of a workflow to a given state required for continuing a process. The
feature will enable more robust use of workflows and lessen concern of data and process
corruption due to mid run failure.
As part of each workflow steps definition, you will have a new recovery option where
you specify the step from which a workflow will restart, regardless of whether the restart
occurs automatically or is user initiated.
3.7.3.4. Improved Security and Single Sign on Support
Changes have been made to the notification methodology between different parts of the
Demantra deployment stack including the Business Modeler (configuration module),
application server and Analytical Engine. In prior releases, communication was primarily
via HTTP calls which could be disrupted if a single sign on protocol was in place,
requiring application server restarts to facilitate changes in the other modules. In
addition, users inside the firewall could call processes if they possessed the appropriate
URL. This release modifies the calling methodology to use the database layer and Oracle
Wallet for improved security as well as seamless integration with any supported single
sign on option.
Note: The certified single sign on protocol for this release is Oracle Access Manager.
3.7.3.5. Collect Data Above Site Level
When Demantra collects historical orders and shipments from EBS, the information can
be collected at a very detailed Site and Organization level, at an Organization level, or at
an aggregate All Sites level.
Often there is a requirement to view, interact and forecast at a level which is more
aggregate than Site but without losing visibility to what is happening for given
Customers or Accounts. This enhancement allows the level at which data to be collected
at to include:
Item Demand Class Organization Site (exists in previous versions)

Item Demand Class Organization (exists in previous versions)
Item Demand Class Organization Customer
Item Demand Class Organization Account
This new feature will not interfere with existing capabilities of identifying key accounts
which should be kept as unique entities and other accounts which should be grouped into
a dummy master account.
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3.7.4.
Release 12.2.6
3.7.4.1. Remove Applet Dependency
Traditionally the Demantra application has been run from a browser as a Java plug-in. In
12.2.6 we are converting the plug-in to a desktop application. Users can continue to
launch Demantra from the firefox web browser as they do today or shift to a desktop
executable which has no browser or Java plugin dependence.
3.7.4.2. Demantra Anywhere Enhancements
Demantra Anywhere is a pure browser-based UI and provides the ideal mobility solution
to Demantra users. In this release we continue enhancing the user experience and
functional capabilities available. This release includes the addition of graphs to
Demantra anywhere as well as extending method support to cover majority of method
types. Users can now accept and reject simulations in Demantra Anywhere and create
and manage worksheets directly in this tool. The user experience and layouts controls
have been optimized for mobile tablet based use. This collection of enhancements
extends the usability and audience of Demantra Anywhere from a quick update on the go
to more diverse and complete flows including full demand management, S&OP and
extensive trade management use.
3.8.

3.8.1.
Release 12.2
3.8.1.1. Enhanced Integration with Advanced Planning Command Center
Demand Management seeds integration with Oracle Advanced Planning Command
Center. Demand plan measures can be published to the Advanced Planning Command
Center (APCC) and used in dashboard reports. These measures are archived by plan for
immediate scenario comparison to facilitate faster development of profitable demand
shaping strategies.
There is support for publishing custom demand series to APCC forecasting measures.
For example, if customer forecasts are maintained in a Demand Management series then
this forecast data can be published to a seeded, generic APCC measure.
Integration is also available for a limited item hierarchy mapping between Demand
Management and APCC. For example, if a custom item hierarchy has been defined in the
Business Modeler (e.g. Item < Product SubGroup < Product Group < Product Line) then
this structure can be replicated automatically in APCC.
3.8.2.
Release 12.2.5
3.8.2.1. Publish Intermittency Flag to IO
The Demantra forecast sent to Inventory Optimization is used to generate safety stock.
An important part of this calculation is an indication whether the history and resulting
forecast are intermittent. An indication of intermittency will be used as part of the IO
95
safety stock calculation and may cause a different methodology to be used, resulting in
more accurate and appropriate safety stock values and improved service levels.
3.9.

Oracle In-Memory Consumption Driven Planning was first introduced in the Oracle
Demantra VCP 7.3.1.5 release, and has been forward ported to VCP 12.2.4.
3.9.1.
Release 12.2.4
3.9.1.1. Store Level Forecasting and Fulfillment
Consumption-Driven Planning is focused on enabling an end to low level business
process leveraging consumer facing data to provide a more accurate and reactive forecast
and replenishment plan.
CDP will enable loading of sell-through history at store or site level. This data will serve
as a basis for generation of a sell-through forecast. The sell-through forecast will serve
two purposes.
First it will be converted into a sell-in shipment forecast which can be used on its own or
incorporated into a typical demand management or sales and operation planning process.
Second the sell-through forecast will be used as the starting point for safety stock
calculation. Once safety stock is calculated it is combined with stocking rules to
determine a target inventory value. Target inventory will be combined with metrics such
as on hand, in transit and open orders to generate a simple single tier replenishment plan.
3.9.1.2. BLE Clustering
For larger systems execution of the Business Logic Engine (BLE) can be very time
consuming. This feature harnesses the capabilities of the Demantra distributed analytical
engine and uses it to divide BLE tasks into several parallel tasks.
BLE clustering will be called as part of the execution of the analytical engine. It is
possible to call the engine to simply invoke the BLE without generating a forecast.
BLE clustering is only available when engine is deployed in a Linux environment
3.9.1.3. Analytical Engine 64 bit
Provide the Demantra analytical engine in 64 bit mode on Unix and Linux. This
improves the engines ability to use memory and removes a dependency of 32 bit
application server and database client.
The 64 bit engine is not available on Windows
3.9.1.4. Engine performance Improvements
Improve analytical engine efficiency and performance in a 64 bit environment. Reduce
engine run time.
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3.9.1.5. General Level with Daily Information in a Weekly System

In order to store daily store level data without impacting other processes such as Demand
Management or Sales and Operations Planning the enhancement enables having a daily
general level as part of a weekly system.
Daily general levels can coexist with weekly levels in the same data model. When
viewing data, it will be available at a daily and weekly as appropriate. Worksheets will
allow inclusion of series for a daily general level, side by side with other series.
3.9.1.6. BLE Context Passing
The Batch Logic Engine plays an integral part in calculating safety stock and
replenishment orders associated with CDP. In order to support invoking the BLE more
effectively in a real time fashion, BLE can now be called from several different ways
Workflow
o
Workflow with an extra filter

o
Allows calling of the same BLE worksheets by different workflow steps

all using a different filter. Ideal when different business units need to
have BLE execute at different times
Called from worksheet update

o
Available prior to 7315
Allows the context of the update to drive the population on which BLE
is run
Called from a method

o
Allows the context of the method drive the population on which BLE is
run
All of these options allow execution of the BLE on the right population at the right time
ensuring any time phased calculations are accurate and up to date.
3.9.1.7. BLE Net Change
Due to the high use of BLE it is important to eliminate any unnecessary processing.
When called the BLE will only execute on combinations for which data has changed.
3.9.1.8. New Store Introduction
CDP offers a simple process which can be used to introduce a new store. The new store
will be based on an existing store and will receive the same product assortment.
Historical data for the source store can be copied into the new store and serve as a basis
for forecast generation.
The introduction can be executed in real time or scheduled for a nightly run.
3.9.1.9. New Item at Store Introduction
CDP offers a simple process which can be used to introduce a product to a store or group
of stores. The new item will be based on an existing product and will be associated with
97
a single store, store group or account. Historical data for the source product can be
copied into the new product and serve as a basis for forecast generation.
The introduction can be executed in real time or scheduled for a nightly run.
3.9.2.
Release 12.2.5
3.9.2.1. Removal of Dependency on Oracle Engineered Systems
In-Memory Performance Driven Planning can now be run on hardware platforms other
than Oracle Engineered Systems, when deployed on top of Oracle Database In-Memory.
Release 12.2.5.1 of In-Memory Performance Driven Planning is certified with OBIEE
11.1.1.7 and OBIEE 11.1.1.9.
3.10. Oracle Demantra Real-time Sales and Operations Planning

3.10.1.
Release 12.2
3.10.1.1. Improved Cost Modeling
Detailed supply cost modeling is available in S&OP. Supply cost breakdown is by
transportation, storage, purchase, and manufacturing costs. Seeded integration with
Strategic Network Optimization brings planning costs at the item, organization and time
level by plan scenario rather than deriving total cost using standard costs in S&OP. This
enables our customers to understand the cost trade-offs between plan scenarios for a
more profitable response. For example, a SNO plan scenario may indicate higher
transportation and supply costs due to outsourcing whereas an alternative plan scenario
that increases resource capacity may reflect higher manufacturing and storage costs. This
enhancement improves decision support through more detailed cost analysis.
3.10.1.2. Enhanced Integration with Advanced Planning Command Center
Prior to this release, nearly all of the Forecasting measures from S&OP were plan
independent in APCC and publishing overwrote the previous set of values. This
diminished the utility of the APCC for demand data analysis. For example, there was no
ability to compare sales forecast, projected backlog, and financial forecast measures
between scenarios to evaluate plan differences. All Forecasting measures published from
S&OP (excluding historical data series) are now striped by plan name, and can be
archived and are therefore comparable between scenarios. S&OP leverages the same
integration enhancements as in DM.
These enhancements to S&OP-APCC integration include:
Streamlined publish process for Forecasting measures: All Forecasting measures

are published in a single workflow thereby eliminating manual steps.
Publish custom measures: Support for publishing custom S&OP series to
APCC. This includes both forecast and historical measures.
Oracle Demantra Real-time Sales and Operations Planning
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Item Hierarchy Mapping: Provide limited mapping of item hierarchy between

the Business Modeler and APCC. For example, if a custom item hierarchy has
been defined in the Business Modeler (e.g. Item < Product SubGroup < Product
Group < Product Line) then this structure can be replicated automatically in
APCC.
3.11. Oracle Demantra Predictive Trade Planning

3.11.1.
Release 12.2
3.11.1.1. Enabling Dynamic Open Link capabilities and Demantra Anywhere
Previously, Dynamic Open Link (DOL) and Demantra Anywhere (DA) were available
only if the Sales and Operations Planning component was installed. In this release,
customers who have licensed Predictive Trade Planning are able to use DOL to export
promotion data from Demantra into third party reporting tools such as Microsoft Excel.
They will also be able to leverage the thin client of DA for promotions planning.
3.11.2.
Release 12.2.4
3.11.2.1. Support Trade Hierarchies and Data in APCC
Trade objects and series have been incorporated into APCC. Existing S&OP users will
have access to aggregate trade volumes and financial information supporting more
successful decision making.
Additionally Trade Analysts will be able to view the promotion hierarchy both in
aggregate and detail. All relevant series associated with trade planning will be available
in seeded or configurable reports. Information can drive both promotional historical
performance analysis as well as future projections and funding.
3.11.2.2. Streamlined Promotion Creation and Improved Method Usability
Various aspects of the method screen will now be configurable. The changes are focused
on improving promotion creation but will also be useful for variety of other business
flows using methods.
The following method definitions will be configurable:
The Population Dates label that appears on the method dialog will be configurable
by Population Attribute.
The height of the Population window will be configurable by Population Attribute.
The Available Filter Levels will be configurable by Population Attribute. This

enhancement will provide the ability to limit the levels shown in the filter to only
those relevant to the use case. Additionally, for each available filter level the
following will be able to be specified:
o
Whether or not the level is mandatory meaning it must be included as a

Selected Filter Level in the population definition.
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The maximum number of members that can be selected for the level if
applicable.
3.11.2.3. Calendar Enhancements
The usability of the worksheet Calendar View will be enhanced as follows:
The following additional actions will be provided for invoking methods from a
Calendar View:
o
Double-clicking on an editable member on the calendar will invoke the

Edit method.
Double-clicking on a read-only member on the calendar will invoke the

View method.
Selecting a member on the calendar and pressing the DELETE key on the
keyboard will invoke the Delete method.
Double-clicking on a blank area on the calendar will invoke the New

method.
In each of the above the specific method to be invoked will be configurable

and will be able to vary by calendar view. For the pre-seeded Promotion
Calendar view the corresponding Promotion methods will be pre-set.
The ability to print a Calendar View in a presentable format will be provided. When
printing a Calendar View:
o
The user will be able to select Portrait or Landscape orientation.
The time level selected for the Calendar View on the worksheet (days within
weeks, weeks within months, or months within years) will be retained on the
print out.
The row and column headers will be repeated on each page of the print out.
3.11.2.4. Streamlined Simulation

The process of running a Simulation on a worksheet will be streamlined to reduce the
number of steps and make the process more user-friendly and allow user to run a
simulation with a single click.
All of the settings required to run a simulation will be combined onto a single dialog.
These settings will be able to be saved as the default settings for:

o
A specific user and worksheet combination.
A specific user for all worksheets.
A specific worksheet for all users.
All users and all worksheets.
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Simulation will be able to be invoked using the saved settings with a single click.
When a simulation completes the notification message will provide the option to
rerun the worksheet.
3.11.2.5. Enhanced Support for Shipment and Consumption Planning

When planning the promotional demand for shipments and consumption it is important
to recognize that the date ranges for each demand can be different. Typically, for a
single promotion the shipment demand occurs in advance of the consumption demand.
Since Demantra provides a single set of Population Dates which drive the data storage
for a promotion, planning and forecasting both shipments and consumption can be
challenging. Release 12.2.4 will resolve the gap between shipment and execution dates
on a promotion.
In order to better support shipment and consumption planning, the following
enhancements will be made:
The Promotion Population Date Range will be automatically extended to encompass

both shipment and consumption periods.
Item/Location combinations will be able to be flagged as to the availability of

shipment demand and/or consumption demand.
Engine Profiles will be provided so that when forecasting shipment demand the
engine references the shipment date range for promotions and when forecasting
consumption demand the engine references the consumption date range for
promotions.
Seeded series will reference relevant date ranges for shipments and consumption to
ensure correct budget and funding calculations.
3.12. Oracle Demantra Trade Promotion Optimization

3.12.1.
Release 12.2
3.12.1.1. Enabling Nodal Tuning
Previously, nodal tuning was only available to Advanced Forecasting and Demand
Modeling (AFDM) customers. In this release, we enable this advanced analytical
functionality for Predictive Trade Planning customers who purchase Trade Promotion
Optimization. This enables more granular control of the analytical engine.
3.12.1.2. Enhancements to Optimization
A number of enhancements are introduced:
Exclusion rules: Users will be able to define a set of conditions that should not
occur together in a solution. For example, you should not run a TPR
simultaneously with an Ad, and discount should exclude discounts in a certain
range.
Oracle Demantra Trade Promotion Optimization
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Optimized buydown: Buydown is now optimized like other variables in the

optimizer. In previous releases, the buydown calculation was deterministic and
calculated using the minimum retailer margin constraint. In this version,
buydown is now part of the optimization problem and the value is selected by the
optimization process.
Vehicle cost overrides: The vehicle_cost expression has been changed to allow
cost event overrides per causal and per transpose.
Control over impact of financial constraints: Provide the ability to turn off
financial constraints such as minimum manufacturer or retail margins.
Define baseline: If a manual override was done to the baseline forecast,
customers might require that value be used as the baseline for the promotion
when calculating Revenue and Profit. In this release, we provide control over
the expression denoting baseline.
3.12.1.3. Calendar Optimization
Calendar Optimization provides users the ability to create and optimize groups of
promotions to achieve defined business goals over a specified time period.
Calendar Optimization differs from Promotion Optimization in that, rather than
optimizing a single promotion, Calendar Optimization optimizes groups of
promotions and will create new promotions within a scenario to meet the
requested business objectives. The parameters for Calendar Optimization are
similar to Promotion Optimization with some additional parameters that define
how the optimizer creates new promotions in the calendar (for example,
maximum promotions per account, maximum promotions per scenario, maximum
% budget allocation per promotion).
3.13. Oracle Global Order Promising

3.13.1.
Release 12.1.3
3.13.1.1. Enhanced Forward ATP
Prior to this enhancement, during forward scheduling (when there is insufficient supply
to promise a demand on its requested date, due to which GOP searches for supply later
than the requested date), GOP would consider sources in rank order and select the first
source that yielded a promise date less than or equal to the latest acceptable date. This
did not guarantee that the source with the best promise date would get selected.
With this enhancement, GOP returns the best possible promise date by combining
availability across all sources. The enhancement is enabled by enabling the profile
MSC: Use Enhanced Forward ATP. With this enhanced behavior, GOP uses iterative
search logic to determine the most optimal promise date during forward scheduling. This
feature increases the computation burden of the order promising calculation, and may
impact GOP performance, especially in very constrained supply scenarios.
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3.13.2.
Release 12.1.3+
3.13.2.1. Asset Intensive Planning Enhancements
Global Order Promising will consider Maintenance Work Orders and External Repair
Orders as sources of supply to be used when promising orders. Global Order promising
has also been enhanced to exclude supply of defectives of a certain item when promising
orders for that item. It does so by identifying defective sub-inventories using their default
locator status and excluding the supply tied to those sub-inventories when promising
orders. These enhancements are only available when running Global Order Promising
with the profile option INV: Capable to Promise set to ATP Based on Collected Data.
The integration of Global Order Promising with CMRO has been enhanced. Previously
all CMRO work order demands were eligible for ATP checks and would consume
available supply. With this release, it is possible for users to specify a time window.
Only work order demand within this time window will be visible to ATP. This keeps
more supply available for use in promising near term work order demands from work
orders created on short notice for unanticipated but critical maintenance needs. The new
CMRO Material Marshalling workbench includes a capability to perform ATP checks
for work order material requirements.
3.13.3.
Release 12.2.5
3.13.3.1. Account for ECO Dates in Forward ATP
In prior releases, GOPs search for supply beyond the original Requested Date of an
order (Forward Scheduling) was controlled through the profile MSC: Use Enhanced
Forward ATP. When this was set to Yes, GOP searched for supply by iteratively
changing the Requested Date (internally) using a binary search mechanism between the
Requested Date and the Infinite Time Fence Date. However, in scenarios where the
Infinite Time Fence was significantly later than the Requested Date, but where an ECO
(Engineering Change Order) was relatively closer to the Requested Date, existing supply
of the to-be-phased-out component may have been missed by GOP, resulting in
excessively delayed scheduled dates.
In this release, GOP introduces a new mode of forward scheduling, enabled through the
existing profile MSC: Use Enhanced Forward ATP. This profile now has values of
No, Binary Search Based Requested Date, and Increment Based Requested Date.
The Binary Search based Requested Date value of this profile is identical to Yes in
prior releases.
When set to Increment Based Requested Date, GOP searches for supply on an internal
Requested Date determined by incrementing the previous Requested Date by a number
of working days specified in the new profile MSC: Request Date Increment in Forward
Scheduling (In Days). Another new profile MSC: Maximum Increments in Enhanced
Forward ATP specifies the maximum number of increments that can be made to the
internal Requested Date. If sufficient supply is not found after the maximum number of
increments, GOP will schedule the order on the Infinite Time Fence.
In this new search mode, GOP will have greater visibility to short-term supplies that are
being phased out through an ECO, resulting in better forward scheduling results.
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3.14. Oracle In-Memory Performance Driven Planning

3.14.1.
Product Overview
Oracle In-Memory Performance Driven Planning dramatically improves the performance
characteristics and scale out of all Value Chain Planning products, including Advanced
Supply Chain Planning, Inventory Optimization, Service Parts Planning, Distribution
Planning, Global Order Promising, Rapid Planning, Demantra Demand Management,
Demantra Real Time Sales & Operations Planning and Advanced Planning Command
Center.
Apart from the above, IM-PDP also enables the following features in the Value Chain
Planning products when deployed on Oracle Exadata hardware:
Full support for Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)
Parallel execution of queries and DML
New visualization capabilities in Advanced Planning Command Center
These features will be supported only with Oracle In-memory Performance Driven
Planning deployed on an Oracle Exadata engineered system.
Oracle In-Memory Performance Driven Planning was first introduced in the VCP
12.1.3.9 release, and has been forward ported to VCP 12.2.4.
3.14.2.
Release 12.2.4
3.14.2.1. Dramatic Improvement in Performance
By leveraging the following unique capabilities within the Oracle Exadata engineered
system, Oracle In-Memory Performance Driven Planning dramatically improves the
performance of the Value Chain Planning suite of products.
Smart Scan Technology
Smart Flash Cache
Hybrid Columnar Compression
High-bandwidth, low latency 40 GB/Second Infiniband network
For more details of the Exadata engineered system configuration please refer to the Exa
system documentation. The high-level solution architecture of the system is shown
below:
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Solution Architecture Diagram
3.14.2.2. Complete Support for Oracle Real Application Clusters

In previous releases, VCP products had limited support for Real Application Clusters
(i.e., single-node mode only.) With this release, when any of the VCP products are
deployed along with IM-PDP on Oracle Exadata, they will fully support the multi-node
architecture of Oracle RAC, and users will be able to leverage the maximum
performance benefits of RAC.
Note: The single-node deployment limitation will remain in place for standard VCP
deployments without In-Memory Performance Driven Planning.
3.14.2.3. Performance Improvement Through Parallel Architecture
Oracle Exa engineered systems have dramatically large amounts of memory capacity (in
the terabyte range.) This, together with Oracles compression technologies and the
capability of Oracle Database 11g Release 2 to leverage the aggregated database buffer
cache of a Real Application Clusters (RAC) environment, now enables caching of
objects in the terabyte range.
In-Memory Parallel Execution (In-Memory PX), introduced in Oracle Database 11g
Release 2, takes advantage of this large aggregated database buffer cache. Oracle InMemory Performance Driven Planning enables Parallel Execution of SQL queries and
DML in three key areas where there are requirements for large batch processing:
Collections
Snapshot
Plan Archival of Advanced Planning Command Center
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The VCP data tables will have parallelism enabled and the degree of parallelism will
have a default standard (Auto Degree of Parallelism.) This can be further customized and
fine tuned by customers.
3.14.2.4. New Visualizations in Advanced Planning Command Center
You will now be able to use advanced visualization capabilities such as trellis charts.
The following three new seeded reports will be available out of the box in the Supply
Chain Analyst Dashboard.
Demand and Supply Analysis by Category
This is a new trellis chart report in the Demand and Supply tab of the Supply Chain
Analyst dashboard. The chart shows a dual-axis Bar and Line graph of the following
facts:
Total Demand
Projected Available Balance Units
The dimensions that will be enabled are
Plan (Base Plan and Compare Plans selected in the page prompts)
Categories (filtered based on page prompts)
This report allows you to easily detect product categories with unusual fluctuations in
demand or projected available balance.
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Safety Stock, Projected Available Balance by Item

This is a new trellis chart report in the Demand and Supply tab of the Supply Chain
Analyst dashboard. It shows in a single-axis Line graph the following facts:
Safety Stock
Projected Available Balance Units
Plan (Base Plan and the comparison plans selected in the page prompts)
Categories
Org
Item
This report allows you to easily see where safety stock violations are occurring within
your supply chain. There are no drilldowns enabled for this report.
Exception Summary by Category
This is a new trellis chart report in the Exceptions tab of the Supply Chain Analyst
dashboard. It shows in tabular or graphical form the following facts:
Exception count
Exception value
Plan (Base Plan and comparison plans selected in page prompts)
Category
Exception Type
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This report allows you to see the distribution of exception events across product
categories and time. There are no drilldowns enabled for this report.
3.14.3.
Release 12.2.5
3.14.3.1. Removal of Dependency on Oracle Engineered Systems
In-Memory Performance Driven Planning can now be run on hardware platforms other
than Oracle Engineered Systems, when deployed on top of Oracle Database In-Memory.
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Release 12.2.5.1 of In-Memory Performance Driven Planning is certified with OBIEE
11.1.1.7 and OBIEE 11.1.1.9.
3.14.4.
Release 12.2.6
3.14.4.1. Retirement of Oracle In-Memory Performance Driven Planning
As of Release 12.2.6, Oracle In-Memory Performance Driven Planning (IMPDP) has
been retired.
Capabilities previously restricted to IMPDP have been enabled in base products such as
Demand Management and Advanced Supply Chain Planning. In particular, Value Chain
Planning Collections now uses Advanced Queues instead of Oracle DBMS Pipes by
default so as to support multi-node RAC configurations out of the box. This is governed
by the new profile option MSC: Use Advanced Queues for Planning, with a default
value of Yes. You may still configure Collections to use DBMS Pipes instead of
Advanced Queues by setting MSC: Use Advanced Queues for Planning to No.
3.15. Oracle Inventory Optimization

3.15.1.
Release 12.1.1
3.15.1.1. Support for Intermittent Demands
Inventory Optimization now explicitly supports forecasts that represent intermittent
demands. Forecasts that are fed into IO from Service Parts Planning that have been
generated using a statistical method designated as being for intermittent demands, or
forecasts that are designated via plan options to be of the intermittent demand variety,
will now be assumed by IO to have a more appropriate Poisson error distribution about
the forecasted mean. In addition, IO intelligently distributes small calculated total safety
stock targets across multiple echelons of a supply chain so that the location-specific
targets are integer numbers.
3.15.2.
Release 12.1.3
3.15.2.1. Enhanced Budget Constraints
Prior to this release, IO did not have the ability to ensure integer valued safety stock
solutions within input budget constraints. A new heuristic ensures integer valued safety
stocks while respecting input budget constraints. This new heuristic is enabled by setting
the profile option MSR: Budget Heuristic to Yes (the default value is No).
A few points about the new heuristic:
It is applicable only for a single level supply chain
It is applicable only for plan level and organization level budgets
It is applicable for both intermittent and non-intermittent demand streams
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3.15.3.
Release 12.1.3+
3.15.3.1. Asset Intensive Planning Enhancements
Inventory Optimization has been enhanced to consider Repair Bills of Material and
Repair Routings in order to calculate dependent demand / demand variability for
components used as inputs into the repair process. In addition, repair lead time and repair
lead time variability are considered in calculating safety stock for rebuildable items.
Inventory optimization will not calculate safety stock for defective items. IO considers
Repair At sourcing rules to determine which items are rebuildable. Safety stocks
calculated by IO can be input to an ASCP plan to be used in the tactical planning
process.
3.15.3.2. Warehouse Capacity Constraints
Inventory Optimization can now determine safety stock levels while taking warehouse
capacity constraints into account. These constraints are considered as hard constraints in
enforce budget or enforce capacity constraints plans; they are considered as soft
constraints in enforce service level plans.
IO supports warehouse capacity at either the organization level or at the more granular
storage type level within each warehouse. Storage types are user-defined. Typical
values might be frozen, refrigerated, and dry goods. IO considers all categories
belonging to a user-chosen category set in a new Storage Capacity setup window to be
valid storage types. To set the warehouse capacity granularity you can use a new profile
option called MSR: Warehouse Capacity Granularity. The list of values for this profile
option includes:
Organization Level This allows you to constrain your plan by the total
warehouse capacity of each warehouse. This is the default value.
Category Organization Level This allows you to constrain your plan by the
storage capacities of different storage types within each warehouse.
3.15.3.3. Accounting for Cycle Stock in Safety Stock Calculations

Cycle stock can play a role for hedging supply chain uncertainties. Therefore, safety
stock targets can be lowered when cycle stock is present.
With this enhancement you can instruct Inventory Optimization to adjust safety stock
quantities downward based on the levels of anticipated cycle stock in each echelon of the
supply chain. These adjustments are such that the desired target service levels are
achieved.
You can enable this functionality via the following profile option:
MSR: Include Cycle Inventory in Safety Stock Calculation
Its list of values is:
No This is the default value.
Yes
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3.15.3.4. Publishing Warehouse Capacity and Cycle Stock Facts to APCC

The Archive Plan Summary concurrent program for Inventory Optimization has been
enhanced by supporting the publishing of the following additional facts related to
warehouse capacity and cycle stock from IO into APCC:
Available Capacity
Required Capacity
Average Cycle Stock
Average Cycle Stock - Volume
Inventory Quantity Increment
Inventory Quantity Increment - Volume
Average Daily Demand
Average Daily Demand - Volume
Projected Available Balance - Volume
Safety Stock - Volume
These facts are published along the following dimensions:
Organization
Category
Item
Time
Plan
3.15.3.5. Warehouse Capacity and Cycle Stock Reports

The Supply Chain Analyst Dashboard of APCC has new seeded reports related to
warehouse capacity and cycle stock.
1. Warehouse Capacity Report Capacity at Storage Type Level
2. Warehouse Capacity Report Item Level / Capacity at Storage Type Level
3. Cycle Stock Report
4. Warehouse Capacity Report Capacity at Organization Level
5. Warehouse Capacity Report Item Level / Capacity at Organization Level
Only the Warehouse Capacity Report Capacity at Storage Type Level report is
displayed by default, in the Inventory Planning tab.
3.15.4.
Release 12.2.4
3.15.4.1. Accounting for Supply Variability in Warehouse Capacity Constraints
Before this enhancement, the supply variability safety stock was added to a destination
organization after the safety stock postponement process which considered the
warehouse capacity constraints. As a result the warehouse capacity constraints could
have been violated due to the additional safety stock requirements to hedge against the
supply lead time variability.
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With this enhancement, IO considers the warehouse capacities in conjunction with the
safety stock generated based on the supply lead time variability in addition to the safety
stock needed for demand variability when determines the final inventory location for the
safety stock of an item. In other words the safety stock generated based on supply lead
time variability is accounted for when IO enforces warehouse capacity constraints.
3.15.5.
Release 12.2.5
3.15.5.1. Receive Intermittency Flag from DM
IO considers the demand pattern (regular or intermittent) in its safety stock calculation.
Currently, you can specify an items demand pattern as intermittent using an attribute
called Intermittent Demand in the Item Attributes Mass Maintenance (IMM) window.
For items for which this attribute is not specified, IO analyzes and determines their
demand patterns as part of the safety stock calculation.
In this release, IO receives the value of the Intermittent Demand attribute (Intermittency
Flag) from Demantra. This value is used in the safety stock calculation if there is no
user-specified value in the IMM.
In addition, the following item attributes related to an items demand pattern are now
displayed in the Items window in the PWB:
Intermittent Demand
Mean Interarrival Time
Demand Variance
Note The Intermittent Demand column is displayed as blank if the demand schedule
and Intermittent Demand are at the Item/Zone level.
The Inventory Optimization ADF user interfaces (such as Plan Options, Service Levels,
Storage Capacities, Budgets) have been converted to a modern, simplified Alta look and
feel.
3.15.6.
Release 12.2.6
3.15.6.1. Policy Planning support
Inventory Optimization (IO) has been enhanced to support the specification and
calculation of policy parameters for Policy based planning in Oracle Service Parts
Planning (SPP). This functionality includes:
Ability to specify Policy Parameters through the Policy Parameters Set
Changes to Plan Options to enable Policy Planning related calculations
Calculation of Policy parameters for an Item-Organization based on policy

specifications
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A new ADF based Material Plan screen to view calculated policy

parameters
Changes to the Service Levels and Fulfillment Lead Time UI to enable the
specification of two tiered service levels and fulfillment lead times
Calculating safety stock by considering two tiered service levels and

fulfillment lead times
Calculation of safety stock using a loss function based approach
Details of the above are discussed below.

3.15.6.2. Policy Parameter specifications through the Policy Parameter Set
A new link called Manage Policy Parameter Sets under the Inventory Planner
responsibility has been introduced. This links to a new screen called Manage Policy
Parameter Sets where a user can Create, Edit or Delete Policy Parameter Sets.
A Policy Parameter Set is used to setup Policy Parameters by Category-Org. Key
attributes of the Policy Parameter Set are:
Name and Description
Category Set: The Category Set selected here determines the Categories for
which you can specify Policy Parameters. Once the Category Set has been
selected, you can select either all Categories in the category set through the
Include All Categories check box, or select only specific categories.
For each Category, you can specify either Policy Parameters across all Orgs, or
only for a specific Org. For every Category-Org, an attribute called Time
Phased Setup determines whether the Category Org is associated with time
varying attributes (or not). The Include in Calculation attribute determines
whether you want Policy Parameters for the items within the Category-Org to be
recalculated. Having specified these high level criteria, you can then enter
detailed Policy Parameters for each Category-Organization
The following Policy Parameters can be specified for each CategoryOrganization:

o
Policy Type: This can be set to one of:
Min-Max
ROP-EOQ (Reorder Point Economic Order Quantity)
ROP-OQ (Reorder Point Order Quantity)
FOC-Max (Fixed Order Cycle Max)
Policy UOM: This can be set to either Units or Days
Target Service Level %: This specifies the target service level for the
Category
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Annual Order Count: This is relevant editable only for ROP-OQ. This
is a specification that is used to derive the Order Quantity by dividing
the total demand over the last year by this number
Order Cycle Calendar: This is only relevant for the FOC-Max Policy:
you can define the Calendar which determines when orders can be
placed
Fixed Order Quantity: Either used as EOQ for the Items where EOQ
cannot be calculated, or as the Order Quantity for the ROP-OP policy if
specified. Is editable only for ROP-EOQ and ROP-OQ type of policies
Min Override: This field is used to manually specify the Min if

specified, this overrides any item level calculations that IO may calculate
Max Override: This field is used to manually specify the Max if

specified, this overrides any item level calculations that IO may calculate
Forecast Error Distribution: Valid values include Normal, Poisson,

Negative Binomial and Item Level specification. If this is set to Item
Level Specification, IO will look at the Intermittent Demand itemattribute in the IMM (as referenced in the IO Plan Option). If this is set
to No, IO will assume a Normal distribution; and if is set to Yes, it will
look at the profile MSR: Variance to Mean Threshold for Use of
Negative Binomial Distribution and based on that, assume either a
Poisson or Negative Binomial distribution
Time Varying Policy Parameters: If the Time Phased Setup is enabled

for a Category, time varying policy values can be setup for the Min, Max
and Target Service Levels
3.15.6.3. Plan Option Changes

At the header level of the IO Plan Options, a new parameter called Planning Method
has been introduced, with allowable values of Regular Planning (default) and Policy
Planning.
A new field at the header of the Plan Options screen called Policy Parameters Set
Name has been added this is used to specify the Policy Parameters Set which contains
the Policy parameters defined at a Category level, and is a mandatory field. The field
Planned Items is disabled when the planning method is set to Policy Planning
items to be planned when the planning method is set to Policy Planning are derived
from the categories associated with the Policy Parameter set.
At the header level, other existing fields like Service Level Set Name, Assignment
Set Name and Item Simulation Set Name are relevant for Policy Planning also, and
must be specified as usual.
Within the Main region of the Plan Options screen, only the Plan Start Date and
Plan End Date are editable the Planning Method is set to Policy Planning.
Within the Organization region of the Plan Options screen, the Global Demand
Schedules attribute is disabled when the Planning Method is set to Policy Planning.
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The entire Constraints region in the Plan Options screen is disabled when the Planning
Method is set to Policy Planning.
3.15.6.4. New profile to determine Loss Function based safety stock calculation
A new site level profile called MSC: Enable Loss Function Based Safety Stock
Calculation has been introduced to determine whether the safety stock calculation in IO
uses a loss function based approach or a regular approach. The default value of this
profile is No the profile is relevant only for Policy Planning.
In a loss function based safety stock calculation, the probability of not meeting demand
of a certain quantity at a stocking level is weighed by the quantity by which the demand
exceeds the stocking level. This can lead to different safety stock quantities when
compared with the traditional mechanism of safety stock calculation.
3.15.6.5. Two tiered Service Level specification
The Service Levels and Fulfillment Lead Times form has been enhanced the Service
Level % and Fulfillment Lead Time fields have been replaced with Service Level 1 %,
Fulfillment Lead Time 1, Service Level 2 % and Fulfillment Lead Time 2.
You can thus specify two tiers of service levels and fulfillment lead times. With two
tiered service levels, IO will do a first run considering the first tier service level and lead
time, and calculate the stock required to meet this service level.
IO will then do a second pass, considering the second tier service level, but while doing
so, ensure that the safety stock quantity as calculated in the first run is maintained. This
is useful in scenarios where you want to maintain a certain minimum level of stock at the
most downstream locations closest to the customer (low service level, with 0 fulfillment
lead time) and position more safety stock (corresponding to higher service levels) at
higher echelons.
3.15.6.6. New fields in IMM to specify Policy Parameters
Policy Parameters can be specified through the Policy Parameters Set only at a Category
level. However, there may also be a need to specify different policy parameters at an
Item-Org level. The Item Attribute Mass Maintenance (IMM) has been enhanced with
additional attributes to support this. The new fields in the IMM are as below:
Inventory Policy - Allowable values are Min-Max, ROP-EOQ, ROP-OQ,

FOC-Max
Inventory Policy UOM Allowable values are Units or Days
Min (Units) User specified value
Max (Units) User specified value
Min (Days) User specified value
Max (Days) User specified value
Annual Order Count used for OQ calculations
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Order Cycle Calendar used to specify days on which replenishment orders can
be created
Average Daily Demand used to convert policies specified in days to units
Fixed Cost per Order used for EOQ calculations
Annual Carrying Cost per Unit used for EOQ calculations
In addition to the above, the existing Target Service Level % parameter will also be
considered by IO during policy calculation.
The above parameters have also been added as supported attributes for bulk uploading
data into the IMM through the already existing upload mechanism.
3.15.6.7. Calculation of Policy Parameters
For every Item-Org, IO calculates or reads specified values for the following attributes:
Safety Stock: Calculation of safety stock is identical to earlier releases, except

when safety stock needs to be consider two tiered service levels or is calculated
using the loss function based approach
Average Daily Demand: The Average Daily Demand is calculated by dividing

the forecast in the plan horizon by the number of working days at the Org
Order Quantity or Economic Order Quantity: this can either be a specified Order
Quantity in the Policy Parameter Set, or this may need to be calculated based on
the Annual Order Count or based on ordering cost and carrying cost (for EOQ)
as below
Order Quantity (OQ)

The Order Quantity can be specified in the Policy Parameter Set at the Category Level,
or in the IMM at the Item level, or can be derived from the forecast of the item and the
Annual Order Count if the Annual Order Count is specified in the Policy Parameter Set.
Economic Order Quantity (EOQ)
The EOQ calculation requires the fixed cost per order and the annual carrying cost per
unit of an item to be specified in the IMM. These are then used to calculate the EOQ as:
Where,
Q *= Economic Order Quantity
D = Annual Demand Quantity of the product
C = fixed cost per order (not per unit, in addition to unit cost)
H = annual carrying cost per unit
The Annual Demand Quantity can be derived from the IMM attribute Annual Sales
Quantity which is populated when the concurrent request Calculate Annual Demand
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is launched. The Fixed Cost per Unit and Annual Carrying Cost per Unit are new item
attributes in the IMM
Based on the values of the Safety Stock, Order Quantity and average daily demand,
policy parameters for each policy type are calculated as below:
Policy Type: Min-Max (Units)

Min (Units) = Safety Stock (units) + Average Daily Demand * Lead Time
Max (Units) = Min + Order Quantity
Policy Type: Min-Max (Days)
Safety Stock (Days) = Safety Stock (Days) as calculated in IO or Safety Stock (Qty) /
Order Quantity (Days) = Order Quantity (Qty) / Average Daily Demand
Min (Days) = Safety Stock (Days) + Lead Time
Max (Days) = Min (Days) + Order Quantity (Days)
Policy Types: ROP-OQ and ROP-EOQ (Units)
Min (Units) = Safety Stock (Units) + Average Daily Demand * Lead Time (Note that the
Reorder Point or ROP is equivalent to Min)
Policy Types: ROP-OQ and ROP-EOQ (Days)
The Reorder Point or ROP calculation is identical to the calculation of the Min in the
Min-Max (Days) calculation. The OQ or EOQ is always calculated as a quantity (as
described above)
Policy Type: FOC-Max (Units)
First, the Min is calculated as: Min (Units) = Safety Stock (units) + Average Daily
Demand * Lead Time
Then the Max is calculated as: Max (Units) = Min + Order Quantity
Policy Type: FOC-Max (Days)
Min (Days) = Safety Stock (Days) + Lead Time
Max (Days) = Min (Days) + Order Quantity (Days)
3.15.6.8. New Material Plan to view Policy Parameters
A new Material Plan has been introduced to view the results of the Policy Planning
calculation. This is accessed through a new link in the Inventory Planner navigator called
Material Plan ADF. Once a Policy Planning IO Plan is specified, the Material Plan is
displayed. Key regions of the Material Plan are:
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Search Region: The Material Plan has a search area with ability to search by
Organization, Category, Item and specific Measures
Search Results Region: This shows the Policy Parameters for an Item-Org, by week. The
following new measures are displayed in the new Material Plan:
Policy Type
Policy UOM
Order Quantity
Min (Units)
Max (Units)
Min (Days)
Max (Days)
3.15.6.9. Additional links from Inventory Planner responsibility

The following additional links have been added to the Inventory Planner responsibility:
Edit Plan Inputs (ADF): This is a link to the Item Attribute Mass Maintenance
(IMM) ADF screen
Create Plan (ADF) : This is a link to create a new IO Plan through the ADF
screen
Launch Plan (ADF): This is a link to launch Plan through an ADF screen
3.15.6.10. Additional group for viewing Policy Parameters in the IMM

When navigating to the IMM through the Edit Plan Inputs link, an additional
parameter group called Update Policy Setup Parameters has been added to enable easy
access to just the parameters associated with Policy Planning so that they can be easily
updated.
3.16. Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling

3.16.1.
Release 12.2.5
3.16.1.1. Retirement of Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling
Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling has been retired. Starting with Release 12.2.5, Oracle
Manufacturing Scheduling will no longer be available. Existing deployments of Oracle
Manufacturing Scheduling will continue to be supported in accordance with the Oracle
Lifetime Support Policy for E-Business Suite.
Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling
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3.17. Oracle Production Scheduling

3.17.1.
Release 12.1.1
3.17.1.1. Units of Measure on Items
A Unit of Measure has been added
as an explicit attribute of every item.
This enhancement provides improved
visualization throughout the model
and schedule views.
o
A global Unit of Measure

tab has been added to the
scenario properties where
users can visualize / define
units of measure.
Integration processes
automatically populate this
list when PS is run in an
integrated manner
3.17.1.2. Enhanced Alerts

In PS, Alerts have been broken down into four distinct categories (Work Order, Demand,
Inventory and Resource) and various types within each.
These alert categories and types are added to the Model Workspace in the form of a tree
control for easier navigation and summary data visualization
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The alert view is now tab based and summarized by category / type and is context
sensitive to selection within the Model Workspace for easier navigation
3.17.1.3. Work Order Centric KPI Comparisons

The KPI comparison view can now be viewed as either Demand centric or Work Order
Centric. Via a new dropdown option, you can now understand the impact on the work
order schedule when comparing scenarios.
120
3.17.1.4. Access Operation and Routings from Operation Instances

This usability enhancement allows the user to perform a right click on a given operation
in any of the schedule Gantt charts and easily drill down to the operation and/or routing
diagrams. This avoids the user having to navigate back through to the model workspace
or the where used properties of a resource to in order to be open an operation.
3.17.1.5. Auto-create Work Orders Directly from Demands

For schedule prototyping purposes, scenario simulation purposes and/or product
demonstrations, users sometimes create Work Orders directly in the PS in Work Order
Editor using standard functionality (i.e. Right click | Add Production Work Order). Once
the work order is created, users usually peg these back to a given sales order.
121
This works well, but if there are many sales orders and the user wishes to create a work
order for each demand / line item combination this could potentially take quite a bit of
time.
A new feature has been added to PS that allows users to automatically create Work
Orders for a given sales order without even navigating to the Work Order Editor.
A simple right click on a demand or a folder or a subset / mixture of folders and demands
(via multi-select) allows users to automatically create a work order per demand.
3.17.1.6. Find Functionality for Model Objects
Find functionality is now available in PS using CTRL-F via the PS toolbar by selecting
Edit | Find. This will launch a Find dialog box which provides text based searching in
the PS model and the ability to drill down to the found objects. You can limit the
search to the following (by chosen scenario):
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
All (will search all model objects listed below and their description fields as well)
Supplies and Demands only
Work Orders only
All Resources
Crews only
Machines only
Tools only
Items only
Operations only
Routings only
Selecting and double

clicking the result (or
selecting the Open
button) will drill down
to the selected object.
For example, double
clicking the operation
code will open the
operation diagram
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3.17.1.7. Visibility to Demand Fulfilled via Starting Inventory

In previous versions of PS, if an order was fulfilled from both production and either
starting inventory or a supply event, the starting inventory was not simultaneously
displayed in the Production Pegging view (only the Production). This release addresses
this by explicitly detailing each of the pegging relationships.
This applies to materials, WIP and finished goods. The demand for Item A shows a
green diamond at the start of horizon indicating some of the order is taken from
inventory. The production below it indicates the remaining quantity is from
manufacturing activities. Material 1 is consumed in operation A and pegged to both an
on-hand quantity and a purchase recommendation.
Material 2 is pegged to starting inventory and an incoming purchase order, each

represented with a diamond representing incoming supply
3.17.1.8. Automatic Reconciliation of Schedule Backlog
It is common to see shop floor backlog in the schedule views to notify the scheduler that
the shop floor is behind and action should be taken to reconcile the situation. There are
a variety of different scenarios which cause backlog in the schedule for example:
o
o
o
Work order operations having a Firm Start Date, Firm End Date, or Firm Date
Range in the past,
>1 work order operations having an Active Status on the work order routing
operation step which conflicts with another work order
>1 work order operations with a firm status with overlapping date ranges
For example, in the screen capture below, the area shaded in yellow indicates a point in
time that occurs prior to the horizon start.
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While this provides excellent feedback to users, it also introduces another issue the
operations cannot actually be run in the past. Prior to this release of PS, reconciling the
schedule was primarily performed by using Cut | Paste in the Resource Gantt.
While this method worked well, it could potentially be somewhat cumbersome to do
when there are many operations running behind and/or many resources in the model.
This release of PS provides the user with a right click menu item Enforce Horizon
Start on resources. Enabling this flag (or setting it in the data model) and performing a
repair solve will push forward all operations on that resource to the start of the horizon
while maintaining operation sequence and at the same time respecting upstream /
downstream precedence constraints. Enabling this flag (or setting it in the data model)
and performing a coldsolve will accomplish the same thing without user intervention (i.e.
Auto-reconciliation).
For example, in the diagram below, the operations running on Die Bonder 2 are running
behind. The user selects Die Bonder 2, performs a right click, selects Enforce Horizon
Start and performs a
repair solve (or cold
solve). (Users are also
able to multi-select and
enable this flag for all
highlighted resources).
The operations on the
applicable resource are
pushed forward,
maintaining the original
sequence. This can also
be persisted in the data
model for a given
resource as well.
Operations running in the past will be pushed to start at the beginning of the horizon.
The sequence of operations on the resource will not be changed. In many cases, the
operations running behind will be one of several operations that are contained within a
routing. Since routings have precedence constraints between operations, moving
operations from the past to horizon start may have consequences on other operations in
the routing. Any upstream or downstream pegged operations of this operation will be
pushed forward (if precedence constraints dictate).
3.17.1.9. Batchable Resources
A Batchable resource can be described as a machine / oven / kiln (or similar) that can
process one or more items simultaneously, but
only if they share 1 or more similar Attributes
(such as Temperature, Color, Duration etc) and
Attribute Value such as 1 Hour @ 400 Degrees
Typically, these resources have several spots or
something equivalent in them. Items when
processes within these resources consume 1 or
more of these spots.
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This enhancement to PS enables the following behavior:

o
o
o
o
o
o
Allows users to explicitly define a given resource as Batchable along with a

minimum and maximum spot capacity
Define a pull forward window to allow a resource to be filled to its minimum
spot capacity
Allow users to explicitly associate 1 or more user defined attributes and attribute
values to an item. T
Automatic grouping of operations on a batchable resource by attribute
If this is 1 attribute (such as temperature), all operations will be grouped together
of the same temperature up to the max capacity of the resource.
If the user groups by more than 1 attribute (for example temperature and
duration), this implies that all operations sharing the same duration and
temperature will be run together to the max capacity of the resource.
Manually move operations between batches if desired or manually move an
entire batch. For example, if a sequence on a resource is scheduled to be 10
Hours at 500 Degrees followed by 12 Hours at 400 Degrees, the user can switch
the order (via cut/paste, drag/drop, resequence in the resource Gantt).
For example, the Resource Gantt below illustrates several ovens (CC4101 -> CC4105).
Each of these ovens constrain a variety of operations which are running at the same time
and grouped by temperature and duration. The summary color at the oven level indicates
spot utilization. Bubble help indicates the attributes of the batch and one can utilize an
option in the Toolbar which allows you to highlight only certain batches if you wish (in
orange).
Batches are of course applicable to regular manual scheduling activities. You can cut,
paste entire batches between ovens, move operations from batch to another, resequence
batches and even manually move operations into another batch which does not share the
same attributes (you will be provided with a warning).
3.17.1.10. Consistent Resource Assignment within a Portion of a Routing
Alternate resources in a given manufacturing operation are very common amongst most
Production Scheduling customer models. These alternate resources are modeled via the
use of resource sets. In many cases, this resource set recurs in an upstream or
downstream operation(s). In many cases, it is imperative that once a resource is chosen in
125
an upstream operation, it must also be chosen in a downstream operation. This works

well in PS and previously was a routing wide configurable option known as Consistent
Resource Assignment. Users expressed the desire to be able to perform consistent
resource assignment within only a selected group of operations within this routing - for
example, operation steps 10, 20 and 30 must run on the same resource but steps 40,50
and 60 even though share a common resource with their preceding operations can run on
the alternate. This enhancement in PS allows users to be able to configure PS to do just
this.
Consider the following manufacturing routing. To make item A, it must through a
setup, run and cleanup operation where it is then cooled. The item passes through a
recursive process - Setup(2), Run(2), and Cleanup(2). With the exception of the Cooling
operation, all operations run on either M1 or M2, as illustrated for the first Run
operation.
When the first setup operation occurs on either M1 or M2, resource assignment must
be the same for the following 2 operation steps.
If M1 is chosen in the setup operation, it must also be chosen in the run and cleanup.
(You dont want to cleanup a machine that you didnt run on).
The cooling process occurs in a staging area. However, after the cooling operation
takes place, the same logic occurs for the next recurrence of the setup, run and
cleanup operations, but a different alternate can be chosen.
The first three steps must run on the same machine and the last three steps must also
run on the same machine.
The user opens up the properties of the routing and creates 2 distinct groups and assigns
the first 3 operations to the first group and the last 3 operations to the second group as
illustrated.
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The user performs a solve. The first three operations are run on M1. After the cooling
operation, the remaining three operations are run on M2. This could of course all be on
M1 or all of M2 or in reverse order. The point is the operations in the groups share the
same resource.
If operations are not assigned to groups, they are permitted to be run on any
given resource.
If the user is using All of Sets (i.e. >1 Resource such as a Machine1 and Tool1
OR a Machine2 and Tool2), consistent resource assignment applies to the group;
i.e. the group must be the same.
When migrating a model from previous versions, the import will detect if a
routing has consistent resource assignment selected and auto-create a group and
assign all operations to it.
3.17.1.11. Resource-specific Cycle Times for Campaign Run Optimization

PS provides the ability to define:
o
Minimum cycle times in various bucket sizes. In a previous release of

PS, cycle size was either a Shift, Day or a Week. Cycle sizes are now
flexible. For example, a cycle can be 2 weeks, 4 days etc.
127
If the resource specific cycle size checkbox is selected, planners can enable this flag
by CRO resource. Therefore, different lines in the plant can be on their own cycle
times rather than having to adhere to global cycle.
3.17.1.12. Minimize Work Order Schedule Infeasibilities

As Production Scheduling is a finite capacity scheduling application, some situations can
occur which would result in an infeasible production schedule. These situations are
always being monitored and resolved through improved data validation, alerting and
solver handling of problematic inputs, and has drastically improved throughout the past
several releases. This release continues to improve on this theme. For example, it is
quite common and sometimes unavoidable to have:
o
o
>1 work order operation firmed on a same single capacity resource with
overlapping date / times.
A firm date range on a work order operation which is shorter than total
operation run / elapsed time
In prior versions of PS:

o
o
o
If the dates fell within the fixed time fence, PS would reconcile the
infeasibility and alert the planner that shop floor backlog exists
If these work order operations were outside of the fixed time fence this
resulted in an infeasible schedule.
In this release there is an added capability for the solver to resolve
conflicts of this type outside of the fixed time fence if necessary to avoid
this situation.
For example, take the following 2 work orders which are both firmed at the same time
outside of the FTF:
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Solved in a previous version the schedule was infeasible and the planner was provided
with an error message indicative of such.
In this release, the schedule is feasible. The highest priority work order is moved to start
earlier in the horizon.
Supporting alerts are also provided to the user to indicate the firm date violation.
3.17.1.13. Disable Units of Effort for Setup and Cleanup Operations
PS has a differentiating feature introduced several releases ago which provides the ability
to schedule Work Orders according to their individual unit of effort.
This feature cross references the routing template to break down work order operations
into the lot multiples specified on the routing. The feature can be enabled as either a
global option applying to all routings, or the user can specify the feature for specific
routings. For example, if this feature is leveraged, a work order is scheduled to release
inventory according to every lot multiple. In the example below, inventory is moved
between operations in 25 unit increments the work order has only 3 operations listed
on it, but PS will break it down according to the routing lot multiple.
Inventory Production and Consumption is accurate

Makespan is accurate
Resource usage is accurate
In some cases, it is quite possible that the first operation may be a setup operation and
the last operation may be a cleanup operation.
129
In this case, the setup & cleanup operations only need to be executed once as opposed to
three times. This release of PS has the ability to specify an operation of type Setup,
Production or Cleanup.
Setup and Cleanup operations will not be broken down to their units of effort.
3.17.1.14. Resource All of Sets

PS provides excellent resource offloading functionality within an operation (e.g.
Machine 1 can be substituted for Machine 2, Crew 1 for Crew 2, etc.) via the use of
Resource Sets. This type of set can be referred to as a one of type of set, meaning
one of the resources within the set must be used. This release adds a new set type on
operations that support resource replacement groups within PS (an All of type of
set).
This means that resource exclusivity relationships can now be defined directly within a
given operation as opposed to having to use Operation Sets.
For example, Operator 1 can only run Line 1 and Line 3. Operator 2 can only run Line 3
and Line 2. The new operation structure within PS is depicted below.
130
The work order editor has a new column to indicate the name of the all of set. This is
where manual overrides can be made to which set is attached to the work order. If an
alternate set has a different number of resources, rows will be added / subtracted as
appropriate.
Paste targets in the Gantt charts are consistent with previous versions of PS. Offloading
to an alternate set will show the target in orange. Pasting to a different time on the same
set will be highlighted in light blue.
A 1 of resource set can contain a mixture of All of sets, plus single resources.
131
The All of Sets are shown in the Production Pegging View. The operations on the
solver selected All of Set is summarized on the set name, so the user will have
visibility into which All of set has been chosen without expanding all of the sets.
From an offloading perspective, the overall approach is virtually the same as previous
versions of PS, but the offloading calculation must be applied to all members of the set.
If any one of the resources within an All of set have their threshold violated, all
resources will be offloaded. If any one of the resources in the target All of set have
their offload thresholds violated prior to the offloading taking place, the operation will
not be offloaded to that set. At this point, an additional alternate will be evaluated - if
no alternates have available capacity, no offloading should take place. If the primary is
significantly overloaded, offloading will still occur to less loaded (but still overloaded)
alternates. This effectively spreads the load and will help get orders met as quickly as
possible.
The PS Consistent Resource Assignment feature is also impacted by this enhancement.
Prior to this release, Consistent Resource Assignment across routing steps was based on
a single resource. If Line 1 was chosen in Step 1 of a routing, it must also be chosen
in a subsequent step. In this release, Consistent Resource Assignment applies to
members of the all of set.
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3.17.1.15. Hard Links between Work Orders

This enhancement allows a many to many relationship amongst Work Orders along
with the ability for the user to specify precedence constraints between these Work
Orders. This is handy if a specific sequence is required between several work orders.
The business requirements for this enhancement are best explained with a simple
example. Assume the following manufacturing process.
To make Item A, the following routing steps take place. The lot multiple across the
manufacturing routing is 25 units. Item A is produced by Operation C.
Operation A consumes an inventory Material A.
Material A is a subassembly also manufactured in the plant as per the following process.
The lot multiple across this routing is also 25 units. The material is produced by
Operation C1.
Assume the user creates a work order for the finished good and the material (50 units
each).
These Work Orders are related through inventory, so will generally schedule JIT and
have some degree of overlap as illustrated below.
133
If the user wishes to explicitly relate these Work Orders to one another (for example for
lot control, quality reasons etc), they can specify the relationship in the work order editor
in the new Related Work Orders tab. Precedence relationships (to facilitate a cooling
process, inspection etc) can also be specified, along with min / max separation
constraints.
Assume the user populates Starts After End with a minimum separation time of 5
Hours. When Units of Effort is used, the 5 hour minimum separation is applied to the
pegged work order routing instances. In this case, the Work Orders are for 50 units each
(remember, the routing has a lot multiple of 25 units), therefore there are 2 routing
instances and separation is applied twice.
The relationships between the Work Orders can be many to many.
A given work order can be linked to many next work orders

A given work order can have many previous work orders.
Manual Scheduling within PS will have all appropriate precedence relationships

respected.
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3.17.1.16. Dynamic Throughput Rates on Resources

Some customers vary their production rates fairly dynamically and frequently. For
example, the speed of a line can change daily or weekly based on available labor. The
net effect of dynamic rate changes is simple they make a given manufacturing
operation take more or less time to complete in a given time interval.
There are various reasons why the speed of a production line may change which may
include (but by no means are limited to) areas such as:
trial manufacturing
process changes
line improvements
labor constraints
new product development
temperature / humidity variations
This release of PS provides the user with the ability to specify dynamic rates on a
resource (crew, machine, tool).
For example, Packing Line #1 produces items, A, B, C and D. At normal speeds, it
produces product at a rate of 100 units per hour. In this example, Item D is produced in
runs of 1700 units per week.
Assume due to a labor constraint, the packer now runs at the following throughput rates:
80% in the 1st week

100% in the 2nd week
150% in the 3rd week
The user navigates to the Packer resource properties to the Throughput tab and defines
the appropriate dynamic percentages.
135
The speed at which the items are produced can clearly be seen in Gantt chart by the
operation length as well as by looking at the steepness of the slope of the item graph for
a given item.
If >1 resource on the operation also has a dynamic throughput range, the lowest value
for a given time interval wins. For example, if an operation requires both Packer 1
and Tool 1 and they have competing dynamic throughput rates and effective ranges.
In a resource set, resources can have different throughput rates for different date ranges.
If production is offloaded to an alternate resource with a different throughput, the
operation duration on the alternate resource will reflect the new throughput.
136
If an operation is moved to a timeslot via manual scheduling (Cut | Paste, Resequencing,

Remove Idle etc) that has a different throughput rate defined, the operation duration
should change according to the throughput in effect.
If the user offloads an operation manually to a different resource with a different rate, the
operation duration will change according to the throughput in effect.
If the user changes the rate on a resource and runs a repair solve, the repair solve will
recognize and change the duration of the operation accordingly.
3.17.1.17. PS Data Connector Port to Sun, HP and AIX
The PS SCBM / Oracle EBS data connector now runs on the following platforms:
Windows (previously supported)
Linux (previously supported)
Sun (New)
HP (New)
AIX (New)
This allows for the PS connector to be deployed on a central server apart from PS if
desired. All command syntaxes stays the same
3.17.1.18. Export Selected Model Data during Schedule Publish
As part of the File | Publish process, users now have the ability to publish the PS model
or chosen objects of the data model in XML format (i.e. changeover rules, groups, crews,
machines, tools, operations etc).
This is useful if PS is to be the system of record for any data that is not available within
the ERP system.
The next time a model is imported into PS, integration processes could be
extended to reference the various data model elements exported from the
previous scheduling session which could amend to the new model prior to import
A new tab in the Publish Profiles allows users to define which data objects to publish
Whenever the Publish Process is called (whether in batch or interactively), the chosen
data will be exported to a user named XML file.
Interactively, the published model is based off of the approved schedule

Since the schedule publish process batch file points to a named scenario, you can
export the model from any given scenario which may or may not be the approved
schedule.
Aspects of the model can be output to a user defined filename any object within the
model can be output to this specific file.
137
3.17.1.19. PS XML Model Unique Extension

The PS XML data files which can be imported and exported now have an additional
extension available. The PS XML non compressed file can be the standard .xml
extension or uniquely to PS as an .ops. The .ops file is still standard XML format, but
will launch PS directly upon being double clicked. The PS XML compressed file can be
the standard .xml.gz extension or uniquely to PS as an .opz. The .opz file is still standard
compressed XML format, but will launch PS directly upon being double clicked. The
icon for either is the PS standard icon.
3.17.1.20. Enhanced Auto-generated Routings

The list below outlines a few typical scenarios that cause Auto-Generation of
Operations and Routing templates based on work order structure within Production
Scheduling:
Work orders which were generated in a Configurator program. Essentially,
Work Orders are dynamically created and passed to PS. No corresponding
routing exists in PS.
Non-standard crews, machines or tools included on the work order bill of
resource.
Contrary to the above, sometimes the work order would be missing crews,
machines or tools on work order operations.
Non-standard items included on the work order bill of material.
Missing items on the work order bill of material
Additional operations included on the work order routing.
Missing operations on the work order routing (for example, Oracle EBS does not
pass Closed work order operations to PS).
Operation Sets specified on the work order routing
138
In a previous release of PS, a new feature was added to PS which removed the PS
dependency on having a routing template pre-created in the model for every work order
in the application. For those scenarios outlined, PS dynamically cross references the
work order routing against the routing template during the import process. If a work
order meets on of the problematic scenarios outlined earlier, one can expect to see a
newly created routing which directly corresponds to the work order in question. If
operations differ from their standard templates, a newly created operation will be present
in the routing as well.
When PS was generating this routing and operation templates, it was not reading the
precedence constraints on the work order routing between the operations, nor were the
resource sets being constructed. This release of PS has enhanced logic in the import
process which addresses these 2 issues. When generating the precedence constraints for
the auto-generated routing, the import now looks at the operation codes and cross
references the precedence constraints on the routing. If the work order has different
precedence constraints than the routing template, the precedence constraints as specified
on the work order routing will be used when the auto-generated routing is created.
Similarly for resource sets - the operation template is reference to reconstruct the
resource sets.
3.17.1.21. Selective Work Order Release to Production
After a user approves a schedule within PS, the general business process is to publish the
schedule back to ERP. The publish process within PS uses a Release timefence to
filter out work orders from the release process. If a work order starts before the end of
this timefence, it will be included in the release. If the user wishes to include / exclude
individual work orders from this process (regardless of start time), this was not possible
prior to this release. This new release provides a new mechanism for the user to be able
to individually select which work orders are released back to ERP.
For example, after analyzing the schedule, the user approves the schedule he/she is
happy with. The user then performs a right click on the scenario name and selects a new
option Edit Work Order Release.
This launches a new dialog view which lists all work orders and their various attributes.
The Publish Profile selected has a Release Horizon. Any Work Orders starting within
this release horizon will be auto-selected. The user can override this if desired.
139
3.17.2.
Release 12.1.2
3.17.2.1. Resource Business Objectives
From a resource perspective, Production Scheduling generically considers all crew,
machine, tool capacity and calendar constraints simultaneously when sequencing
operations. Focusing and resolving the most critical constraints in the scheduling
horizon has been regarded as the most effective scheduling strategy to resolve multistage floating bottleneck problems when sequencing operations. Addressing the most
critical constraints first breaks down sequencing problems into smaller sub-problems
which are generally easier to resolve.
However, it sometimes is desirable for users to be able to dictate to the Production
Scheduling solver which resources to focus on first.
Currently in Production Scheduling, users can dictate to the solver engine which
resource or group of resources should be focused on and in what order - essentially
enabling scheduling in an incremental fashion via some simple configuration in the
application. However, solver objectives cannot be set changed each stage they are set
at a global level.
The scope of this enhancement is to allow different solver objectives by solve stage. For
example, one may wish to optimize changeovers on the injection molder, then mix the
upstream materials JIT, then immediately pack the kits and assemblies from the molding
using a prebuild solve strategy. This approach optimizes the bottleneck stage while
minimizing WIP between upstream / downstream stages.
This enhancement will allow users to:
1) Set solver objectives by group of resources (i.e. a Stage)
2) Insert breakpoints where the user can review solve progress at any given stage (and
even refine the schedule as appropriate via manual scheduling and then resume the
larger solve process).
140
3) Setup Multi-stage Campaign Run Optimization (CRO) users will have the ability to
utilize the CRO algorithm in a multi-stage fashion provided the stages have
decoupling inventory and the CRO resource is not recursive.
This enhancement will have many benefits including:
Increase PS market applicability

Address business where multi-stage strategies are necessary
Minimization of Work In Progress Inventory (Directly address make | store | pack
requirements)
Reduce cost of ownership for our customers
Directly enabling user scheduling strategy this eliminating potential complex
workarounds to achieve desired results
Allow multi-stage use of the Campaign Run Optimization Algorithm which also
provides:
Multi-stage routing offloading
Improved alternate resource selection
Multi-level SDS minimization and min run length
3.17.2.2. Production Scheduling as a Web Service Call
Production Scheduling has been enhanced to be able to be called as a service - the solver
and application have been decoupled such that the import and solve process can
optionally be run on the server this includes Linux, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX
platforms. The user interface continues to run on the planners windows client (includes
support for Vista).
This enables Production Scheduling users to have their models presolved on the server
saving time and improving efficiency. It also allows for batch solving of multiple plans
(i.e. Automation of the what if process).
The server side functionality creates a deployable solved model which includes import
and solver statistics in log files which are all downloaded to the client desktop on planner
request. This enhancement also includes improved application status logging and
filtering - including access to various event statuses and solver statistics log from within
Production Scheduling for events which took place on the server.
3.17.2.3. Undo Functionality for Manual Scheduling
Manual Scheduling in Production Scheduling includes a variety of activities such as:
Cut/Paste
Resequence
141
Remove idle
Change durations of operation instances
Change start or end times of operations
Change calendar events in the Gantt charts (add / remove / change)
Change resource assignment (i.e. manually offload)
Fixing / Unfixing operations (single or multiple operations)
Change lead times for Purchase Order Recommendations.
Following each of these actions, there is a repair based solve action to institute the
change and repair any upstream / downstream ramifications this change may have
caused. However it is possible that the user may not accept the repaired schedule or
simply made a mistake when implementing this change. This enhancement to
Production Scheduling provides the ability to Undo these changes. The Undo action
reverts back to the previous solve state prior to the change. Examples include:
Action: {manual change} | UNDO
Result: Will undo the manual change
Action: {manual change} | Repair | UNDO
Result: Will undo the repair and manual change
Action: {manual change} | {manual change} | UNDO |
Result: Will undo both manual changes
Action: {manual change} | {manual change} | Repair | UNDO
Result: Will undo the repair and manual changes
Action: {manual change} | Repair | {manual change} | Repair | UNDO
Result: Will undo the 2nd repair and 2nd manual change
Action: {manual change} | Repair | {manual change} | Repair | UNDO | UNDO
Result: Will undo the both repairs and both manual changes
Undo also applies to another new feature in Production Scheduling (Resource Business
Objectives). Included in this feature is the ability to solve groups of resources in a
Stage and perform manual scheduling activities between stages (i.e. at a breakpoint) in
the solve process. Undo can be performed within this context as well. This includes
the ability to undo manual changes in the stage itself as well as to completely undo a
given stage of the solve process - upon which the solution will revert back to the
previous solved stage.
For example:
Action: {solve stage | breakpoint} | manual change | Repair | Undo
Result: Will undo the manual change
Action: {solve stage} | {solve stage | breakpoint} Undo
Result: Will undo the 2nd solve stage result will revert back to the first solve stage
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3.17.2.4. Attribute Based Sequence Dependent Setups

This enhancement to Production Scheduling is two-fold:
1) Improves the current sequence dependent setup rule representation to be Attribute
based rather than having to specify rules by operation code or group. Users will
now have the ability to specify changeover rules by attribute type / value. For
example, providing the ability to specify a Flavor Changeover (Attribute) which
includes Apple -> Blueberry (Attribute Values) etc. The Production Scheduling
integration to Oracle EBS will use Setup Type as an attribute and various values
associated with Setup Type as the appropriate Attribute Values.
2) Extend sequence dependent setups to Batchable resources, which currently do not

have these setups either represented or optimized.
Operations and Groups will have attributes assigned to them. Changeover rules specified
by attribute will automatically associated all operations sharing the same attribute.
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This enhancement to Production Scheduling also allows the user to specify if

changeovers can be concurrent or sequential if multiple attributes are specified and can
be performed at once. For example if I am performing a size changeover, can the
flavor changeover be performed at the same time or does it have to follow the size
changeover?
3.17.2.5. Visualization of Campaign Run Optimization Cycle Boundaries

This enhancement allows users to explicitly visualize manufacturing cycle boundaries
when using Campaign Run Optimization. This provides for improved visibility to
changeover patterns in and across manufacturing cycle boundaries.
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CRO Manufacturing Cycle

Boundaries shown in brown.
3.17.2.6. New Alert Type and Drilldowns

A new Resource Utilization alert has been introduced to indicate when resources
which are not part of a bottleneck resource group have capacity violations (when
capacity constraints are relaxed). Drilldowns to the Gantt charts from all resource alerts
are included this new alert as well.
When using Batchable resources, drilldowns are also now provided from the Minimum
Batch Violation alerts as previous versions did not allow this.
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3.17.2.7. Drilldowns from the Work Order Editor to the Gantt Charts
Additional drilldowns introduced in the application make finding work orders in the
Gantt charts much easier. The drilldown from the work order editor which is launched
via right click in the editor from the operation code takes the user directly to either the
Production Pegging view, the Resource or Operation Gantt views. Drilldown from the
Work Order Editor highlights the selected operation and performs a context sensitive
zoom as well.
Drilldown zooms and highlights the application operation:
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3.17.2.8. Mass Change on Items and Resources

For mass change simulations, Production Scheduling now provides the ability to mass
edit item and resource properties. All item properties and resource properties can easily
be changed simply by multi-selecting the appropriate items or resources in the model
workspace and invoking the change function. Change is specific to the scenario and
session only for simulation and scenario comparison purposes (changes are not sent back
to ERP)
Changing Item Data via right click on >1 items and selection of Change in the menu:
Mass Change of Resource Data:
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3.17.3.
Release 12.1.3
3.17.3.1. Maintenance Work Order Scheduling
The scheduling of maintenance resources at a maintenance depot can be quite complex.
Several new constructs have been introduced into PS to allow for this:
Visits This new data construct allows users to associate one or more work orders,
where the work orders will fall inside Visit envelope dates such as the anticipated
aircraft arrival into a maintenance depot and the request date associated with the
completion of the Visit.
Milestones These provide the ability to specify logical groupings of work orders within
a Visit. The combination of Visits and Milestones provides a capability to define task
hierarchies that flexibly group work orders together in both concurrent and sequential
patterns where work can diverge and converge.
Work Breakdown Structure Several new key attributes have been added to work orders
which can be used for organizing and filtering work orders.
The scheduling of visits must take into consideration numerous constraints. It must
account for:
Visit start / end dates

Visit milestones
Task hierarchies
Crew, machine, tool, and material constraints
Operation / work order precedence constraints
Grouping of work based on work breakdown structure
To support these requirements, the following key capabilities are now available in Oracle
Production Scheduling:
Collection of Oracle cMRO Work Orders
Production Scheduling now optionally collects Oracle cMRO maintenance work orders.
New Operational Data Store Tables for Data Augmentation
Six new tables, housing information such as visits, work breakdown structure, work
order relationships, and milestones, have been added into the Operational Data Store
(ODS) as this information is required to properly schedule cMRO work orders.
Currently, this information is not available to standard planning collections from cMRO.
An API into these new tables to augment collected data has been added to complement
the existing collections framework as PS requires this information to generate a
maintenance schedule.
The overall architecture is represented in the following diagram.
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Support for Visits, Milestones, and Complex Task Hierarchy Relationships

Visits have been added to Oracle Production Scheduling to allow for scheduling,
tracking, and grouping of tasks in the form of work orders and milestones. Visits and
milestones are presented in various views in Production Scheduling and allow the
planner to leverage the rich set of existing functionality to review and refine the
schedule. Visits and milestones also present new constraints which govern the
production schedule that is generated.
Advanced Work Order Filtering

Work order filters can be used to facilitate the review and analysis of the schedule and
allow the planner to slice and dice the data in the various Gantt, Utilization, and Work
Order views. This feature allows the planner to hone in on specific tasks and answer
questions such as show me all work orders in stage 3a from July 2-July 4 utilizing the
Advanced Airframe and Power crew which are firm. While this feature has been added
to facilitate cMRO workflows, it will benefit many of our existing manufacturing
customers as they will also be able to filter on many of the existing constructs already
available in work orders.
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150
Representation of Work Breakdown Structure

The logical grouping of work can be accomplished by leveraging the Work Breakdown
Structure constructs in PS. A Display Parameter tab has been augmented in the Plan
options screen with new data that can be used to create logical groupings of work orders.
The work breakdown structure is populated as work order attributes and can be viewed
in the work order editor. This allows for advanced filtering in Work Order Filters where
they can be used to group work orders in the various views when analyzing the schedule.
151
Once the model is reviewed and analyzed in Production Scheduling, work order dates
generated by the schedule and can then be released back to cMRO for execution.
The solution may be applicable for other industries with similar requirements, but focus
has been on solving aircraft short term maintenance scheduling problems.
3.17.3.2. Disable Multiple Release from the Same Plan for the Same Order
This enhancement allows Production Scheduling to keep track of work orders which are
sent back to source as Released and disable subsequent release from the same plan to
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prevent creating duplicate supplies in the ERP system. This process functions per the
procedure below:
The user generates a plan and downloads to the client per standard procedures.
The user solves the model (if not already solved on the server).
The user then saves the schedule as a .dxt file (PS persistence for solved models).
This is a key step, as re-importing from XML source will not preserve this
information.
Once the scheduler is happy with the plan, the user will then approve or Release
selected Work Orders to source and publish to ASCP as she/he deems appropriate
(no change to existing functionality).
After this action, the user will not be able to release the same work orders from the
application as the checkbox indicating which work orders to release will be grayed
out. The user is also free to close the model and reopen the .dxt file as necessary.
Illustration:
The user selects the first four work orders for release:
The user releases back to source:
On subsequent navigation to the Release View, the Work Order Release Checkbox is
no longer selectable for those work orders:
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If the user does want to release the same work orders again for some reason,
they can open the original XML file that was downloaded from integration.
Any work orders not previously marked as released will still be available for
release or publish (as planned orders) into ASCP.
3.17.3.3. User Defined Ideal Sequence

Production Scheduling natively provides the ability to dynamically calculate an ideal
operation sequence for Campaign Run Optimized Resources per manufacturing cycle.
This is based on changeover cost or time (user specified) in the Scenario / Solver
Options. The changeover matrix contains the applicable penalty factors of moving
between different operations producing different items. The solver performs an
evaluation of these penalties and computes the ideal sequence on this resource. CRO
then optimally computes the tradeoff between carrying inventory, stocking out, incurring
changeovers, using alternate machines, alternate routings or violating safety stock in and
across manufacturing cycles and may optionally pull work forward to delay operations
appropriately.
In many environments, users simply wish to dictate this order of operations to the solver
in lieu of having to construct a penalty matrix to influence this. While this is possible to
configure using costs, this enhancement allows users to specify the sequence operations
should be scheduled in CRO according to attribute. This is an alternate sequencing
strategy compared to the current CRO sequencing strategies of Cost or Time, and is
available for CRO resources only.
Solver options are enhanced to indicate the Run Sequence as User Defined (by solve
stage, as illustrated, or in the global solver options):
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The mechanism in which the ideal sequence is defined is by selecting and sorting of
associated attributes and their attribute values on CRO resources in the model.
For example, take attributes Size and Grade. Within Size there are 1/4 Inch, 1/3
Inch and 1/4 Inch as attribute values. Within the Grade attribute, there are Grades A
and B.
Assume the user defined Ideal Sequence is to cycle by size and grade within the size, as
outlined in the following example:
1/4 Inch-Grade A -> 1/4 Inch Grade B -> 1/3 Inch-Grade A -> 1/3 Inch Grade B -> 1/2
Inch-Grade A -> 1/2 Inch Grade B.
This would be setup in Production Scheduling in the Attributes tab where attributes are
associated to resources.
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order in which the selected attributes and attribute values in the right column are
structured in the UI dictates the ideal sequence of operations (the operations must be
associated to these attributes). If Grade was more important than size, then the user
could move the Grade above the Size Attribute. The sequence would then cycle by
Grade and then Size within the Grade.
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This is a very powerful tool to help make sequencing decisions and reduce changeovers
in the model.
3.17.3.4. Supply Tolerancing
The Production Scheduling integration infrastructure to Oracle EBS and JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne uses Work Orders as the vehicle to communicate production
requirements and schedules between systems. When a PS plan is created, it will have
Work Orders as a source of supply. Demands are created via Sales Orders, Transfer
Orders Out, Forecasts, and Internal Sales Orders, etc.
Since PS is a scheduling application, typically one would assume there are sufficient
supply quantities generated in the form of work orders to meet the stated demand
requirements for the organization being scheduled by the time you are actually
scheduling your facility.
However, in some cases it is acceptable for demands to be shorted by a certain quantity
or percentage without the generation of additional supply requirements. For example, if
you have supply (say an on-hand inventory of 134,999) and have an order quantity of
135,000 (finished good or intermediate), there may not be an additional work order
created for the extra 1 unit in ASCP (lot sized of course) due to a supply tolerancing
feature it has (this can be at any level in the bill of material).
However, PS does not have this explicit supply tolerancing feature. The net result is
that PS may recommend extra production as PS sees the need to balance supply and
demand down to the unit. PS naturally uses the routing lot size to recommend new
production - in some cases, this could be very large (such as 100,000lbs per run) and
completely unnecessary as it is perfectly acceptable to ship 1lb less than order size.
Instantiating net new production disrupts other production runs, steals capacity and
materials schedule quality is inevitably diminished.
A feature has been added to Production Scheduling to be able to essentially shut off
any PS created net new production suggestions to avoid these situations.
This exists in Tools | Options | Global Settings:
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With this flag enabled, there will be no net new production recommendations generated
at any level in the BOM (i.e. only work order supply production will be scheduled). If
there is insufficient work order supply, inventory will be automatically added to prevent
levels from falling below zero (i.e. Demand is permitted to be shorted). A PS log
message is generated to indicate what inventory quantity adjustments were made.
Utilizing this feature assumes work order supply is sufficient to meet demand.
3.17.3.5. Control Application of Purchase Item Order Multiples beyond Lead Time
Items marked as Purchased in Production Scheduling must be associated with a source
of supply (i.e. a Supplier) and a corresponding order multiple must be modeled. It is key
to note that Production Scheduling is not intended to plan procurement specifically, but
to be constrained by lead time only. Beyond lead time, supply for these purchased items
is essentially unconstrained therefore the purchase item multiple is not especially
relevant. However, customers do find these order multiples to be useful for various
types of modeling approaches.
A feature has been added to be able to control whether or not purchase item multiples are
respected beyond supplier lead time or not. Keeping these relaxed helps solve
performance and is generally recommended.
In the PS Plan Solver Options, there is a flag entitled Relax Purchase Items beyond
Lead Time. Default is set to Yes.
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When this flag is enabled, the order multiple is internally set to a very large value and
effectively ignored beyond lead time one will see the addition of a new red line in the
item graph to represent the time of the item. Beyond the lead time, the item graph is
shaded to indicate infinite supply.
If the flag is set to No, the item graph is displayed taking into account the order
multiples.
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3.17.3.6. Improved Operation Status Logic in OPM integration

If an OPM Batch Operation has a firm start resource but is still in pending state, the PS
integration code was previously interpreting this operation as Active when importing into
Production Scheduling.
In order to address this, VCP collections introduced a new column entitled
operation_status. The OPM system will populate the operation status as Pending, WIP
or Closed.
The corresponding PS integration code has been modified to read this new status from
this new column to set an operation as Open, Active or Closed in Production Scheduling.
3.17.3.7. Advanced Work Order Filtering
This release provides new work order filtering capabilities which allows planners to
further slice and dice data in the various Gantt, Utilization, and Pegging views in a
multi-dimensional fashion and filter the content of these views. This feature allows the
planner to hone in on specific areas of the schedule only for example show me all
work orders in from October 25 November 5 running on Resource (or Group) which
have a Firm Start status. The results are previewed in the bottom of the filtering view
and planners can drill-down to the Work Order Editor directly from here as well if
desired.
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A new Work Order Filter view has been added to PS which is accessible off of the
toolbar.
Selecting the icon launch the filtering window. The user then inputs criteria. Selecting
OK will filter out the various Gantt Charts.
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You can create as many filters as you like which are specific for various analysis
purposes and even save them locally as a file (and send to your colleagues).
This is a very useful feature which provides a very advanced level of filtering capability
into an already rich user interface.
3.17.4.
Release 12.1.3+
A major development theme for Production Scheduling in Release 12.1.3.7 is Asset
Intensive Planning. The scheduling of aircraft maintenance resources when an aircraft
arrives at a maintenance depot can be quite complex and presents a challenge to our
Complex Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (CMRO) customers. Maintenance Visit
scheduling must take into consideration many constraints such as Visit request date,
complex task hierarchy relationships, unknown (non-routine) tasks, and resource
capacity. This becomes increasingly difficult when multiple Visits are considered
simultaneously. The 12.1.3 release of Production Scheduling introduced a solution to
support this complex scheduling problem. The 12.1.3.7 release of Production
Scheduling builds upon this unique solution for maintenance industries by introducing:
Collections from Oracle CMRO
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Consideration of Visit priorities
Maintenance exceptions
Maintenance key performance indicators
Critical path visualization for Visits
Inventory reservations
Consideration of outside processing orders (OSP)
Improved visualization of active, closed, and zero duration work orders
Integration to Enterprise Asset Management
The following business decisions are supported:
Which Visits are early, on time, or late, and why?
What tasks are on the critical path?
What is the total Machine, Labor, and Tool utilization across visits?
What is the total Machine, Labor, and Tool utilization for a specific visit?
How much of the utilization is associated with routine vs. non-routine work?
What is the impact of taking down production equipment for maintenance?
What is the average visit duration by visit type (e.g., Programmed Depot
Maintenance, Engine Overhaul)?
How can Visit throughput be maximized?
What is the utilization of my resources during day shift? Night shift? *
Does this maintenance task have any task dependencies? *
What tasks have I already completed for this Visit? *
Which Visit(s) are at risk for being late? *
* New for Release 12.1.3.7

3.17.4.1. Collections from Oracle CMRO
The initial integrated solution of Oracle CMRO with Production Scheduling required
CMRO-specific data to be loaded via legacy collections. This information included
visits, work breakdown structure, work order and operation relationships, and
milestones.
Standard collections options have now been included to collect this information as
shown below.
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Only Visits in Planning, Implemented, and Partially Implemented statuses are considered
in the schedule.
3.17.4.2. Consideration of Visit Priorities
Visit Priorities and Visit Type are additional Visit attributes that are now being
imported. The Visit Type is for information purposes only and can be used in the
Advanced Work Order Filter screens to filter Visits by Type.
Visit Priorities are used by the scheduling engine to prioritize Visits competing for
scarce resources. When conflicts arise the schedule is governed by the following criteria
in order:
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1.
2.
3.
4.
Visit Request Date

Visit Priorities
Work Order Priorities
Work Order Request Date
For example, when two Visits have the exact same Request Date, the Visit with the
higher priority will take precedence on scarce resources.
3.17.4.3. Maintenance Exceptions
New Maintenance Exceptions have been added to the Exceptions table:
1. Visit Late: the Visit Completion Date exceeds the Visit Request Date
2. Milestone Late: the Milestone Completion Date exceeds the Milestone Target
Completion Date
3. Visit Production Start Delay: the Visit Actual Start Date exceeds the arrival of
the aircraft (Visit Earliest Start Date)
Contextual drilldowns from the Exceptions is provided. A key drilldown to the Critical
Path aids the scheduler in analyzing why a Visit is late. This is described in more detail
in the next section.
3.17.4.4. Critical Path Visualization
Visits often contain hundreds and even thousands of work orders and understanding why
a visit is late considering all these tasks and their hierarchical relationships is difficult.
The Critical Path of a Visit is now calculated automatically during schedule generation.
A drilldown to the Critical Path from the Maintenance Exception is provided to allow the
scheduler to focus on the specific tasks and resources that constrain the completion of
the Visit.
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Tasks on the Critical Path are highlighted in yellow and tasks that are not critical to the
Visit may be hidden.
The operation slack time for tasks not on the critical path is also indicated by red lines
attached to the operations, as shown below. This visual indicator of slack informs the
scheduler of the amount an operation can move before it will then become a part of the
critical path.
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3.17.4.5. Maintenance Key Performance Indicators

One of the key features of Production Scheduling is the ability to quickly run what-if
scenarios to see improvements to the plan. Instrumental to this process is the ability to
compare key performance metrics across scenarios. Unique maintenance exceptions
have been added to the existing KPI view.
The added maintenance KPIs include:
Average Visit Duration. Average Duration of Visit in Days

Visit On-Time. # of Visits On-Time / # Total Visits
Average Visit Lateness. Total Days Late of All Visits / # Of Visits Late
Total Resource Utilization. Utilization across all resource types
Machine Utilization. Utilization for Machines
Crew Utilization. Utilization for Crews
Tool Utilization. Utilization for Tools
Maintenance Utilization. Utilization of resources that are down due to EAM
Maintenance
In addition to the above KPIs, direct comparisons across two scenarios are available to
show Visits or Milestones that:
Were On-Time, Now Late
Were Late, Now On-Time
Were Late, Less Late
Were Late, More Late
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Inventory Reservations made in the cMRO marshalling workbench are now respected in
Production Scheduling. The following inventory reservations are supported:
On-Hand Inventory to a Sales Order

Work Order to Work Order reservations
Internal Requisition to Work Order
Inventory Reservations tabs have been added to all supply and demand type views within
Production Scheduling.
The above example shows a work order which has now a Supply reservation and
Demand reservation tab since a work order can be both a supply and demand. This
reservation is respected during schedule generation.
3.17.4.7. Visualization of Related Work Orders
Related work orders are derived as part of the task hierarchy definition from CMRO.
Task dependencies are directly translated to related work orders and can be parallel
(Starts after Start) or sequential (Starts after End).
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This work order relationship is now visualized on the Production Pegging Gantt by the
Red Lines shown below.
This visual indication of related tasks applies to any related work orders and is not
limited to the maintenance solution.
3.17.4.8. Improved Operation Visualization
Work Order Operations can have the following statuses:
Closed. When an operation has completed as indicated by the Actual Start Date
and Actual Completion Date
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Active. When an operation has started, but not completed as indicated by the
Actual Start Date
Zero Duration. When the actual time exceeds the planned time. For example,
the planned time for an operation is 1hr but after 1.5 hrs it is still not completed.
New Visualizations have been added to easily distinguish the different statuses within
the Production Pegging View.
(OSP) Outside Processing Orders

Outside Processing orders can be generated in Oracle CMRO during execution. These
orders are imported as a supply schedule based on the Need by Date of the OSP order.
This supply is treated like any other supply in Production Scheduling with the supply
reflected in the projected inventory.
3.17.4.9. Oracle Enterprise Asset Maintenance Integration

For a maintenance organization, managing maintenance resources that perform
maintenance tasks is another important consideration to ensure that the maintenance
resources can perform the scheduled tasks when needed, reduce the occurrences of
unscheduled downtime, and maximize the overall return on investment for the asset.
Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) provides for the complete management of
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these assets and can track the asset using meters, quality plans, and condition monitoring
systems allowing companies to formulate effective preventative maintenance strategies.
Prior to 12.1.3.7, a resource that was scheduled for maintenance in EAM could be
considered by specifying a simulation set in the Plan Options providing the engine with
the capability to consider the planned availability of the resource when generating a
schedule. This consideration is not sufficient when common resources and materials are
shared between complex maintenance activities, such as those managed by CMRO, and
asset maintenance managed by EAM. For example, some maintenance crew might have
the training and skill set to perform maintenance tasks on an aircraft as part of a Visit
(CMRO) as well as an Asset (EAM). The schedule must account for these shared
resources when generating the maintenance schedule for Visits for release back to
CMRO.
This feature will import EAM work orders to consider the pre-determined preventative
maintenance activities managed in EAM while generating the Production Schedule. It is
important to note that the maintenance schedule is currently managed in Oracle EAMs
Maintenance Scheduler which considers factors important and unique to Enterprise
Asset Management that are not considered by Production Scheduling such as usage,
meter readings, or calendar days. For example, an aircraft tow tractor may need
maintenance after every 200 Motor hours or 6 months - whichever comes first. Since
Production Scheduling does not understand these important concepts it cannot
effectively schedule, or re-schedule maintenance work orders. The goal of this
integration is to have Production Scheduling respect the EAM maintenance schedule and
take into consideration the resource downtime of the maintenance resource, common
resources and common materials required to perform CMRO and EAM maintenance
activities. The EAM maintenance schedule will still be generated and managed in
EAM.
Consideration of Oracle EAM work orders in the maintenance schedule will provide the
following benefits:
Produce a better quality first pass schedule by considering common resources

and materials used for complex maintenance (CMRO) and asset maintenance
(EAM)
Improve planner efficiency by minimizing the manual intervention required to
generate a feasible schedule
Provide for the ability to view the holistic maintenance schedule for complex
maintenance (CMRO) and asset maintenance (EAM) in a single application
A new EAM work order type has been added to the Production Scheduling views:
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Production Scheduling will schedule non-EAM work orders around this maintenance
activity and schedule around this work. Since EAM work orders are treated implicitly as
Firm the scheduling engine will not move this work order during scheduling and can
cause inventory to fall below zero and resources to be overloaded. Manual scheduling
changes can be made to the EAM work orders to adjust these exceptions and published
back to EAM.
EAM work orders are indicated in purple in the various Gantt views with the downtime
of the asset indicated by a thin purple line.
A few considerations that are unique to EAM work orders:

The EAM maintenance organization must be the same as the CMRO
organization and/or Discrete Organization, otherwise simulation sets must be
used. Simulation sets only take down the resource and will not import the entire
EAM Work Order
Scheduling of EAM work orders must still be accomplished with the EAM
scheduler. They will not be scheduled by Production Scheduling
Continuous collections are not supported with CMRO and EAM Plans
Repair solve is not supported for manual changes
Manual scheduling changes to EAM work orders must be done in the work order
editor
EAM can have Parent Child and End at Start relationships across work
orders. For Production Scheduling this translates to:
o Parent Child = Starts after Start
o End to Start = Starts after End
3.17.4.10. Resource Sequence View

Prior versions of the application allowed for manual re-sequencing of jobs on a resource
via the Re-sequence Dialogue. While popular with our customers, a lot of important
fields were absent making it challenging to efficiently analyze sequencing decisions. A
new Resource Sequence view has replaced the dialogue box allowing the scheduler to resequence while simultaneously seeing the impacts in the Gantt charts.
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The merge operations toolbar which merges operations in the Gantt charts will also
merge contiguous operations in the Resource Sequence view to simplify the manual
scheduling process.
In addition the re-sequence and drag and drop capabilities that have been carried
forward, the new view presents additional functionality including:
The introduction of changeovers in the view
Contextual drilldowns from the rows to work orders and demands
Ability to edit operation dates and firm status
Ability to copy and paste the information from the table to Excel
Additional fields listed below
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3.17.4.11. Shift Utilization Reporting

Shift definitions from EBS are now imported to allow the scheduler to view Resource
Utilization by shift. A new Shift Pattern calendar type has been added to the
application which is assigned to resources per the EBS Resource setup screens.
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The Resource Utilization view can now report by shift including shift overlaps. The
shift selection is dependent on the Resource and is consistent with the assignment on the
source system.

This new release of Production Scheduling continues the ongoing investment in
improving the overall user experience of the application. The following features have
been added in this new release:
Attribute based Operation highlighting

General Color Configuration
Work Order Units of Effort Color Coding
Automatically Publish Related Work Orders
Deploy Work Order Folders in Production Pegging View
Display Work Order Description in Production Pegging View
Additional fields in Advanced Work Order Filtering
Enforce Horizon Start added to Plan Options
Attribute Based Operation Highlighting

Attributes are used by the scheduling engine to group like operations for optimal
sequencing. When reviewing the schedule in the Operation or Resource Gantts, it is
difficult to distinguish the sequence scheduling logic visually since all operations are
drawn in the standard blue.
User defined colors can now be associated to specific attribute values providing the
scheduler with a quick visual sequence of the schedule based on attributes.
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As with attributes, the color definition is not possible in the source system so may
require a custom extension to persist across planning sessions.
General Color Configuration
Colors play an important role in the rich user interface to easily identify certain
conditions of the schedule. This can now be customized using the color configuration
dialogue where colors can be customized for most views.
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Work Order Units of Effort Highlighting

Work order jobs can be broken into logical pieces by the scheduling engine as
determined by the lot multiple when Units of Effort is enabled. This is especially true
for Batch resources where a Work Order can be run in consecutive batches. Selecting an
operation will now also highlight related operation instances in the same work order as
illustrated in the graphic below.
Display Work Order Description in Production Pegging View

Work order numbers has been the traditional display in the Production Pegging View.
These numbers are system generated and are typically not meaningful to the Production
Scheduler. Various display options are now available by user to in the Tools | Options to
display:
Work Order Number

Work Order Description
Work Order Number : Work Order Description
Work Order Description : Work Order Number
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Deploy Work Order Folders in Production Pegging View

Due to the large number of potential work orders, the Production Pegging views folders
are collapsed by default. The scheduler may want to expand certain folders or subfolders to view all the work orders within a specific logical group. A right-click menu
options is now available which will expand all folders under the selected group to autoexpand the view to the Folder or Work Order level.
Automatically Publish Related Work Orders

When releasing jobs back to source, work orders within the defined release horizon are
automatically selected for release. This view can also be filtered by a work order filter
further refining the jobs to be published. If work orders are related, it is possible that
not all of the work orders will be released if they do not meet the same criteria defined
by the release horizon or work order filter. An option to also publish related works
orders is now available to ensure logical groupings of work orders are scheduled in
unison.
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Advanced Work Order Filtering Fields

Additional fields have been added to the recently added work order filter screen to allow
the scheduler to filter by Visit Attributes such as Visit Type or Priority.
The Gantt views can also be filtered by the newly added Shift Calendars for jobs that are
Starting in a Shift
Ending in a Shift
Running during a Shift
With the additional fields, a new layout has been adopted that groups the filter criteria in
logical groups.
Enforce Horizon Start added to Plan Options

Directing the schedule to schedule from the start of the scheduling horizon is an often
used flag depending on the reasons for past due work orders. For example, past due jobs
often exist due to reporting latency so it may be desired to allow for these jobs to be
scheduled in the past so as not to consume critical resource capacity. In other cases, they
may be actual jobs that may need to be run on the factory floor. An option has been
added to the Plan Options to dictate the desired behaviour and will apply globally to all
resources.
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3.17.4.13. Improved Treatment of Firm Work Orders

In previous versions, the scheduling engine sometimes moved firm work orders to avoid
capacity, material, or precedence relationship violations. However, many customers
wanted the work orders to remain firm, for business reasons not visible to the scheduling
engine. Firm work orders will now be respected within the fixed time fence regardless
of the violations mentioned above. The implication of this is that inventory levels can
fall below zero or capacity violations can exist but is often acceptable due to the reasons
mentioned above. Calendar constraints are still respected.
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3.17.4.14. Visibility to Maintenance Visit Status

This feature builds on our Asset Intensive Planning solution from the previous release
enables you to display and easily identify complex maintenance visits in a Planning,
Partially Implemented, or Implemented status. Distinguishing between the different visit
statuses is important, especially in scheduling non-routine work orders which typically
account for two-thirds of the work in a visit. A new status field has been added to the
visit header. This can be filtered against in the various Gantt views.
3.17.4.15. Allow Offloading Flag in the Work Order BOM

Production Scheduling selects alternate items for work orders when doing so improves
the schedule. In some situations, selecting an alternate item may not be desired for a
work order so a control has been introduced on the Work Order Bill of Materials tab to
turn on/off selection of alternate purchased items. The default for this flag can be
controlled via the profile option MSC: PS Allow WO Purchased Item Offloading.
3.17.5.
Release 12.2.4
3.17.5.1. Multi-Stage Synchronization
Oracle Production Scheduling has historically been very strong at addressing complex
production scheduling problems in discrete environments. Many routing steps with
complex temporal relationships, alternate resources, and supporting resource constraints
are handled very well. However, within some process manufacturing environments, for
example Food & Beverage or Personal Care Products Manufacturing, Production
Scheduling currently produces inadequate schedules.
The main characteristics of such production scheduling problems, sometimes referred
to as Make/Pack Problems, are as follows:
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One production stage manufactures bulk WIP items, usually in batch-based

production, often involving tanks. These resources are referred to as Upstream
Resources. This stage corresponds to the Make stage.
A second production stage consumes bulk WIP items and delivers a variety of
finished goods on packaging lines, which are referred to as Downstream
Resources. Consequently, one bulk WIP item can be converted into several
finished products. Package type, package size, or labels are variations of finished
products. This stage corresponds to the Pack stage.
The two key production stages are decoupled via bulk WIP inventory. Typically,
there is limited buffer storage available, for example via hold tanks in front of
the packaging lines, which allows balancing production rate variations between
the stages. While synchronous production and consumption with near zero
buffers between the stages does occur, it is rare, and it is not a use case targeted
by this enhancement.
A bulk WIP item can generally be produced on several alternate upstream

resources, and it can be packaged away on several alternate downstream
resources.
Batch sizes on the upstream resources may vary; for example, tanks with
different sizes are involved. This corresponds to alternate routings.
The bulk WIP consumption rates usually vary on the downstream resources,
since package type and size have an impact: Filling small portion control
packages generally consumes less bulk WIP inventory per hour than filling large
bottles.
Physical Resource Connectivity: An upstream resource may have direct

connections via hoses/pipes to downstream resources. Or an upstream resource
may not have any direct connection to downstream resources. And vice versa, a
downstream resource may not have a direct feed connection from any upstream
resource. Further, while certain downstream resources may be fed both directly
from an upstream resource and also via totes, there may be downstream
resources that can only be fed via totes, and again others that can only be fed
directly. The requirement to be fed directly may be due to the speed of a
packaging line, which might outrun any kind of tote-feeding.
Different product attributes impact for example cleaning or sanitation

requirements both on the upstream and the downstream resources. Attributes like
package type and package size further drive changeovers on the downstream
resources. In that regard, customers often have a specific ideal sequence in mind
that they would like to run on the packaging lines. Sequencing is an important
aspect in both stages, though more relevant on the downstream packaging stage.
While there may be further upstream and downstream stages (e.g. premix ahead
of mix, and palletizing & shrink-wrapping after packing), these stages are
usually not constraining from a scheduling perspective. Schedule generation
therefore focuses on the two key stages.
The main scheduling objectives targeted by this enhancement are:
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Synchronize the production and consumption of bulk WIP items by scheduling

the upstream make and downstream pack operations close together from a time
perspective.
Minimize changeovers in both stages, with higher relevance for the downstream
packaging stage.
Maximize fill rates.
Some best practices in modeling these types of scheduling problems in Oracle

Production Scheduling 12.2.4:
Work orders: Generally, work orders will be present for the downstream pack
stage, but not for the upstream make stage. If work orders shall be included in
the upstream stage, then one work order per batch is required to provide
flexibility to optimize, i.e. each make work order should have only one operation
instance.
Additional production stages: Further upstream stages (for example pre-mixing)

or downstream stages (for example palletizing) are not part of the specific
synchronization enhancement. While such stages can be modeled and will be
scheduled, best practice is to relax the involved resource constraints. Activities
performed in these stages are important from an execution perspective, but they
are typically not constraining and should not drive the production schedule
generation for the two main stages. Using Solve Stages, upstream resources like
pre-mixing should be scheduled first.
Material constraints: While materials are relevant on a tactical planning level,

they are usually not deemed constraining for short-term finite capacity
scheduling, and therefore should be relaxed.
The PS 12.2.4 solution approach to address the synchronization of the upstream make
and downstream pack stages involves several features:
New Resource Relationship Editor: This editor allows the user to specify the
aspects listed under Resource Connectivity above. The resource relationships
can be maintained on the VCP Server in a new editor, accessed from the
Production Scheduler responsibility. Within PS, the editor looks as follows:
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The Resource Relationship Editor has 4 columns:

o
Upstream: Machine or a machine group, which can be used to produce

bulk WIP items.
Downstream: Machine or machine group, which can be used to consume

bulk WIP items and convert them into finished good items.
Direct Only: If the Direct Only flag is checked, then this indicates that
the respective downstream resource must not be fed indirectly, for
example via totes. As a consequence, the solver will not consume any
starting inventory on such resource, and will always have to schedule an
upstream operation that provides the bulk WIP item. Note that if Direct
Only is checked for a downstream resource in any one row, then this will
apply to all jobs scheduled on such resource.
Rank: The lower the value, the more relevant synchronization is.
Downstream resources, which have to be fed directly (Direct Only=Yes),
will implicitly be considered most important, independent of the Rank
value. Downstream resource, which can only be fed indirectly via totes,
would typically have the highest Rank values, corresponding to the
lowest relevance.
Some rules:
o
A machine can either be an upstream resource or a downstream resource,

but not both. Validation checks are provided to identify improper setup
of rules.
All upstream and downstream resources that shall be considered by the

solver for the synchronization have to be included in the Resource
Relationship Editor. In case there are upstream resources, which do not
feed any downstream resources directly, or if there are downstream
resources, which can only be fed indirectly (e.g. via totes), then such
resources should be assigned to appropriate groups and entered in the
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Resource Relationship Editor with a high Rank value (corresponding to

a lower relevance).
o
If based on the operation template definitions, a bulk WIP item can be

produced on two alternate upstream resources UR1 and UR2, and
consumed on a downstream resource DR, and only the relationship
UR1DR is specified in the Resource Relationship Editor with Direct
Only=No (unchecked), then the solution may also use the relationship
UR2DR if necessary to meet demand. However, if Direct Only=Yes
(checked), then the solver will not be able to use UR2DR, since only
explicitly specified relationships can then be used in this case.
New Algorithm: If the Solver Option Build Strategy is set to Pre-Build and
the Pre-build Policy is set to Multistage Synchronization, then the new
algorithm will be applied.
New Synchronization KPIs: The quality of the schedule from a

synchronization perspective can be evaluated by measuring the time between
when a bulk WIP item is produced and when it is consumed. This will be
referred to as the Consumption Time.
The Total Consumption Time and the Average Consumption Time will be
calculated for all items, which have the Consumption Time Target specified (see
below), and which can be produced and consumed on Upstream and
Downstream resources listed in the Resource Relationship Editor.
New Item Attribute Consumption Time Target: A new item property

Consumption Time Target can be maintained, which is used by the application
to generate synchronization exceptions, since a perfectly synchronized schedule
will rarely be possible. The Consumption Time Target is a new attribute in the
Item Attributes Mass Maintenance screen. Within PS, it is maintained in the tab
Attributes of the item properties.
New Synchronization Exceptions: If the consumption time for the item

produced by an upstream operation exceeds the Consumption Time Target
specified in the item properties, then a Consumption Time exception will be
generated. Further, if the upstream make operations deliver more product than
required by all subsequent downstream pack operations, then a WIP Oversupply
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exception is provided.
Not addressed by this enhancement:
Typical Tank Scheduling features are not addressed in this enhancement. Some
examples include: Batch ranges, using processing tanks as storage tanks, or
modeling several operations with different rates for filling the tank, processing,
QC time, and draining the tank.
Shelf Life and Minimum Remaining Shelf Life: These aspects are not
considered. The synchronization goal is to minimize the consumption times
between the two main stages. Exceptions will be generated when consumption
time targets are violated.
Hard inventory maximum constraints: Forcing better synchronization with a hard

inventory maximum constraint on the decoupling bulk WIP item may seem like a
valid modeling option to force Production Scheduling to synchronize even more,
but this attempt will fail. All inventory maximum constraints are implicitly
relaxed.
3.17.5.2. Manual Scheduling Mode

The existing Repair Solve framework exhibits a few challenging behaviors:
The Repair Solve used as part of manual scheduling in the schedule views
implements schedule changes as directed by the user, for example cut & paste or
re-sequencing of multiple operations, if model constraints allow that. However,
if constraints are violated, then a desired manual schedule change is reversed, or
implemented in a different manner.
The Repair Solve attempts to improve the schedule in an opportunistic manner.

For example, if a manual schedule change results in idle time on a resource due
to offloading operations to alternate resources, then subsequent operations on
that resource might be pulled in earlier. This can result in much broader schedule
changes than the user intended.
Finally, after a manual schedule change, the schedule cannot be published unless
the Repair Solve is executed.
In PS 12.2.4 a new manual scheduling mode with these key features is available:
Production Scheduling respects the users decisions even if constraints are

violated. Further, the application does not attempt to opportunistically improve
anything else in the schedule. Therefore, manual schedule changes are more
surgical in nature and limited in scope.
Additional exception messages will indicate constraint violations resulting from

manual schedule changes to the user.
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Publishing the schedule will be possible even if certain constraints are violated,
although changeovers will be excluded from publish, since they are not
meaningful anymore once capacity violations are present.
Various Constraints and their consideration:
Calendar constraints: Calendar events can optionally be enforced or relaxed.

This behavior is controlled via a global option.
Capacity constraints: All capacity constraints are relaxed in this mode and can be
violated. Exceptions will be generated.
Material constraints: All material constraints are relaxed and can be violated.
Exceptions will be generated.
Precedence constraints: By default, precedence constraints within routings or

between related work orders and their associated min/max separation times will
be respected. For example, if two successive routing steps 1020 with S>E
relationship are changed by dragging step 20 earlier in time so that it starts
before step 10 ends, then step 10 will be pushed earlier as well. An option is
available to allow for violation of these constraints, in which case step 10
remains where it originally was, and an exception is generated. This behavior is
controlled via the Single-stage resequencing and Multi-stage resequencing
radio buttons, which are available in the Cut & Paste Dialog and the Resource
Sequence view. If Multi-stage resequencing is selected, then routing
precedence constraints will be respected, and if Single-stage resequencing is
selected, then these constraints are relaxed.
The Unconstrained Manual Scheduling mode is activated via a new toolbar button.
The window frames will appear in green color to indicate to the user that he is now
in Unconstrained Manual Scheduling mode.
3.17.5.3. Resource Sequence View Enhancements

Many customers appreciate the Resource Sequence view. All jobs on a given resource
are listed in a tabular format with key information. Re-Sequencing the jobs in this view,
or drilling down to model objects is possible. The following changes to this view in PS
12.2.4 further improve its usability and will make the scheduling process more efficient:
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Additional Fields: New fields were added, providing relevant information to the
scheduler. The following screenshot shows the fields now available.
Ability to Identify Offloaded Work Order Operations: Field Planned

Resource contains the resource on which a work order was originally planned to
run on based on the XML input model file. Rows 5 and 10 on the screenshot
below have work order operations, which were originally planned to run on Line
02, but were assigned by Production Scheduling to Line 04.
Indication of Lateness via Red Color: Using red font for late work orders
and/or late demands, which an operation is pegged to, enables the user to
identify issues more quickly.
Date Change Indicator: If the Start Time of two successive rows falls on
different days, then a solid line is used to indicate such date change to the user.
Toggle on/off Changeover Display: When in Operation Merge mode, and

assuming a changeover is necessary between any two different operations, then
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every second row displayed in this view is a changeover row.
While changeover information is very relevant for scheduling, in some cases the
user is less interested in changeovers, but more in the actual jobs and their
sequence. Via a new toggle button, the user is now able to easily show or hide
the changeover rows.
3.17.5.4. Work Order Filter by Attribute and Dimming/Hiding Control

Work order filters are used in various areas of the application, for example to selectively
view schedule data only for work orders that match specified filter criteria, or in the Edit
Work Order Release window to pre-filter work orders for release and publish to ERP.
Work order filters are also applicable in the various schedule views, for example the
Resource Gantt. If activated, then only the operations belonging to work orders that
match the filter criteria are shown.
In PS 12.2.4, work order filtering is improved with the following features:
Filter by Item Attributes: It is now possible to specify work order filters using
item attributes.
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Dimming vs. Hiding non-matching Operations: Instead of simply hiding

operations, which do not match the work order filter criteria, it is now possible
to display the non-matching operations in a dimmed fashion. This allows the
scheduler to focus on the filter-matching operations without losing context of
the surrounding schedule.
This behavior is controlled via settings in Tools | Options | Global Settings.
3.17.5.5. Exception Framework: Filtering and Additional Fields

Oracle Production Scheduling has always had exception messages, which alert the user
about various problems. For example, the user has the ability to use drill-downs to
schedule views or the work order editor in order to investigate and try to resolve a
specific issue.
In PS 12.2.4 the overall exception framework is improved by these features:
Ability to specify Exception Filters: Oracle Production Scheduling cannot

distinguish between exceptions that are important to the user and those that are
perceived as noise. The application can only determine whether an exception is
present and therefore report it, or not. The ability to specify filters allows the
scheduler to focus on relevant exceptions. Exception filtering will be possible
using:
o
Violation Dates and Duration
Item Attributes
Object Properties.
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Additional Fields: Exception messages include new fields, providing more

relevant information to the user. The new fields with the associated exception
message types in brackets are:
o
Item Description (Demand, Inventory, and Work Order Exceptions)
Item Attributes (Demand, Inventory, and Work Order Exceptions)
Customer Name (Demand Exceptions)
Demand Type (Demand Exceptions)
Violation Duration (All Exceptions)
Visit Type (Maintenance Exceptions)
New Shared Storage Violation Exception: Shared storage constraints are

relaxed by the application. In addition to seeing such potential violations in the
Item Graph, the user is now also alerted via a new exception message within the
Inventory exceptions pane.
3.17.5.6. Combined View Resource Gantt and Item Graph: Show

Produced/Consumed Operations
In combined views Resource Gantt & Item Graph it has always been possible to find the
produced and/or consumed items from an operation in the Resource Gantt, and seeing the
respective items projected inventory levels in the Item Graph.
In PS 12.2.4 the reverse is possible. The user can highlight all producing and/or
consuming operations in the Resource Gantt from an item in the Item Graph. Being able
to identify these producing and consuming operations is useful in various situations, for
example when products are run in cyclical manner multiple times over the schedule
horizon, when a product is run concurrently on multiple resources, and to see how well
production and consumption is synchronized.
New right-mouse menu options and tool-bar buttons are provided. Producing operations
are shown in brown, consuming operations in magenta.
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3.17.5.7. Work Order Merge Mode

A production schedule can have several thousands of operation instances. The Operation
Merge mode is available in order to display identical operations as one if they are
adjacent to one another, resulting in less busy displays in the various schedule views and
simplifying manual scheduling efforts.
The new Merge Work Order Operation mode merges such operation instances only if
they belong to the same work order. Further, if a work order requires multiple routing
instances and some operation instances are scheduled with separation (idle time) in
between, then they are still merged, with the idle time indicated via a grey shading.
3.17.5.8. Production Pegging View: Drill Down from Supply Event

Two new drill-downs are available from the Production Pegging view:
For Supply Event (e.g. purchase order): The drill-down leads to the supply event
line item in the Supply & Demand Editor.
For On Hand: The drill-down leads to the Item Properties page, tab On Hand.
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3.17.5.9. Navigate between Operations while Operation Properties Page is Open

The operation instance properties page contains information about the resources
involved, operation attributes, start and end times, and pegging data. In prior versions,
the user could select an operation instance, then open its properties page, and view the
data of interest. In order to do the same for another, maybe adjacent operation instance,
the user had to close the properties page, select the other operation, and reopen the
properties page for the newly selected operation.
In PS 12.2.4 it is possible to navigate between operation instances while the properties
page is open. Every time the user selects a new operation with the mouse, the data in the
displayed properties page is updated accordingly. When in multi-select mode in the
Resource Gantt, then always the information for the last selected operation instance is
displayed in the properties window.
3.17.5.10. Pegging Details in Operation Properties Page
The operation properties page layout was improved and now contains more detailed
pegging information. Previously, only summary information was available, namely the
work order numbers and demand numbers. In PS 12.2.4, additional work order and
demand fields are displayed. Further, lateness is indicated via red fonts.
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3.17.5.11. Middle-Mouse Button Draws Vertical Line in Schedule Views

Pressing the middle-mouse button enables the scheduler to see a thin vertical line in the
schedule views. This line provides a quick way to see how related upstream and
downstream operations and their timing align with one another, without having to
constantly use the zoom in/out functionality.
3.17.5.12. Work Order Mass Change of Firm Status

The Work Order Mass Change now also allows changing the Firm Status of work orders
on the header level, and the Firm Status and the Firm Start/End Dates of work order
operations.
3.17.5.13. Consistent Where Used Tabs in Object Properties

Resources, items, operations, routings, and shared storage spaces now all have a more
consistent layout of the Where Used tab. Where applicable, an indication is provided
whether a listed object is a producer or a consumer. Filtering by object type is possible,
for example to only list involved work orders, but not demands or operations.
Two examples of the Where Used tab in the properties pages:
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3.17.5.14. New Where Used Tab in Shared Storage Space Properties Page
The properties page of shared storages now contains a Where Used tab in which all the
items that are assigned to this shared storage space are listed.
3.17.5.15. New Solver Options: Scheduling Bucket and Pre-build Policy

In PS 12.2.4, the Solver Options window has been reorganized, now featuring three tabs
General, Schedule Strategy, and Campaign Run Optimization.
In tab General, a new Scheduling Bucket can be specified. This value specifies the
time interval over which demand/operations should be grouped for the multi-stage
synchronization algorithm. It is used to balance changeover optimization against desired
run size and service levels.
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In tab Schedule Strategy three different pre-build policies can be selected: Balanced,
Dynamic Resource Allocation, and Multistage Synchronization
Balanced: This pre-build policy corresponds to the only pre-build mode available
in PS 12.1.3.
Dynamic Resource Allocation: This pre-build mode allows more aggressive prebuilding and typically results in better resource allocation patterns. In this mode
the solver can be directed to choose resources using earliest completion time or
least changeover plus idle time optimization strategies.
Multistage Synchronization: This setting triggers the new solver as described

above.
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3.17.5.16. Solve Time Limit and Display of Incomplete Schedule

Longer than normal solve times usually indicate model data issues. For example, if a
high-volume item was added to the model data set without appropriate lot multiple
definition on its routing, then the solver may have to instantiate thousands of routing
instances and operation instances to be scheduled, which strongly impacts solve time.
The Tools | Options dialog, tab Global Settings, now contains the ability to specify
criteria for when the solver should stop. This can be based on a given time limit or a
certain number of backtracks.
When the solver stops because it reached the stop criteria or the user pressed the solver
stop button, then the application now displays the incomplete schedule at time of solver
stop. Not all necessary decisions are made by the solver at that point time, and various
constraints will be violated. Since such schedule is infeasible, the schedule window
frame will be displayed in red color, and the schedule cannot be published.
3.17.5.17. Display Item Code and Description

If non-intelligent item numbering is in place, then the item code consists of a number,
which usually is meaningless to the user.
In the Tools | Options dialog, tab Global Settings, the user can now configure how items
are to be displayed in the various areas of the application. Any combination of item code
and item description is possible, displaying information that is meaningful to the user.
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The display of items in the Item Graph, Item Gantt, and in bubble-help windows in the
various schedule views will adhere to these settings.
3.17.6.
Release 12.2.5
The Oracle Alta UI Look and Feel has been incorporated into the latest Production
Scheduling release. While providing a consistent look with other Oracle applications it
provides a cleaner design and more padding to minimize data clutter and a visually
pleasing user interface to review application data. The padding has been incorporated in
the tables and Gantt views which can be configured to accommodate different user
preferences.
You can revert to the legacy look and feel, as it does allow you to view more data on the
screen and minimize scrolling. This can be controlled by changing the theme in Tools ->
Options. The available themes are:
Oracle Alta UI (Default)
PS Classic
256 Colors. Provides some benefits while using some remote access technologies
such as remote desktop.
197
Within a theme, the various UI elements can be configured to further refine the look and
feel such as the padding around the data tables to increase, or decrease the data density.
More padding provides easier to read data tables.
198
Less padding presents more data on screen and requires less scrolling.
3.17.6.2. Post Publish Customization Hooks

In previous releases, a custom hooks have existed to augment and modify inbound data
going into the application. In this release, on the outbound, or publish process, custom
hooks are now available so that you can customize the information being passed to the
source system. In the diagram below, Steps 17 and 19 have been added to modify the
data prior to updating the Planning Data Store (PDS) and also after loading the PDS
tables but before calling the source system API (i.e. WIP_MASS_LOAD). In both
cases, customizations are possible to accommodate customer specific business
requirements.
199
Publish Connector Script (17): Prior to loading the data to PDS, a script can be called
to make modifications to the XML data or call any other script. This script is
OPTIONAL.
The scripts are kept in the directory
<Data Store Path>/<plan_id>/publish/script
The script file is called pre_ods.sh on Unix/Linux systems and pre_ods.bat on
windows machines.
Script before calling API to update source system (19): Prior to calling the API to
update the source system (i.e. WIP_MASS_LOAD_API) a script can be called to insert
any necessary customizations. This script is OPTIONAL.
The scripts are kept in the directory
<Data Store Path>/<plan_id>/publish/script
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3.18. Oracle Rapid Planning

3.18.1.
Product Overview
Oracle Rapid Planning is a fast, heuristic based engine that generates supply chain plans
that span the enterprise manufacturing and distribution networks covering the supply
chain from supplies to customers. Rapid Planning delivers fast, comprehensive plans
that respect material and resource capacity constraints.
Oracle Rapid Planning provides users an ability to simulate and quickly evaluate impacts
of various changes in demand and supply conditions. It allows planners to evaluate the
consequences of these changes and also compare and contrast various alternative courses
of action based upon user configurable metrics.
Rapid Planning leverages the integration capabilities of the Value Chain Planning suite
which means it can be deployed and integrated out-of-the-box with Oracle E-Business
Suite or with heterogeneous back-end systems. Rapid Planning is integrated with Oracle
E-Business Suite R12.1 and R11i10. Rapid Planning utilizes the proven Advanced
Planning collections architecture to integrate your source system reference and
transaction data to the Rapid Planning engine.
3.18.2.
Release 12.1.3
3.18.2.1. Fast Simulation
Oracle Rapid Planning uses an in-memory engine that can very quickly react and
recompute the impacts of any user changes and report, in real time, the consequences
across the supply chain. It also re-calculates the exceptions, key performance indicators
to reflect these impacts.
Rapid Planning supports input of simulation changes to master data like items, resources,
bills of materials, routing operations in two ways:
Change the master data inside a particular plan and re-solve

Change the master data in a simulation set for repetitive use in more than one
plan
The planning engine can be invoked in three different modes
With snapshot and complete replan

Without snapshot, but complete replan
Without snapshot, but replan only incremental changes
3.18.2.2. Flexible User Interface

This application enables a completely new rich-client user interface built using 11gR1
Fusion Middleware technologies and supports configurable workspaces, flexible layouts,
dynamic tabs, etc. to make the user experience very productive as well as easy to use.
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3.18.2.3. Simulation Sets

Oracle Rapid Planning makes simulations very easy through the powerful feature of
simulation sets. A simulation set is a collection of changes to the attributes of any of the
following master data entities.
Items
End Item Substitution relationships
Resources
Routings and operations
Routing Operation Networks
Bill of Materials, components and substitutes
Resource Availability
Manufacturing Order Resource Requirements
Manufacturing Order Operation Networks
Calendars
Supplier capacity
This feature enables planners to do what-if analysis without having to make these
changes permanent or without the need to make these changes in the source ERP systems
and re-collect to see their impacts. This saves a lot of time and effort for the planners.
These simulation sets can then be referenced in different plans through a plan option.
3.18.2.4. Mass Edits
Users can make quickly make updates on a large number of rows (for example, increase
the post-processing lead time of all items in category ABC by 10%) through the massedit feature.
This feature is supported for almost all entities like items, resources, supplies, demands,
etc. Users can update using various operators like set value to, increase by,
decrease by, increase by %, decrease by %, etc.
Users can undo the simulation changes at an attribute-level by using set value to
original operator to revert to the original value.
3.18.2.5. Plan Comparisons
Oracle Rapid Planning allows users to quickly make multiple copies and then use them
as alternatives for corrective actions. Once the plans are run, users can compare any two
plans (or one plan with its previous run) inside any of the following four views:
All analytics - reports and graphs

All exception views
Supply and Demand view
Material and Resource horizontal plans
In addition, users can use order-by-order comparison view where they can compare any
two plans (or a single plan with its previous run) and make the following comparisons:
Was on-time, but now late

Was late, but now on-time
Was late, but now less late
Was late, but now more late
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3.18.2.6. Aggregate, Editable Material Horizontal View

The application supports a material plan with a layout wizard that lets the users to
customize the layout including the measures displayed, time granularity, etc. Users can
also specify two aggregation levels from a choice of Organization, Product Category,
Product Family and Item.
The aggregations are done real-time and take into account all current user changes,
firming, etc.
Users can also update the aggregate level horizontal plans. For example, users can update
forecast quantity at the product category or even at a period level. The system will
allocate the updates to individual items and days.
3.18.2.7. All-in-one Supply/Demand View
Oracle Rapid Planning enables an integrated view of supply/demand orders and their
associated pegging. In a single view, users can drill either upstream or downstream to
view the supply chain from a single order. This enables for a consolidated view of the
entire tree without having to switch between multiple views.
Users can also focus on a single order upstream or downstream and then reverse
direction to look at the where-used or the opposite views. They can then retrace the
steps back to original state of the supply/demand view
3.18.2.8. Integration with Advanced Planning Command Center
Oracle Rapid Planning comes with pre-built integration with Advanced Planning
Command Center. Rapid Planning plans can be archived, published to Advanced
Planning Command Center. These archived versions can then be viewed in all the related
reports and dashboards.
The Advanced Planning Command Centers Supply Chain Analyst dashboard supports
drill-down directly into the Rapid Planning Application.
All Rapid Planning Simulation plans can be used in the Process Automation
functionality to build process flows in Advanced Planning Command Center.
3.18.2.9. Unconstrained Planning
Planners can run Rapid Planning in an unconstrained mode. The unconstrained option
allows planners to see the required material availability and resource capacity to find
what needs to be arranged in order to meet all demands on time. The unconstrained plan
output can optionally respect the planning time fence to allow planners to freeze the plan
for the initial period. Rapid Planning unconstrained planning can also calculate resource
requirements to generate resource usage and resource overload data.
Rapid Planning unconstrained plans produce a full complement of exception messages to
alert the planner to critical constraint violations. These exception messages include
Orders with Insufficient Lead Time, Resource Overloaded, and Supplier Capacity
Violated. In addition, problems with specific demands are highlighted by the exception
messages for sales orders and forecasts at risk due to material shortages or resource
shortages.
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3.18.2.10. Constrained Planning

Rapid Planning offers a full set of constrained planning features. Rapid Planning
performs simultaneous material and resource capacity constraint based planning. Rapid
Planning output is constrained by purchasing, distribution and transit lead times, by
resource calendars and capacities, and by supplier capacity. Rapid Planning calculates
the capacities consumed by existing WIP schedules and purchased supplies and allocates
the remaining capacity to new planned orders.
Constrained planning allows planners to automate many types of planning decisions and
focus on the critical issues. Rapid Planning constraint based planning includes the
ability to search among many alternate supply types. Rapid Planning can automatically
search for and find alternates and substitutes across the supply chain and create planned
orders to meet demands on time. When the primary supply source is late, Rapid Planning
searches for the entire supply chain for item substitutes, alternate organizations, alternate
suppliers, alternate BOM and routing, alternate resources and substitute components to
locate the supply source that provides the delivery date closest the demand due date.
3.18.2.11. Demand Forecasts
Rapid Planning utilizes forecast and demand data from Oracle Demantra. Oracle
Demand Planning integration to Oracle Rapid Planning is not supported. Rapid Planning
performs forecast consumption and allows the planner to optionally explode forecasts.
The forecast consumption features allow the planner to include both forecasts and actual
sales orders without double counting demand. Planners can select the enforce demand
time fence plan option and forecasts inside the demand time fence are not included as
demands in the plan.
During plan definition, the planner can select forecast spreading option. For example, if
the forecast is a weekly forecast, the planner can choose to spread the forecast to daily
buckets and also optionally set the forecast consumption forward and backward day
controls. This allows the planner to accept aggregate (weekly or period) forecasts and
more accurately plan supplies in daily buckets.
3.18.2.12. Respect Demand Priority Rules
Demand priority rules can be specified at the plan level, allowing the planner to easily
compare results from two different plans using different demand prioritization
approaches. Demand priority rules control the sequence of demand priorities assigned to
all demands. The most urgent demands have the best chance of being satisfied on time.
Alternatively, Rapid Planning can use externally specified demand priorities for sales
orders and forecasts.
3.18.2.13. Demand and Supply Pegging
Rapid Planning pegging links supplies to demands so that the planner can easily identify
demand impacts when supply dates change. The planner can use pegging to trace
component or resource problems up to the affected sales orders. Pegging also enables
the planner to identify which supplies are linked to critical demands and ensure that
those supplies remain on schedule.
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3.18.2.14. Supply Chain Sourcing

Rapid Planning is compatible with the sourcing rules, bills of distribution and
assignment sets used by Oracle Purchasing or upload supply chain sourcing definitions
via file loaders. Sourcing rules and bills of distribution determine the movement of
materials between organizations in your global enterprise; these organizations include
your suppliers and the materials include those items made at the manufacturing
organizations.
Sourcing rules and bills of distribution specify dateeffective sourcing strategies,
combining replenishment sources with source rankings. Users can flexibly assign
sourcing rules to individual items, categories, organizations and regions to define the
complete supply chain from suppliers to customers.
Rapid Planning can select primary or alternate sources depending on supply constraints
to provide the best demand satisfaction dates. If Rapid Planning selects an alternate
organization to source an order, then the selection is reported by the exception message
Order Sourced from Alternate Facility.
3.18.2.15. Supplier Capacity
You can specify timephased capacity of individual suppliers to specific items in Oracle
Purchasing or upload supplier capacity via file loaders. Rapid Planning can allocate
planned orders based the constraints of the suppliers. Planned orders are assigned
supplier sources in respect to their capacity. Rapid Planning uses the ranking
information you specify in sourcing rules and first attempts to source the planned orders
with the primary sources. If the capacity to fulfill the demand is not available, alternative
sources are used. If the order is sourced from an alternate supplier, then the selection is
reported by the exception message Order Sourced from Alternate Supplier.
You can specify item-supplier lead times and supplier capacity calendars. Rapid
Planning recognizes the item-supplier specific parameters and applies them as sources of
supply are evaluated to find supply that meets a demand on time. Users can also enter
item-supplier specific order modifiers.
The supplier capacity calendar governs how supplier capacity is accumulated over a
period of time. Supplier capacity is only accumulated on the working days according to
the supplier capacity calendar. The supplier capacity calendar also governs how the
supplier processing time is calculated.
3.18.2.16. Bills of Material and BOM Effectivity
Rapid Planning is integrated with Oracle BOM or you can upload bills of material and
routings via file loaders. It supports single-level and multi-level bills of material. Rapid
Planning recognizes and recommends substitute components when primary components
are delayed or not available. Substitute component selections are reported by the
exception message Planned Order uses Substitute Component.
If alternate bills of material are specified, then the alternate bill may be recommended if
there are supply constraints on the primary bill of material and routing. Alternate bills of
material selections are reported by the exception message Planned Order uses Alternate
BOM/Routing.
Rapid Planning respects BOM effectivity dates. The planning engine will calculate
component requirements based on the BOM effectivity date and also considering
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component effectivity dates. Rapid Planning evaluates the engineering change orders as
of their scheduled effective date. You can order material and plan resources that you
need for new revisions ahead of time.
3.18.2.17. By-products and Co-products
By-products and co-products specified on the BOM are evaluated by Rapid Planning.
New planned orders include by-products and co-products which can be used as supply
available on the completion dates. Rapid Planning also uses existing WIP standard and
non-standard job by-products and co-products as available supply.
3.18.2.18. Routing Operation and Resource Scheduling
Rapid Planning constrained planning respects resource capacity and schedules new
planned orders and existing discrete jobs to avoid resource capacity overloads. You can
define routings, resources and resource capacity in Oracle BOM or upload via file
loaders.
You can specify simultaneous resources and set the maximum assigned units for each
resource requirement to control scheduling results. Resource efficiency and utilization
are used by Rapid Planning resource requirement calculations.
If you can specify alternate resources, Rapid Planning selects alternates and schedules
around constraints on primary resources to meet demands on time. Rapid Planning also
chooses alternate routings when required because of constraints on the primary BOM
and routing. Alternate selections reported with the exception messages Planned Order
uses Alternate Resource and Planned Order uses Alternate BOM/Routing.
Rapid Planning respects routing effectivity dates. Resource requirements are generated
using routings which are effective on the start date of the planned order.
Planners can select certain bottleneck resources to perform constrained planning. Other
resources are planned in an unconstrained mode using the resource lead time during
scheduling. Rapid Planning creates schedules that do not overload the selected
bottleneck resources and reports overloads on the non-bottleneck resources. This allows
the planner to focus on the critical bottleneck resources.
3.18.2.19. End Item Substitution
Rapid Planning uses end item substitution rules to find acceptable substitute item
supplies when the requested item is not available for the demand request date.
Substitution is based on user-defined rules that can be effective either in one direction or
in both directions; defining a chain of substitution relationships. Customer specific item
substitution rules can also be specified which are respected by Rapid Planning when
searching for supplies for that customers demands. When item substitutes are selected,
Rapid Planning alerts the planning with the exception message Demand Satisfied Using
End Item Substitution.
3.18.2.20. Lead Times and Planning Time Fence
Rapid Planning respects manufacturing and purchasing lead times. Users can set preprocessing, processing and post-processing lead times. Rapid Planning constraint based
planning respects these lead times. Rapid Planning respects planning time fences
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defined at the item organization level which allows the user to freeze the schedule during
the initial periods of the plan.
3.18.2.21. Order Modifiers
Rapid Planning includes the user specified order modifiers at the item organization level
and creates new planned orders respecting the order modifiers. Order modifiers
respected include minimum order size, maximum order size, fixed order quantity, fixed
lot multiplier and round order quantity. Additionally, users can specify supplier specific
order modifiers which are respected by Rapid Planning when creating new planned
orders sourced from the supplier.
3.18.2.22. Safety Stock Lead Time
Rapid Planning considers safety stock lead time that is user controllable at the item
organization level. Safety stock lead time is a lead time that you add to the normal lead
time of make and buy items. You use it to instruct the planning engine to schedule
supplies in advance of the demand due dates that peg to them. This creates an inventory
buffer to protect against fluctuations in lead time, demand (for example, forecast error),
and supply (for example, variable supplier lead times and irregular operation yields)
3.18.2.23. Shipping, Receiving and Carrier Calendars
Rapid Planning plans a variety of supply chain activities like manufacturing, inter facility
shipments, purchases, and shipment to customers. Each of these activities is controlled
by a set of calendars. Manufacturing, supplier, and customer facilities may be able to
ship or receive goods on specific days. Rapid Planning schedules each type of supply or
demand considering the working and non working days in the appropriate set of
calendars.
The shipping calendar indicates the valid working days for shipment activities
originating from suppliers and organizations. The planning engine does not recommend a
shipment out from those facilities if the date is a non-working day.
The receiving calendar governs the receiving activities at the organizations or customer
sites that receive goods. The planning engine allows organizations to receive shipments
only on a working day.
The carrier calendar indicates the working and non-working days and times for material
that is in transit using different means of transport. For example, certain methods of
shipment such as parcel carriers may not work on weekends. This may cause the transit
time to be stretched over the weekends.
3.18.2.24. Planner Action: Firm Existing Supplies
Planners can review existing WIP jobs and purchase orders while comparing to the
pegged demands. When required, the planner can pull in or push out the existing supply
and firm it. Rapid Planning respects the firm flag by not changing the schedule dates and
by consuming material and resource capacity before scheduling non-firm supplies.
Rapid Planning reports any overload situations caused by firm supplies.
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3.18.2.25. Planner Action: Firm Planned Supplies

Planners can review new planned make and buy orders while comparing to the pegged
demands. When required, the planner can pull in or push out the new planned orders and
selectively firm the planned orders. Rapid Planning respects the firm flag by not
changing the schedule dates and by consuming material and resource capacity before
scheduling non-firm supplies. Rapid Planning reports any overload situations caused by
firm planned orders.
3.18.2.26. Release New Planned Orders and Reschedule Recommendations
Planners can easily release recommendations from Rapid Planning to execution systems.
Planners can selectively release planning recommendations or choose to release all
recommendations. Planners can adjust recommendation due dates and then release the
new planned orders or the reschedule of existing planned orders
New planned make orders are released with an alternate BOM/Routing recommendation.
If Rapid Planning selects substitute components and alternate resources, these selections
are also be released as part of the make order.
Rapid Planning allows the user to specify the auto-release of planned orders within the
release time fence. Users can set the release time as the item organization attribute.
Auto-release of planned orders occurs immediately after the Rapid Planning plan
processes complete.
Rapid Planning release processes are fully integrated with Oracle Purchasing and Order
WIP. The release processes also allow for integration to third party systems.
3.18.2.27. Exceptions
Rapid Planning generates the following 24 exception types, and are displayed within the
"Exceptions" view in Rapid Planning.
Past Due Sales Orders

Late Replenishment for Sales Order
Late Replenishment for Forecast
Demand Quantity Not Satisfied
Resource Overloaded
Exception: Supplier Capacity Overloaded
Items with a Shortage
Items below Safety Stock
Items with Excess Inventory
Past Due Orders
Orders to be rescheduled out
Orders to be cancelled
Orders to be rescheduled in
Order with Insufficient Lead Time
Sales Order/Forecast at Risk due to a resource shortage
Sales Order/Forecast at Risk due to material shortage
Late Supply pegged to Forecast
Late supply pegged to Sales Order
Planned Order uses alternate BOM/Routing
Planned Order uses Substitute Component
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Planned Order uses Alternate Resource

Order Sourced from Alternate Facility
Order sourced from Alternate Supplier
Demand Satisfied Using End Item Substitution
Exceptions are generated only when a plan run has completed, and are not regenerated
when manual edits are made to a plan.
Users can choose to enable or disable the display of specific exception types, and specify
their arrangement within the Exceptions view through a configuration mechanism.
Within an exception type, users can specify search criteria or filters to specify the
exceptions that must be displayed. Search criteria can be saved with a user specified
name for future use.
From an exception, navigation to other related Rapid Planning views has been provided
in context of the exceptions attributes (Item, Org, Resource, etc). Exceptions generated
in Rapid Planning can be exported to MS Excel for further analysis.
When Plan Comparison is enabled in Rapid Planning, exceptions for the base plan and
compared plan for an exception type are displayed in adjacent tabs. The name of the
exception type also has the name of the associated plan to easily identify which plan the
listed exceptions belong to.
3.18.2.28. Embedded Analytics
KPIs/Metrics are displayed in Rapid Planning in a separate Analytics view. Rapid
Planning can display the following plan metrics:
Stock Outs (in days)

Fill Rate (%)
Inventory Turns
Safety Stock violations (in days)
Revenue
Gross margin (%)
Manufacturing Cost
Purchasing Cost
On Time Orders (%)
Resource Utilization (%)
Supplier Capacity Utilization (%)
Clear to Build (% of orders)
Clear to Build Component Availability (%)
Ready to Build (%)
Top N Shortage Components (%)
In addition to the above metrics, Rapid Planning can also display different facts (Count,
Quantity, Value, etc) for the supported exception types as metrics.
Selection of the metrics that must be displayed, their display levels, associated filter
conditions, and their layout within the Analytics view can be configured at a user level.
In a Plan Comparison mode, values from both the base and the compared plans are
shown together for easy visibility and comparison.
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The Analytics view also enables the comparison of end order satisfaction across two
plans within an Order Comparison region. To easily compare end demands planned
differently across the base and compared plans, seeded comparison mechanisms (e.g.
Was On Time, Now Late) are provided. Search capabilities are also provided to
restrict the comparison to a user defined selection.
3.18.2.29. Late Demand Diagnosis
Rapid Planning generates, for each late demand, root cause information that can be
viewed in a new Constraints view. The view tells the planner what material and resource
constraints caused the demand to be satisfied late, as well as an assessment of how
severe each constraint is.
For every late demand, Rapid Planning will report the following types of constraints:
Material Constraint
o Lead Time Constraint
o Planning Time Fence Constraint
o Date Effectivity Constraint
o WIP Window Constraint
Resource Constraint
Supplier Constraint
These constraints will be reported along all alternate paths: alternate resources on
routings, substitute components on bills of material, alternate bills of material and
routings, alternate sources on sourcing rules, and end item substitutes.
Each constraint will have information such as requested date, requested quantity,
available quantity, shortage (both in absolute quantity and percentage terms) so that
planners can immediately see what actions to take to resolve each late fulfillment of a
demand.
3.18.2.30. Global Forecasting
Global forecasting allows you to define forecasts without the context of a shipment
organization. This is done in Oracle Demand Management. Forecasts can have reference
to ship-to entities such as customer site and zone. You can choose a ship-to consumption
level in Rapid Planning.
You can use sourcing rules to distribute consumed global forecasts to appropriate
shipment organizations. Forecast distribution is performed in an unconstrained manner
based on the user defined percentages in the sourcing rules. Rapid Planning issues
exception messages when a distributed forecast demand at an organization cannot be met
on time by supply in that organization.
3.18.2.31. Configure to Order
Rapid Planning supports configure to order environments. Rapid Planning can accept
forecasts for assemble to order (ATO) models and pick to order (PTO) models as
demand schedules. ATO and PTO forecasts from Oracle Demand Management and EBusiness Suite R12 and R11i10 are supported.
Single level and multi-level ATO models are supported by Rapid Planning. Multi-level
ATO models include models at lower levels of the BOM structure. Configured to order
sales orders consume model forecasts at each level of the multi-level model. Rapid
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Planning will plan for the unconsumed model, option and option class forecasts as well
as planning for the configured items. Supplies are scheduled and created as needed for
all lower levels.
You can provide pre-exploded forecast values of your ATO and PTO models and
components to Rapid Planning. Configured sales orders consume the model and lower
level forecasts. Rapid Planning supports forecast consumption at various levels such as
customer, customer site, zone (global forecasts), demand class, and item organization.
Rapid Planning can also optionally explode the forecast for the top level model. Model
forecasts are exploded to option, option class and component forecasts within Rapid
Planning using the 'Explode Forecast' plan option. After forecast explosion, Rapid
Planning will consume and plan supplies for the unconsumed forecast demand at each
level.
Multi-level multi-organization models are supported. A multi-organization model is one
which contains top level or some lower-level models which are transferred between
organizations. If you have multi-organization models you must use global forecasting for
forecast consumption to be correct.
Rapid Planning distributes global forecasts for ATO and PTO models across
organizations based on the user-specified sourcing rule percentages. The global forecasts
can be consumed at different levels such as Global (Item), Organization, Customer,
Customer Site, and Zone.
Rapid Planning plans only consider ATO sales orders after they have been progressed to
include a linked configured item. This allows Rapid Planning to schedule these sales
orders with all the capabilities provided for standard items - for example, to net existing
supplies of pre-configured stock at any supply chain bill of material level.
A forecast for a lower level ATO configuration that will be stocked will be consumed by
a sales order for the top level configured model. Rapid Planning will consume the
forecast for this specific configuration first. Any remaining demand will then consume
the forecast for the associated ATO model.
For procured configurations, Rapid Planning allows you to plan based on the aggregate
capacity of the supplier-supplier site to build the base model. A supplier capacity
statement for the ATO model is consumed by the ATO items that are created based on
this model. KPIs illustrating supplier capacity metrics, as well as exception messages are
provided to help you make an informed decision.
3.18.2.32. Default Order Sizing
Rapid Planning provides support for default order sizing to improve scheduling results.
Smaller order sizes improve scheduling flexibility which leads to higher fill rates and on
time supplies. In the absence of order modifiers, Rapid Planning sizes orders to daily
production capacity. When some capacity is consumed on a day, Rapid Planning reduces
the order size to fit within the remaining capacity in a day.
Users can override the default order sizing algorithm by specifying a new itemorganization attribute called planning unit of work. The user can set planning unit of
work to the number of hours for the duration of the maximum order size. For example,
set planning unit of work to 8 hours and the resulting new planned orders will not exceed
8 hour shifts in duration.
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User can set the planning unit of work to larger than daily capacities and Rapid Planning
will create new planned orders that typically span several days up to the specified
planning unit of work.
The default order sizing does not override existing item-organization order modifiers.
For example, if the fixed order quantity is specified, then all order sizes equal fixed order
quantity without regard to the planning unit of work. Default order sizing is only applied
to new planned orders and does not affect the quantity of an existing supply.
Rapid Planning recognizes on hand inventory reservations to sales orders. The on hand
supply that is reserved to a sales order cannot be used for any other demand.
Reservations for both full and partial demand quantities are supported. In the case of a
partial reservation, Rapid Planning schedules supplies for the unreserved quantity of the
sales order.
Rapid Planning generates pegging of on-hand supply to sales orders that matches the
reservations recorded in the source transaction system. In the supply and demand
window, each sales order demand includes a new field which displays the quantity of on
hand inventory that is reserved to the sales order.
3.18.2.34. Clear to Build
A make order (planned make order, WIP job, etc.) is Clear to Build if all its
component requirements are pegged to on-hand supply.
Rapid Planning provides visibility to the Clear to Build status of Make Orders, both at
the individual make order level as well as at aggregate levels through new key
performance indicators (KPIs). The Clear to Build status on make orders are visible
through new order level attributes: Clear to Build Status, Ready to Build %, Clear
to Build Date, and Clear to Build Component Availability %. Equivalent KPIs can be
configured to view these attributes at aggregate levels.
Rapid Planning also allows user to control allocation of scarce on-hand component
supply to make orders by explicitly prioritizing or de-prioritizing specific make orders.
This can be achieved through a new Rapid Planning view called the Clear to Build
Dashboard. The dashboard allows a user to:
Search for the make orders for which the user wants the Clear to Build status to
be improved;
Prioritize specific make orders for Clear to Build this results in on-hand being
allocated to these make orders preferentially when the plan is launched next;
View contentions for selected make orders contentions are other make orders
that share common components; these make orders could potentially contribute
to the improvement of the clear to build status of the target orders;
Selectively de-prioritize certain make orders from allocation of on-hand these
selected orders will be given lower priority when on-hand is allocated to Make
Orders in the next plan run;
View how a specific component is allocated to multiple make orders, and
prioritize or de-prioritize make orders for on-hand allocation based on this
component allocation view.
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3.18.2.35. Rapid Planning Sales and Operations Planning Integration

Rapid Planning plans will be visible in Demantra Real-time Sales and Operations
Planning. The integration between Rapid Planning and Real-time Sales and Operations
Planning is similar to the existing Advanced Supply Chain Planning to Real-time Sales
and Operations Planning integration. You can export consensus forecast data from Realtime Sales and Operations Planning to Rapid Planning plan. You can read the supply
data from a Rapid Planning plan back into Real-time Sales and Operations Planning.
This data from the Rapid Planning plan will now be visible in Real-time Sales and
Operations Planning worksheets.
3.18.2.36. Rapid Planning Global Order Promising Integration
Rapid Planning plans can now be used by Global Order Promising (GOP) to promise
orders. The supply from this plan is considered by GOP when promising orders if GOP is
set up to promise orders against a plan output. If there are a mix of ASCP and Rapid
Planning plans that have supplies for an Item/Org, GOP accords the highest preference to
supply from a Rapid Planning plan. Rapid Planning GOP integration allows an
enterprise to react quickly to unforeseen events, by enabling quick integration between
planning simulations and the order promising process.
24 by 7 ATP is not enabled against Rapid Planning plans. Also, any inserts that GOP
makes into the plan (Sales Orders, Planned Orders, etc.) will not be visible within the
Rapid Planning plan itself. Any Rapid Planning plan that is enabled for ATP will not be
editable. This avoids inconsistencies between the current output of the Rapid Planning
plan and the version against which GOP is promising orders.
3.18.2.37. Order Comparison
In a Plan Comparison mode, Rapid Plannings Analytics view now has an additional tab
that displays Order Comparison. This allows users to compare demand satisfaction of
sales orders across two plans intelligently. Users can view which demands were planned
on time in the base plan, but are delayed in the comparison plan and vice versa, and
which demands have increased or decreased their lateness in the comparison plan versus
the base plan.
A search region allows users to query up only sales orders of interest for example,
sales orders for specific items, or sales orders at specific organizations.
3.18.2.38. Multi-Planner Collaboration
Rapid Planning allows a user to save changes made to data in Rapid Planning to a
simulation set. A user can save a specific record, multiple records within a Rapid
Planning view, or changes across multiple Rapid Planning views to a named simulation
set through a single click action.
Multiple planners can thus work on simulation copies of a base plan and save the results
of their simulation to a common simulation set. When the base plan is launched again
with reference to this simulation set, all the user changes will be considered in the next
version of the Rapid Planning plan.
3.18.2.39. Functional and Data Security
This enhancement provides Rapid Planning with:
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Functional Security
This is the ability to dictate which functions (Create, Update / Edit, Delete,
Launch, Save, Close, Load, Copy, and Release) a responsibility should have
access to.
Data Security
3.18.3.
Data access can be controlled at two levels.

o Organization: Here, you can assign organizations to a responsibility.
Then, users with that responsibility will have access to (i) all Plans in
which the organizations exist and (ii) all items within those
organizations.
o Plan: A user creating a plan can mark the Plan as Private or Public. A
Public plan is accessible by all responsibilities (and, as a result, by all
users) provided they have the necessary Organization level security
granted. A Private plan is only accessible by specific users to whom
access has been granted (access is granted by the user who created the
plan and marked it as Private). In case of Private plans, users will have
access all items and organizations within that plan. However, the
actions the user can take are controlled by the Function Security of the
users responsibility.
Release 12.1.3+
3.18.3.1. Demand Pull-In and Upside Processing
This feature allows Rapid Planning to seek to improve on the fulfillment date of a
demand while guaranteeing that no previously committed date for any demand will be
made any worse. Rapid Planning can now plan considering multiple dates with different
priorities on a single demand. This enables planners to maximize revenue by trying to
meet new, revised Request Dates from customers, but when they cannot, fall back to
previously committed dates - including preserving the supply allocation (pegging).
This feature enables Rapid Planning to better utilize excess inventory and potentially
improve fill rates. It lets planners improve responsiveness by providing the ability to
improve to request date, but guarantee promise date / commit date.
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In the example illustrated above, a demand is initially committed for week 7. There is
excess inventory from weeks 3 to 6. If the customer comes up with a request to satisfy
the demand by week 2, Rapid Planning will now try to satisfy the demand on the feasible
date closest to the new request date, in this case week 3. In the cases where it cannot
improve the earlier commit date, the earlier commit date is preserved.
Rapid Planning generates two new exceptions:
Late Replenishment for a Pull-in Sales Order/Forecast: Generated whenever any

partial quantity of the demand is met after the revised demand date.
Sales Order / Forecast Pulled in: Generated whenever the demand is satisfied
prior to the original demand satisfied date.
If a demand is partially met on a revised demand date and partially met on the earlier
commit date, both the above exceptions will be generated for that demand.
Based on the above two exceptions, Rapid Planning also generates the following new
measures for analysis that users can use to create graphs in the analytics tab of the Rapid
Planning workbench.
Late Replenishment for a Pull-in Sales Order (Count, Value, Days, Quantity)
Late Replenishment for a Pull-in Forecast (Count, Value, Days, Quantity)
Sales Order Pulled-in (Count, Value, Quantity by Demand Date, Quantity by

Revised Date)
Forecasts Pulled-in (Count, Value, Quantity by Demand Date, Quantity by

Revised Date)
Based on the successful pull-ins, planners can now also release the changes to sales
orders from the workbench to the source system's Order Management application to send
the updates to quantity and the scheduled ship date.
3.18.3.2. Favorite Lists
This feature allows users to create user-defined lists of items, resources and suppliers
and save them as favorite lists that can be used later as a shortcut to all the related
information about those items, resources or suppliers. Users can have multiple named
lists per user, accessible across plans.
They can access the lists from the left navigator pane and drill using an easy, single-click
navigation to Material/Resource Plans, Exceptions, Supplies and Demands for multiple
items, resources or suppliers.
Static Lists
Users can create a list with an enumerated list of items, resources and/or suppliers by
saving to a favorite list from other views in the workbench including Items, Resources,
Suppliers, and Supplies and Demands.
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Users can organize the order of the list to reflect supply chain structure by using move
up/down actions. This will enable navigation to the Material Plan that places items in
supply chain bill order: for example, assembly, sub-assembly, then components.
Dynamic Lists
Users can also create lists based on certain conditions that then construct the list
dynamically every time. For example, users can create a list based on a condition like
'Bottom 10 items based on fill rate %'. Users will then see the resultant list based on the
plan. Users can use any of the following measures to create these dynamic lists
Fill Rate %
Inventory Turns
On time Orders %
Late Replenishment for Sales Order / Forecast (value)
Demand Quantity not Satisfied (value)
Resource Utilization %
Supplier Capacity Utilization %
Purchasing Cost
Users can create these dynamic lists by creating a metric in the analytics tab using any of
the above measures with any of these applicable dimensions ("view by") - Item,
Organization, Resource or Supplier.
3.18.3.3. Safety Stock Enhancements
This enhancement enables users to view an items safety stock profile in quantity (units)
even though the planning was done using a safety stock lead time approach. It also lets
planners use time-phased safety stock quantity (units) as input to calculate the safety
stock lead time.
This enables Rapid Planning to be easily integrated with other applications that generate
safety stock quantity in units. It also provides an easy to understand view of supply and
demand that includes the safety stock (target and actual) expressed in quantity (units).
The safety stock lead time is calculated from the safety stock quantity using a simple
formula:
Safety Stock Lead Time (Days) = Avg (Safety Stock Quantity) /
Avg Daily Demand in the Plan
The material plan displays two additional measures:
Target Safety Stock: This is the time-phased safety stock quantity that is defined
by the user or collected from a source system.
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Actual Safety Stock: This is the safety stock quantity that the plan has planned
for. Though the plan has actually planned using a safety lead time approach, it is
displayed in terms of quantity by converting the safety lead time into safety stock
quantity (not time phased) using the formula above.
Users can enable this behavior of deriving the safety stock lead time from the quantity
(instead from the safety stock %) using a new plan option called Safety Stock Lead Time
Method.
In addition to the above, users also have the option to input a non-time phased safety
stock quantity for each item using a new item attribute called 'Target Safety Stock
Override'.
3.18.3.4. Simulation Edits of Additional Item Attributes
Users can now do what-if simulation based on more item attributes listed below:
Planning Time Fence Days
Release Time Fence Days
Demand Time Fence Days
Selling Price
Standard Cost
Discount %
Users can edit these and see the impacts on plan recommendations and cost metrics after
running a simulation. Edits to Demand Time Fence Days and Release Time Fence Days
are only applicable in plan inputs mode using simulation sets. For all the above attributes
users can use the standard mass update features like Increase by, Decrease by, Increase
by %, Decrease by %, Set Value To, Reset to Original.
The impact of these user changes on the time fence attributes and the cost/price
attributes can be seen (after running the plan) on exceptions such as Orders to be
Rescheduled In and measures such as Revenues and Gross Margin.
3.18.3.5. Simulation Edits of Approved Supplier Lists and Supplier Capacity
Users can now do what-if simulation based on attributes of Approved Supplier Lists and
Supplier Capacity as listed below.
Approved Supplier List attributes

o
Processing Lead Time
Min Order Qty
Fixed Lot Multiplier
Supplier Price
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Supplier Capacity attributes

o
From Date
To Date
Capacity
Users can simulate changes to these attributes in a specific plan or as part of a simulation
set that can be used across plans.
However, users cannot add a new Approved Supplier (Item-Supplier) entry that does not
already exist. Also this is still applicable only for global Approved Supplier Lists: any
update to a single org propagates to all orgs.
Users can view the impact of these simulation changes in all related measures. For
example, a what-if change to supplier price impacts related purchasing metrics.
3.18.3.6. Simulation Edits of Processes
Users can now do what-if simulation based on changes to their manufacturing processes
(routings). Users can copy (duplicate) an existing operation or activity and edit any of
the following attributes to either create a new operation and/or activity in that operation.
However, users cannot create new routings. The following attributes of the routing
operations and activities can be updated:
Disable Date (operation)
Effective Date (operation)
Operation Yield
Resource
Assigned Units
Rate or Amount
Users can use these attributes to simulate changes to their manufacturing processes in a
specific plan or as part of a simulation set that can be used across plans.
3.18.3.7. Mass Update Enhancements for Resource Availability
Mass updates to the fields From Time and To Time now support additional operators:
'Decrease by' and 'Increase by'. In addition, mass updates to To Time also support the
relative date/time operator 'From Time+'. This takes a positive or a negative number (say
'n') and sets the To Time to 'n' hours relative to the From Time. This lets users to do
actions such as shorten all shifts in a week by 1 hour in a single update even though
there are multiple shifts with different To Time's.
Whenever the action results in the To Time being earlier than From Time, it will be
interpreted as a shift ending the next day. These mass update actions are available in both
plans and plan inputs.
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3.18.3.8. Mass Update Enhancements for Firm Date on Demands and Supplies
Mass updates to the field Firm Date now support additional operators: 'Decrease by',
'Increase by', 'Request Date+' and 'Suggested Due Date+'. The last two operators take a
positive or a negative number (say 'n') and set the Firm Date to 'n' days relative to the
Request Date or the Suggested Due Date. This lets users to do actions like firm all Sales
Order demands for an item to their respective request dates in a single update even
though the dates are all different.
All Date operations in this mass update are based on calendar (24x7) days and not
working days. These mass update actions are available in both plans and plan inputs.
3.18.3.9. Scheduling Rapid Planning Runs in Batch Mode
Prior to this release, plans in Rapid Planning could be launched only in interactive mode.
This feature lets users to schedule the Rapid Planning plan run in the background using a
new concurrent program Launch Simulation Planner.
While launching this program, users have the option to either calculate the lateness
constraints or not; and to save the plan (to the database), close the plan (in which case it
would not be immediately available for simulation), or do nothing (keep the plan
available for simulation). Plans launched in this mode are always launched with refresh
snapshot.
3.18.3.10. Enhanced Search Capability
This enhancement enables additional search operators for fields Item and Resource in all
views. The search operators will now include, apart from the standard 'Equal To'
operator, the 'Starts With' and 'Contains' operators.
In addition, in the Material Plan and Resource Plan views, these two fields Item and
Resource have a new 'Among' operator where users can select multiple items or
resources to be displayed in the results.
3.18.3.11. Material Plan Display Order
This enhancement supports display of Material Plan in a user-defined item order. The
sequence of items listed in the Material Plan will be derived from the sort order seen in
the view that the user is coming into the Material Plan from (including Favorites List,
Items, Supply and Demand, Bill of Materials, and Exceptions.). If the default Material
Plan layout for the user is set to Category or Category-Org, the Material Plan is displayed
in the order of the categories corresponding to the sorted selected items.
This lets users to structure the Material Plan views in the same order as their supply
chain structure starting from the assembly all the way down to the components.
3.18.3.12. Display of Decimal Precision
This feature enables users to have control on the maximum number of decimal digits
displayed for different types of numeric fields displayed in the workbench using a set of
responsibility-level profile options. Here is the list of profile options and the types of
fields they control.
MSC: Max display decimals for Quantity
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MSC: Max display decimals for Time
MSC: Max display decimals for Quantity (aggregates)
MSC: Max display decimals for Time (aggregates)
MSC: Max display decimals for Currency
MSC: Max display decimals for Ratios/Percentages
Profile option (3) above controls the display of all aggregate quantities especially in the
Material Plan and in Analytics, and profile option (4) above controls the display of all
aggregate time/hours in the Resource Plan and in Analytics. The rest of the profiles
control the display of decimals in all other views for the type of fields indicated above.
These profiles are only for display purposes and do not control the precision of the
internal values or the editable decimal precision.
3.18.3.13. Last Saved Information for Plan Options
The plan options window now displays the fields Last Saved By and Last Saved Date to
indicate who last updated the plan and when the plan was last updated. These fields are
also updated when a plan is run with the details of time of plan run and the user that ran
the plan.
3.18.3.14. Blow Through Phantom Items in Clear to Build
The Clear to Build workbenchs Component Allocation View has been enhanced to
display the actual components required by a make order by blowing through the make
items phantom sub-assemblies. This provides visibility into the real component
requirements for the make order and allows the user to reallocate scarce component
availability as required.
3.18.3.15. Global Forecasting Display in the Material Plan
Global forecasting allows you to define forecasts without the context of a shipment
organization. You can use sourcing rules to distribute consumed global forecasts to
appropriate shipment organizations. Forecast distribution is performed in an
unconstrained manner based on the user defined percentages in the sourcing rules.
With this release of Rapid Planning, the Material Plan has been enhanced to display
global forecasts. This provides users with the ability to view the original global forecast
quantities, forecast consumption and the distribution of the global forecasts to specific
organizations. The Material Plan view of global forecasts also shows the spreading of
forecasts to the various time buckets.
3.18.3.16. Auto-release of Planning Recommendations
Rapid Planning now supports the auto-release of new planned orders. This is controlled
with a new plan option, Enable Auto Release. Users can set the release time fence by
editing an item-organization attribute. Rapid Planning will automatically release new
planned orders when the suggested start date is inside the release time fence.
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Rapid Planning also supports the auto-release of reschedules and cancelations. This is
controlled with a new plan option, Auto Release Reschedules. The release time fence
item attribute also determines when auto release of reschedules and cancelations is
performed.
Simulation planning in Rapid Planning has been enhanced to work seamlessly with the
release of planned orders and reschedules. If recommendations are released, the
simulation plan remembers what was released and does not create duplicate supplies.
As planners release planned orders and then simulate new conditions, the plan has a
record of what has already been released. The simulation plan treats the released plan
orders as firm supplies.
3.18.3.17. Natural Time Fence
Rapid Planning now supports the natural time fence. A new plan option called Create
Time Fence has been provided in the Advanced tab of plan options. When checked, the
planning engine will evaluate existing firm supplies for an item and use the latest
completion date as the new planning time fence date for the item. This allows the planner
or the shop floor scheduler or purchasing agent to firm a schedule of supplies, and new
planned orders will not be created earlier than the firmed supplies.
Two additional profile options are provided in the Advanced tab to extend the use of the
natural time fence. The option Firm Planned Order Time Fence instructs the planning
engine to create a natural time fence on the completion date of the latest firm planned
order. The option Firm Internal Requisition Time Fence instructs the planning engine to
create a natural time fence on the completion date of the latest firm internal requisition.
3.18.3.18. Multiple Analytics Layouts per User
Rapid Planning now supports having multiple layouts in the Analytics tab. Users can
save different groups of metrics in different named layouts to represent different areas of
functional analysis: financial metrics, resource utilization metrics, etc. They can easily
switch between different layouts but select one of them as a default layout.
3.18.3.19. Enhanced Sales Order Comparison View

Rapid Planning has an enhanced order comparison view where users can see a single,
unified list of all sales orders that are different between two plans. The list can include
orders which are different in any or all of the following ways.
Was on time, now late

Was late, now on time
Was late, now less late
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Was late, now more late
Earlier users had to view these sets of differences separately. Now the comparison page
supports search based on more than one comparison type.
3.18.3.20. Revenue by Week

Rapid Planning now supports display of the revenue metric by week. In addition to the
current dimensions, the revenue metric now supports this new time dimension.
This feature enables users to do a better analysis and comparison of demand pull-in
scenarios, new product launch scenarios, etc. using time-based revenue trend analysis.
3.18.3.21. Quantity-based Safety Stock
Rapid Planning now supports, in addition to safety lead time, quantity-based safety
stock. This is activated via a new plan option, Safety Stock Planning Method. Valid
values are: Do Not Plan Safety Stock, Use Safety Stock Lead Time from Safety Stock
Percent (the behavior prior to this release), Use Safety Stock Quantities. If the last option
is selected, Rapid Planning will use either the safety stock quantity specified in Oracle
Inventory, or calculate a dynamic safety stock quantity based on the number of days
expressed via the Safety Stock Percent item attribute. Rapid Planning supports
smoothing of quantity-based safety stock targets, as dictated by the existing ASCP
profile options MSC: Safety stock change interval (Days), MSC: Smoothing method to
calculate Safety stock within Change interval, MSC: Apply Safety Stock Change interval
to non MRP Planned Safety Stock, MSC: Maximum Percentage variation in safety stock
values, and MSC: Minimum Percentage variation in safety stock values.
3.18.3.22. Integration to Inventory Optimization
Rapid Planning accepts time-phased safety stock targets from Inventory Optimization
plans. This is accomplished by listing the Inventory Optimization plan as a demand
schedule in the Rapid Planning plans plan options.
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3.18.3.23. Flexible Consumption of Substitute Component Supplies

You can configure Rapid Planning to prefer consuming existing primary and substitute
component supplies before resorting to generating new planned orders. You can tell
Rapid Planning to consume existing supplies in either primary-then-substitute order or in
substitute-then-primary order. The search for existing supplies is not just at the level of
the end product components, but also extends upstream, resulting in preferential
consumption of existing supplies of subassembly components and raw materials. You
can exempt certain components from this search. This behavior is activated via the new
Component Substitution Logic plan option. This feature allows you to minimize excess
and obsolescence costs and manufacturing and purchasing costs via efficient use-up of
inventory and reductions in new production and procurement recommendations.
3.18.3.24. Integration to Collaborative Planning
You can publish an Order Forecast out of a Rapid Planning plan out to Collaborative
Planning, in order to provide your supplier with advance visibility into your material
requirements. You can receive the Supply Commit response from the supplier from
Collaborative Planning and respect that as a Suppler Capacity constraint in your Rapid
Planning plan. You can publish a Supply Commit out of your Rapid Planning plan out to
Collaborative Planning, in order to provide your customer with visibility to your ability
to meet their order forecast.
3.18.3.25. Integration to Advanced Supply Chain Planning
With this integration, it is possible to use Rapid Planning to perform simulations on top
of a supply chain plan created using Advanced Supply Chain Planning. You can continue
to use ASCP as your daily or weekly planning engine and use Rapid Planning for intraday or intra-week simulations of changes to your business such as changes to demands /
supplies and capacities. Users will be able to create a baseline Rapid Planning plan that
mirrors the ASCP plan on which they want to perform simulations on through a copy
process that copies demands and supplies into Rapid Planning from a reference ASCP
plan. Users can then specify changes to the plan inputs such as new or changed
demands/supplies/capacity. Before running a rapid planning simulation with these
changed inputs, users can also specify what portion of the baseline ASCP plan output
should be considered frozen (and thereby not allowed to be changed by the Rapid
Planning simulation process). The results of the Rapid Planning simulation can be
released to the source systems and/or fed into the next ASCP plan run as firm planned
orders. Users can also compare the extent to which the simulation has changed the
baseline ASCP plan through plan analysis and order comparison capabilities within the
Rapid Planning user interface.
3.18.3.26. Enhanced Integration to Advanced Supply Chain Planning
The integration between Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning and Oracle Rapid
Planning that was initially made available in Release 12.1.3.8 has been enhanced further
in Release 12.1.3.9.
When copying the supply orders from ASCP to Rapid Planning, all the supply
order details such as resource requirements, alternate resource selections,
material requirements, substitute component and alternate BOM selections, will
also be copied over from ASCP to Rapid Planning. This enhancement increases
the degree to which the Rapid Planning plan and the baseline ASCP plan are
aligned at the beginning of the simulation process.
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If safety stock planning is enabled in ASCP, the safety stock quantities will be
copied from ASCP to Rapid Planning and the Rapid Planning plan option Safety
Stock lead time method will be set to Safety Stock Quantity.
All supplies that are selected for freezing through criteria specified in the
Define Incremental Replan Scope screen will be considered Firm All. This
means all the underlying resource and material requirements will also be
considered firm. This enhancement enables planners to better preserve decisions
made in the ASCP plan run while running simulations in Rapid Planning.
The copy process from ASCP to Rapid Planning can be invoked in a batch mode
at the end of the ASCP plan run. This is controlled by a new ASCP Plan launch
parameter, Copy Plan Output to Simulation Plans. This enhancement improves
planner productivity by eliminating the need to perform a manual copy process
each time a simulation needs to be performed.
A Rapid Planning Simulation Set can be specified as an input to an ASCP plan

through a new ASCP plan option Rapid Planning Simulation Set. With this
enhancement users are able to copy their plan changes into a simulation set
within Rapid Planning and make those changes available to the next ASCP plan
run. ASCP will consider the changes that are contained within the Rapid
Planning Simulation Set. Changes contained within the Rapid Planning
simulation set will override changes contained within the Item Simulation Set if
both simulation sets are specified as inputs in ASCP Plan Options. This
enhancement improves the degree of alignment between ASCP and Rapid
Planning by providing a mechanism to communicate to ASCP all the plan input
changes that were made during the simulation process in Rapid Planning.
3.18.3.27. Fixed Days Supply Order Modifier

Rapid Planning respects the order modifiers Fixed Order Quantity, Minimum Order
Quantity, Maximum Order Quantity and Fixed Lot Multiple. In Release 12.1.3.9, Rapid
Planning has been enhanced to also respect the Fixed Days Supply (FDS) order modifier.
For items with the Fixed Days Supply order modifier, Rapid Planning will create planned
orders that are spaced apart by the number of days corresponding to the fixed days of
supply. Each of these planned orders will have a quantity that represents the sum of
demand quantities within the fixed days of supply time window.
When creating planned orders for items with FDS, Rapid Planning will take into account
existing on hands, firm and non firm scheduled receipts, planning time fence and
capacity constraints. Rapid planning will also calculate a measure, Days of Supply,
which represents the number of days of demand that is covered by the projected
available balance at the end of each planning time bucket. An exception message will be
generated if the Days of Supply exceeds the fixed days of supply. Planners can also
perform simulations by changing the Fixed Days Supply for an item within the plan or
using a simulation set.
FDS is fully supported in unconstrained plans. Constrained plans support FDS order
modifiers only for purchased parts.
3.18.3.28. Enforce Sourcing Splits
Supplier contracts or labour agreements might require that a company source its
materials from suppliers or source internally based on specified allocation percentages.
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With Release 12.1.3.9, Rapid Planning has been enhanced to respect sourcing allocation
percentages specified in sourcing rules when creating buy, transfer and make supplies.
This feature is available both in unconstrained and constrained plans and can be enabled
by checking the Enforce Sourcing Splits plan option. Planners can also specify a
sourcing allocation window as a number of days. Rapid Planning will attempt to meet the
prescribed sourcing splits, in a cumulative fashion, within each allocation window inside
the planning horizon. The planning process also takes into account historical sourcing
splits to date (based on plan option Start Date Offset for Sourcing History) when
calculating the cumulative sourcing splits in the plan. Enforcement of sourcing splits is a
lower priority compared to the enforcement of lead time and capacity constraints. These
higher order constraints may cause a deviation between the planned and target sourcing
splits. In such cases, an exception message, Sourcing Split Percentage Violated, will
be generated. The exception message will be generated only if the magnitude of the
deviation exceeds a threshold (specified as a percentage value in the Sourcing Variance
Tolerance plan option.)
3.18.4.
Release 12.2
3.18.4.1. Clear to Build Analysis Enhancements
Rapid Planning's display of Clear to Build information has been enhanced in the
following ways in Release 12.2:
Search criteria when searching for Make Orders in the "Clear to Build
Simulation" work area can be saved with user defined names using the "Saved
Search" feature. (Note: the "Run Automatically" feature within the Saved Search
is not supported.)
Make Orders that are seen in the Make Orders table in the "Clear to Build
Simulation" work area can now be exported to Excel. Note that this is supported
only for the table where the Make Orders are displayed, and not from the table
where contentions are seen.
The following columns have been added to the Make Orders table in the "Clear
to Build Simulation" work area:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Planner
Suggested Order Date
Suggested Ship Date
Actual Start Date
Need By Date
Old Due Date
Revised Demand Date
Original Need By Date
The above columns display the same values as seen for the make order in the
Supply and Demand View. The above are included in the "Clear to Build
Simulation" work area only for better visibility.
Except for "Planner", the above columns are not enabled as searchable fields.
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Minor changes have been made to the table toolbar in the contentions table - the
text "Enter Query by Example Mode" and "Remove from CTB Consideration"
that were visible next to the respective icons have been removed. The text is now
visible as hover text on these icons.
3.18.4.2. Save Plan Performance Enhancement

You can configure Save Plan to perform better for larger data sets by increasing the
number of parallel threads used for this operation. In previous releases, the maximum
thread count was 10. The number of threads used is controlled by the site-level profile
option, MSC: Maximum number of threads for save plan. The minimum number of
threads is 12 to have enough threads to do simultaneous writes to all Rapid Planning
output tables. These tables capture plan data about demands, supplies, resource
requirements, pegging, exceptions, horizontal plans, resource plans, plan constraints,
safety stocks and key performance indicators. Even if you specify less than 12 threads,
Rapid Planning will still use 12 threads if all tables have data.
In addition, the allocation of threads to individual save plan tasks dedicated to each
saved entity has been enhanced to consider the load (table row count) imposed by each
saved entity.
This enhancement allows you to quickly save detailed performance metrics, calculated
measures such as projected available balance, along with plan outputs, for plans that
have large data sets.
3.18.5.
Release 12.2.4
3.18.5.1. Clear to Build Enhancements
Modified Clear to Build Attribute Calculation
The calculation of the Clear to Build attribute on Make Orders (planned and actual)
has changed in this release. Orders that are not Clear to Build have their Clear to Build
statuses marked as No On Time and No At Risk, as compared to only No
earlier.
Make Orders marked No - On Time have component requirements pegged to supplies
that are available by the Need By Date on the order, and thus are expected to be available
on time for the order (on or before the Need By date.) Make Orders marked No At
Risk have component requirements pegged to supplies beyond the orders Need By
Date thus indicating a potential risk the timely completion of the order.
Additional Clear to Build Related Attributes
Clear to Build Date (Purchased Components Only)
This is the date on which all the purchased components required for the make order will
be available.
Delay Due to Clear to Build
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This is the number of days of delay between the expected availability of all components
(Clear to Build Date) and the Need By Date of the order. The number of days is
expressed in working days per the manufacturing calendar of the organization.
Ready to Build Quantity
This is the quantity of the make order that is ready to build at present. It is calculated by
multiplying the Ready to Build % (an existing attribute) with the make order quantity.
Make Order Value
This is the Standard Cost multiplied by the quantity of the order.
Substitute Components Used
This indicates whether the make order is pegged to substitute components. The value of
this attribute is either Yes or No.
Usability Enhancements
The Clear to Build Workbench has been enhanced to support the following:
The Advanced Search in the Clear to Build Make Orders table now supports the
additional search attributes Planner, Suggested Order Date, Suggested Ship Date,
Actual Start Date , Need By Date, Old Due Date, Revised Demand Date, and
Original Need By Date.
All new attributes introduced in this release (see above) will also be available in
Advanced Search.
Query by Example is now supported on the Clear to Build Contentions table.
Export to Excel is not supported on the Clear to Build Contentions table.
3.18.5.2. Ship Sets

A ship set represents a set of sales order lines (within a sales order) that should ship
together at the same time to the customer. EBS order management allows a ship set to be
specified on sales order lines that have the same fulfillment org. Ship sets are often used
to accommodate shipping efficiencies or customer delivery preferences. The planning
process should account for the existence of ship sets by ensuring that all the sales order
lines within a ship set are planned to ship at the same time and the supplies tied to those
sales order lines are also planned accordingly.
In Release 12.2.4 Rapid Planning will plan supplies to meet demands of items that are
part of a ship set. This will be possible in both constrained and unconstrained plans. All
demands that are part of a ship set will have the same demand due date. Rapid Planning
will plan the demands in such a way that individual demands on the same ship sets have
the same demand satisfied dates. In other words, none of the order lines that are part of a
ship set get fulfilled until there are enough supplies to meet each line. The supplies that
peg to the demands within the ship set will be aligned with the common demand satisfied
date of all the demands to the extent allowed by capacity and material constraints. If the
ship set as a whole is late, a late replenishment exception will be raised for each of the
demands within the ship set.
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The ship set value will be displayed as a demand attribute in the Supplies and Demands
window in Rapid Planning. Planners will be able to filter the list of demands by ship set
value and sales order number. Planners will be able to simulate different shipping and
demand satisfaction patterns by changing the ship set value on sales order lines within
the plan and rerunning the plan. Planners can simulate removal of a sales order line from
a ship set, movement of a sales order line from one ship set to another or the creation of a
new ship set within the sales order.
3.18.5.3. Batch Simulation and Plan Copy
Some organizations have the need to automate the execution of a series of planning
processes within Rapid Planning to run in a sequential fashion. One example is the need
to run Rapid Planning with a fresh snapshot of data, make a copy of the plan, evaluate
plan output using a set of pre-defined metrics, change plan data (such as demand
priorities) using a back end process and rerun the plan without a fresh snapshot. Prior to
Release 12.2.4, Rapid Planning supports the ability run a plan with a fresh snapshot in
batch mode. With Release 12.2.4, Rapid Planning will also support the ability to run a
plan without a snapshot in batch mode and the ability to create a copy of a Rapid
Planning plan in batch mode.
The Launch Simulation Planner concurrent program will be enhanced to include a new
parameter Launch Snapshot. If this parameter is set to Yes, the plan is run with a fresh
snapshot and if this parameter is set to No, the plan is run without a fresh snapshot.
A new concurrent program Copy Simulation Plan will be available to copy one Rapid
Planning plan to another in a batch mode.
Customers can schedule plan runs with and without snapshot and create copies of these
plans as needed, interlaced with externally generated updates to the plan data to automate
the end to end business process that surrounds their planning process with Rapid
Planning.
3.18.5.4. Support for Externally Generated Demand Priorities
Many companies are faced with a constantly changing set of business objectives and
priorities that need to be reflected in the planning process. This is especially true in the
area of end demand priorities. Certain customers may be top priority in a given week
only to be superseded by another customer the next week. In such cases, it becomes
almost very challenging from a business process perspective, to codify these business
rules into a form that remains invariant with time. A more practical approach is to
furnish a freshly calculated set of demand priorities on a real time basis to the planning
process and re-align the plan to the fresh set of demand priorities.
With Release 12.2.4, planners will be able to simulate changes to demand priorities
across all or a subset of demands by feeding a set of externally generated demand
priorities as an input to the planning process. Planners should first run a plan with a fresh
snapshot and a default priority rule such as Schedule date to generate a baseline plan.
Planners can then export the demands from the plan, adjust the priorities and/or due
dates of these demands (using any tool of their choice) and upload the updated priorities
to the planning data repository. Finally, planners can rerun the plan (without a fresh
snapshot) to take into account the updated dates and priorities.
The Launch plan process (both within the Rapid Planning user interface and in batch
mode) will include a new parameter called Use Mass Updated Demand Priorities
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which needs to be selected to instruct the planning process to consider the updated
demand priorities. The order priority and suggested due date shown in the user interface
will be reflective of the updated priorities and due dates and the supply plan will be
created in accordance with the new dates and priorities. A new attribute Original Due
Date will store the value of the demand due date prior to the mass update.
3.18.6.
Release 12.2.5
3.18.6.1. Support for Line Rates
Flow manufacturing is a production system in which production (flow) lines and
processes are designed to produce a dynamic mix of products at a nominal constant rate
in each daily bucket. Flow manufacturing uses schedules instead of work orders to drive
production. Flow routings are associated to flow lines with given production rates (line
rates) and daily available hours. Since multiple products can be produced on the same
line, it is possible for the routings of multiple items to be associated with the same flow
line. With this enhancement, Rapid Planning plans supplies by considering the line rate
(maximum) on the line specified in the flow routing. This is possible with both
constrained and unconstrained plans.
Rapid Planning represents the flow routing as a single operation, single resource routing
(where the line is the resource), and uses the inverse of the maximum line rate (the
minimum will be ignored) to determine the usage. Operations specified in the flow
routing are ignored. Resource requirements for planned orders that use flow routings
have operation sequence number and resource sequence number both set to 0, and the
resource is the Line. Components of the item with the flow routing are planned at the
beginning of the supply. Existing supplies in the form of flow schedules are treated as
firm by Rapid Planning.
Rapid Planning treats flow lines as regular resources and raises resource overload and
constraint exceptions where necessary. If you wish to determine the root cause of the
lateness due to a resource constraint, Rapid Plannings Constraint Details provide the
flow line constraints causing the delay. Resource loading information can be viewed in
the Resource Plan screen. For Line resources, the Available Capacity, Required
Capacity, Net Capacity Available and Cum Capacity available are shown as a throughput
rate unlike for regular production resources where they are shown in hours.
Planned Orders can be released to the execution system by running the concurrent
program Push Plan Information. Simulations with flow lines (by running the plan
without refresh snapshot) are possible by editing the Max Rate column in the Resource
Screen and/or the resource uptime and capacity units in the Resource Availability screen.
3.18.6.2. Support for Engineering Change Orders (ECO) based on Use Up
Effectivity
Rapid Planning supports the planning of use-up ECOs (Engineering Change Orders). The
transition from an existing but soon to be retired component to a newly introduced
component in the BOM is governed by the use-up date of the existing component. The
use-up date of the component is calculated as the date on which all its existing supplies
(on hand, purchase orders, etc.) have been consumed by demand.
Any component that is marked as a use up item in an ECO is treated as an item for which
no new planned orders can be created. If you set up a component as a use up component
in the BOM of one assembly item but dont specify it as a use up component in BOMs of
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other assembly items that use that same component, Rapid Planning will not create
planned orders for that component even if the other assembly items require that
component.
In EBS Engineering it is possible to specify a use up ECO for an assembly item where
the use up item is a) an existing component in the BOM or b) the assembly item itself.
Rapid Planning only supports planning based on use up ECOs where the use up item is a
component item. If the use up item is marked as the assembly item it will not be treated
as a use up ECO in Rapid Planning.
In the Items screen in Rapid Planning, there is a new item attribute called Use Up that
is a calculated attribute with possible values of Yes and No. Items that are use up
components in one or more ECOs will be shown with a Yes value and all other items
will be shown with a No value. The items screen will also display the inventory use up
date for the item.
The Bill of Materials screen in Rapid Planning shows the effective dates of both the new
and use-up items, with the new column Change Notice displaying the name of the
ECO. There is a new attribute called Use Up in the Bill of Materials screen that will be
marked as Yes for use up components in the bill of materials.
Rapid Planning forms part of the implementation process of an ECO through the Push
Plan Information concurrent program, which pushes a list of eligible use-up items (from
the plan output) back to EBS Engineering. You can select an item as the use-up
component and can have Rapid Planning plan the cutover to the new component based
on the use-up of the component. The resulting inventory use up date can be pushed back
to EBS Engineering and be used as the effective date in the BOM, or you can execute
more such iterative simulation cycles to arrive at the desired effective date.
You can simulate the change of use-up items in an existing ECO and the creation of a
new ECO by entering a component for a BOM within Rapid Planning and assigning that
item as a use-up item.
3.18.6.3. Totals in Horizontal Plan
You can optionally display grand totals for supply and demand measures in the
Horizontal Plan.
All measures displayed at the Item level or Category level are displayed at the Grand
Total level.
Note Global Forecast is part of the Forecast measure and it is not displayed at the
Grand Total Level. The Global forecast is itself an aggregate entity across all
organizations.
Grand Total is editable for Planned Order, Forecast, and Manual Demand. All cells, with
zero or non-zero values, are editable for Planned Order and Manual Demand. Only nonzero values are editable for Forecast. Updating a Grand Total cell value triggers a
propagation which updates the corresponding item or category level cells for the
corresponding time buckets.
The update rules are:
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Zero to Non-zero: Planned Order and Manual Demand are inserted equally for
all underlying items / dates or categories and dates.
Non-Zero to Non-zero: Planned Order, Forecast, and Manual Demand are

updated proportionally for all items / dates or categories and dates that had nonzero values.
Non-Zero to Zero: Planned Order, Forecast, and Manual Demand are updated to
zero for all items / dates or categories / dates that had non-zero values.
Note Changing a Grand Total cell value to zero updates all corresponding lower level
cell values to zero.
Behavior of Save Changes and Refresh View Buttons
Save Changes Behavior The functional behavior of the Save Changes button has
not changed.
Refresh View Behavior When you click on the Refresh View button after changing
a measure value, a pop-up window with the following message is displayed:
If you respond with Yes, all pending changes are saved into the data base.
If you respond with No, no refresh or save action is performed by the system.
With the Refresh View icon/button you can refresh and save the values of a modified
measure at the Item/Category levels to reflect the modification at the Grand Total level.
In addition the values of all related measures at the Grand Total/Item/Category levels are
refreshed and saved to reflect the modification accordingly (assuming you click on the
Yes button in the pop-up window appearing after clicking on the Refresh View
button).
With the Refresh View icon/button you can refresh and save the values of a modified
measure at the Grand Total level to reflect the modification at the Item/Category levels.
In addition the values of all related measures at the Grand Total/Item/Category levels are
refreshed and saved to reflect the modification accordingly.
The Rapid Planning user interface has been converted to a modern, simplified Alta look
and feel.
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3.19. Oracle Service Parts Planning

3.19.1.
Product Overview
Oracle Service Parts Planning (SPP) brings advanced multi-echelon supply chain
planning to a service supply chain consisting of internal warehouses, emergency stocking
locations, internal repair depots, external repair vendors, and external new buy vendors.
Oracle SPP is a new product dedicated to the service parts planning domain. It offers an
integrated forecasting and replenishment planning workbench, planning logic dedicated
to the unique characteristics of the service parts planning domain (such as reverse
logistics, multiple part conditions, and part supersession), and seamless integration to
Oracle Supply Chain Management and Oracle Service (Spares Management and Depot
Repair) applications to support execution of planned replenishment actions, including
external and internal repair.
3.19.2.
Release 12.1.1
3.19.2.1. Integrated Demand and Supply Planning
By running a single Service Plan, you can regenerate both the forecasts and the
replenishment recommendations (procurement, transfer, and repair) for an entire service
supply chain.
A service parts planning workbench lets you view and manipulate forecasts as well as
transfer, and new buy and repair recommendations and transactions. All demand/supply,
exception, item attribute and comments pertaining to a service part are visible in a single
screen, creating a very efficient user experience for the planner.
3.19.2.2. Service Parts Planning Workbench
In service environments, it is common for planning responsibility to be divided across
planners by item, and for planners to analyze, change, and execute plans on an item by
item basis. To support this practice, a new SPP screen shows in a single window the
following information about an item:
Values of key item attributes
Horizontal supply and demand plan
Planner comments relating to the item
Exceptions relating to the item
Demand history and forecast
The SPP Workbench can display demand and supply information at the level of a single
item, or aggregated across multiple revisions of the items supersession chain. It can
display demand and supply information at a single location, or aggregated across userdefined groups of locations (inventory organizations).
3.19.2.3. Integration to Spares Management for External Repairs
SPP plans for repair of defective spare parts at external vendors. Movement of defective
parts to the repair vendor, repair lead times and yields at the repair vendor, and
movement of repaired (good) parts back to an internal warehouse are considered. The
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repair vendor must be modeled as an inventory organization. Upon release of a

recommendation for external repair, integration with Oracle Spares Management
automatically creates the repair purchase order to the repair vendor, the internal sales
order to move defectives to the repair vendor, and the underlying work orders necessary
to progress the repair through the repair vendor. (Management of the work orders is
automatic and does not require user intervention.) Tracking of repair progress is done
through a workbench in Oracle Spares Management.
3.19.2.4. Integration to Depot Repair for Internal Repairs
SPP plans for repair of defective spare parts at internal repair depots. Movement of
defective parts to the repair vendor, repair lead times and yields at the repair vendor, and
movement of repaired (good) parts back to an internal warehouse are considered. The
repair depot must be modeled as an inventory organization. Upon release of a
recommendation for internal repair, integration with Oracle Depot Repair automatically
creates the transfer order to move defectives to the internal repair depot, the repair work
order at the repair depot, and the transfer order to move the repaired spare parts back to a
warehouse. Tracking of repair progress is done through a workbench in Oracle Depot
Repair.
3.19.2.5. Support for Part Condition
SPP distinguishes between supplies of a single spare part that are of different conditions:
good and defective. This allows SPP to recommend appropriate repairs to satisfy demand
for good spare parts.
3.19.2.6. Criticality Matrix
You can group items into various criticalities on the basis of a flexible number of
attributes such as cost, order frequency, reliability, and impact of failure. You can then
specify forecasting methods and service level targets by criticality.
3.19.2.7. Support for Supersessions
SPP automatically uses supplies of later revisions of an item to satisfy demand for earlier
revisions of the item. Forecasts are automatically created for the latest item revision in a
supersession chain on the basis of the combined histories of the latest item revision and
all previous item revisions. Revisions are defined via supersession item relationships in
either Oracle Inventory or Oracle Spares Management.
3.19.2.8. Returns Forecasts
Forecasts of returns of defectives from the field are recognized as supply during the
planning process. Recommendations for repairs will not exceed the forecasted and
available supply of defective spare parts.
3.19.2.9. Minimize New Buys
SPP exhausts on-hand supplies of substitutable item revisions and options for repair of
defective supplies before recommending, as a last resort, purchase of new spare parts to
satisfy spares demand.
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3.19.2.10. Life Time Buys

When a service part is obsoleted in advance of the end of the useful life of the products
that require it for service, a last or 'life time buy' must be undertaken. SPP recognizes life
time buy events as defined in the item attribute simulation set and recommends
appropriate 'life time buys' that fulfill demand anticipated to fall between the life time
buy date and the end of life date. (The latter date may be well beyond the end of the
planning horizon.)
3.19.2.11. Planner Work Lists
SPP can generate a personal work list for each planner that dynamically lists items
controlled by the planner that have important exceptions (for example, late
replenishments where the number of days late is greater than 3) and those that have key
recommendations (for example, new buy orders that need to be released within the next 5
days). The type and severity of exceptions that qualify items for the work list and the
type of recommendations that qualify for the work list can be specified by the planner.
The work list shows the most important to-dos (items to replan, recommendations to
release) that each planner must take care of at any given time.
3.19.2.12. Integration with Collaborative Planning
SPP supports the publishing of new buy order forecasts to new buy suppliers and repair
order forecasts to external repair suppliers. Suppliers can view and respond to these
order forecasts through Collaborative Planning (CP). External repair suppliers can also
view in CP forecasts of defective shipments to their facilities as planned in SPP. SPP can
receive supply commits uploaded to CP from new buy suppliers and trigger exception
messages when those commit levels are exceeded.
3.19.2.13. Supersession Chain-Specific Replanning
When a planner is working on a service part in the planner workbench, he or she can
initiate a quick replan of just the supersession chain involving the part on display. This
allows the planner to perform adjustments such as expediting repair or purchase orders,
or changing the forecast either manually or by switching statistical forecasting methods,
then quickly recalibrate the supply / demand balance of the part being worked. The
replan can include forecasting and replenishment planning, or just one of those. The
planner's replanning action will not affect the planning results of any other part in other
supersession chains. Multiple planners can therefore work concurrently on the same SPP
plan, each on their own parts, without impacting each other's work.
3.19.2.14. Execution Net Change Planning
Service parts planning environments are characterized by high part and location counts.
Scalability of planning calculations is a primary concern. On the functional side, SPP
enhances scalability by planning parts only when necessary, and while leaving the preexisting planning results of other parts intact. If the "Net Change" launch option of SPP
toggled to Yes, SPP will only generate fresh plan results for new parts or those parts that
have experienced net changes in demand/supply, item attributes, supersession or repair to
relationships, or supplier capacity; it will overlay those plan results on top of pre-existing
plan results for other items. This feature operates in conjunction with net change
collections.
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3.19.3.
Release 12.1.2
3.19.3.1. Multi-process Inline Forecasting
The performance of Inline Forecasting in Oracle Service Parts Planning (SPP) has been
significantly enhanced through the introduction of a new profile option "MSO: Number
of processes for Inline Forecast".
While previously a single 'Memory Based Forecaster' process was launched to generate a
forecast for all items in the plan, you can now launch multiple processes, so that
forecasts for different item-chains are generated in parallel. This profile determines the
number of such processes that are launched in parallel for forecasting.
3.19.3.2. Intermittent Demand Flag
Whether the history data for an item is intermittent or not determines:
the forecast methods that Oracle Service Parts Planning (SPP) employs to
generate a 'Blended' (Bayesian weighted average) forecast, and
the safety stock calculation method used by Oracle Inventory Optimization (IO).
IO assumes Poisson-distributed demand variability for intermittent demands,
normally-distributed demand variability for non-intermittent demands.
Previously the SPP Forecast Rule screen had an option to specify whether the history
data was intermittent or not. This approach this had two inherent issues: (i) the forecast
rule is independent of item and (ii) non-SPP users of Oracle Inventory Optimization
needed to set up SPP Forecast Rules in order to trigger IO's intermittent demand
calculations.
Release 12.1.2 has an enhanced Item Attribute Mass Maintenance (IMM) form, with a
new item attribute 'Intermittent Demand' added. This attribute will be used to specify
whether the history pattern is intermittent or not, and will be referred to by the SPP
forecasting engine, and by IO. This will be available both on the Item-Organization and
Item-Zone tab of the IMM. The options on the Forecast Rule screen to specify whether
history is intermittent or not have been removed.
3.19.3.3. Planner Worklist Enhancement
Oracle Service Parts Planning already had a 'Planner Worklist' that could be set up for
each planner so that it dynamically lists important exceptions / key recommendations on
his items. This shows the most important to-dos that each planner must take care of at
any given time.
The Planner Worklist has been further enhanced in Oracle Service Parts Planning 12.1.2.
The grouping of exceptions and recommendations has been rationalized so that the
results are presented in a more concise manner, and it is easier to drill down from this
prioritized list of tasks to details regarding each.
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3.19.4.
Release 12.1.3
3.19.4.1. Re-order Point-based Parts Planning
Reorder point based planning is a widely adopted method of planning replenishments for
service parts. It uses demand forecasts and item lead times to decide when to place a new
order in order to avoid dipping into safety stock. Orders are usually created for the
economic order quantity, in order to strike a balance between purchasing and carrying
costs.
PAB Profile
Q
u
a
n
t
i
t
y
Re-order
Quantity
Safety
Stock
Time
Demand
Supply
Oracle Service Parts Planning 12.1.3 has been enhanced to support Re-order point based
planning. SPP computes the safety stock target for a part based on mean absolute
deviation (for parts with regular demand) or assuming a Poisson distribution (for parts
with intermittent demand), or reads in safety stock targets from other sources (like
Inventory Optimization). It then dynamically determines when to place an order,
depending on this safety stock target and future demand.
SPP also computes the Economic Order Quantity using the standard formula, so that new
orders are placed for this quantity. The user also has the option to override the system
computed values. The values of safety stock and EOQ can be recalculated during a
planning run, or they can be retained at their existing values.
3.19.4.2. Import into a Simulation Set
The Simulation Set in SPP is used by planners for mass maintenance of data. This is
however difficult to use when the planner has to manually enter or edit values for each
attribute in the forms UI.
SPP 12.1.3 has been enhanced to support a mass upload of item attribute values into the
simulation set. A standard format spreadsheet template is provided as part of legacy
collections flat file loads. The planner can use this template to enter / edit / delete
attribute values, and then upload the spreadsheet file to mass update the values for the
respective attributes on the items.
The Planner Workbench (Supply Demand Analysis) screen has also been enhanced to
enable update of item attributes that will then be considered in an online replan.
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3.19.4.3. Integration with Advanced Supply Chain Planning

An OEM manufacturing products often manufactures spare parts for them too. Typically
the OEM would have a distinct service supply chain, where defective products are
returned and repaired. In case there is not sufficient supply of defective parts (that can be
repaired) in the service supply chain, new parts may have to be manufactured. Thus the
manufacturing facility that manufactures the parts will have two sets of demands one
coming from the manufacturing supply chain, and the second coming from the service
supply chain.
Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning (ASCP) plans for the manufacturing supply
chain and currently handles the first stream of demand. ASCP is now integrated with
Oracle Service Parts Planning (SPP) which plans for the service supply chain. Thus SPP
would take in demand from the Service supply chain and try to meet these demands
through repair of defective parts. In case all demands cannot be met in this manner, SPP
can source parts from the manufacturing supply chain. This demand for spare parts
from SPP is read in by ASCP (by virtue of the SPP plan being a demand schedule in the
ASCP plan). ASCP then plans the manufacture.
3.19.4.4. Integration with APCC - Service Parts Planner Dashboard
A new Service Parts Planner dashboard is now available in Advanced Planning
Command Center. Service Parts Plans can be archived and published to Advanced
Planning Command Center. The archived versions can then be viewed in reports and
dashboards.
The Service Parts Planner dashboard is structured to address the typical questions that a
parts planner would have and includes a number of service-specific measures and KPIs,
such as repairs versus new buys, internal versus external repairs, service contracts
performance.
The SPP dashboard has five pages: the first, a Plan Health summary, summarizes
demand and supply, exceptions, and service agreements.
The Demand and Supply page enables the planner to start with an overall view of
demand satisfaction in the service supply chain, and drill down all the way into the SPP
planner workbench.
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The Exceptions page of the Service Parts Planner dashboard highlights key exceptions in
the service parts plan and enables the planner to investigate their causes.
The Service Level Agreement Analysis page is meant for evaluating service contracts.
The planner can see compliance to service contracts, and review costs, revenues,
profitability and achieved versus target safety stocks. The reports on this page are based
on Inventory Optimization plans.
Finally the Historical Performance page gives the planner a picture of how the plan is
tracking against actuals. The planner can compare how actuals for measures such as
shipments and returns, compare against SPP plan output.
3.19.5.
Release 12.1.3+
3.19.5.1. Fair Share
In case of constrained supplies, Oracle Service Parts Planning (SPP) previously allocated
the available supplies to the first demand. However, planners may prefer to fair share
constrained supplies among competing demands of the same priority from different
organizations. SPP has therefore been enhanced in release 12.1.3.2 to support this.
A Supply Allocation Rule screen has been added to SPP to specify the organizations
whose demands can compete for constrained supplies at a source organization. SPP
allocates supplies to demands based on the demand priority. If there is insufficient
supply and there are multiple competing demands of the same priority in the allocation
bucket, supplies at the source organization are fair shared amongst them in the ratio of
the current demand. In case of a tie, the organization priority specified in the Supply
Allocation Rule is used as a tiebreaker.
SPP considers demands across the supersession chain while fair sharing supplies.
Supplies are also fair shared among safety stock demands, after reserving a portion of the
supplies to meet the source organization safety stock target.
The SPP Supply Demand Analysis window has been enhanced to add an Unconstrained
Demand row, so that the planner can identify the various demands that are competing
for constrained supplies within a time bucket.
3.19.5.2. Query-based Auto-release
Service supply chains often have millions of parts that are planned for, and therefore an
even higher number of planned orders. As a result, manually releasing planned orders to
execution is often not an option. Previously, SPP provided the option to auto-release all
orders within the release time fence. However, the planner may want to be alerted in
specific scenarios (for example, when a single order is for a very large value) before the
order is released.
SPP has therefore been enhanced in release 12.1.3.2 to enable Query-based Autorelease. The planner can now define queries, and then specify whether (a) the records
returned by the query should be released or (b) the records returned by the query (say
ones that cause an exception) should be blocked from release, and all other orders be
released. Further, an Applied-to column has been added, so that the release action is
applied to all orders for the particular item/supersession, or to all orders for that
item/supersession in that organization.
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In addition to these, certain forecasting related metrics (like MAPE) are computed in
Demantra and exported to SPP. These metrics have been enabled for inclusion in queries,
so that, say orders for items can be blocked from release if the forecast accuracy is too
low.
3.19.5.3. Collect Installed Base under Contract
A planner might want to forecast the demand for service parts that is likely to arise in the
future, in order to service the Installed Base of products that are covered under contracts.
The Oracle Value Chain Planning Server Parts Planning solution has been enhanced in
Release 12.1.3.2 to provide this capability. You can now collect a new entity, Installed
Base under Contract. When this is entity is collected, the installed base history and
contract history are examined, and, for each period, the number of installed units that
were under contract is determined. A profile option has been added to specify the period
for which this information must be collected.
This information is then used, along with the computed failure rate of each service part
in the Installed Base item, to determine the service parts forecast.
3.19.5.4. Collect Field Replaceable Unit Bills of Material
Forecasting the requirement of parts to service an Installed Base under contract (as
detailed above) requires information on the various components (called Field
Replaceable Units) in the install base item that are eligible for service.
In Release 12.1.3.2, when you collect the Installed Base under Contract, the Field
Replaceable Units (FRU) BOM can be automatically derived. In order to enable this, all
FRUs have to be included in a designated category set. FRU BOMs are then derived
based on parts belonging to this category set: (a) that are part of the manufacturing BOM
of the Install Base item; or (b) if the debrief on a service request for the Installed Base
item includes a part belonging to this category set.
This FRU BOM is then used in Demantra Demand Management to compute the failure
rate of parts, which is then used in computing the service parts forecast.
3.19.5.5. Supersession Notes
Customers often require the ability to add free form notes while creating a supersession
relationship. These notes usually contain detailed information about the relationship, for
example, information about when the supersession is for dangerous goods. The notes are
created in Oracle Spares Management while defining the relationship. These notes must
then be visible to a planner in Service Parts Planning.
Oracle Service Parts Planning has been enhanced in Release 12.1.3.2 to pull in the notes
that are created in Spares Management, and display them on the key screens where a
planner may review the supersession: the Planner Worklist, Supply Demand Analysis,
and Supersession screens.
3.19.5.6. Reserved Safety Stock
In a multi-tiered service supply chain, there may be demand for parts at each tier; it is
therefore imperative to stock the right quantity of parts at each level.
Stocking parts at the most downstream field stocking location has the advantage that it is
closest to the customers being serviced; on the other hand, the more upstream
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warehouses are likely to be in more central locations from where a greater pool of
customers can be serviced. Coming up with the right inventory holding strategy is a
balance between these two. Oracle Inventory Optimization considers the demand and
supply variability, lead times, lead time variability etc and recommends optimal safety
stock levels at each of these locations.
However, not all demand in the service supply chain can be predicted. If there were an
unexpected critical demand in the supply chain at a location, the required parts may have
already been positioned downstream. In this case, holding parts at the upstream location
would have permitted responding more quickly to the unexpected demand.
The Reserved Safety Stock functionality allows reserving a portion of the safety stock
at a location; only the remaining supply is available for shipping to other locations. This
ensures that there is always some supply available to meet unexpected demand.
The quantity of safety stock that should be reserved can either be specified as an absolute
value, or as a percentage of the calculated (time-varying) safety stock for that
organization.
This feature is not available in base 12.1.3.8, but will be made available as a patch on top
of Release 12.1.3.8.
3.19.5.7. Sourcing Priorities for Inventory Rebalancing
Service supply chains usually hold some inventory at regional warehouses in order to
quickly service customer requests. However varying demand patterns may warrant
rebalancing inventory between these regional warehouses when there is inventory excess
in one and a shortage at another.
In this release, the inventory rebalancing capability of Oracle Service Parts Planning
(SPP) has been enhanced to support the specification of rankings on the rebalancing
sources for an organization. This allows SPPs rebalancing logic to prefer rebalancing
between organizations close to each other. SPP reads in priorities of the various
rebalancing sources and tries to rebalance with sources in rank order. This functionality
can lead to significant savings in transportation costs.
3.19.5.8. Avoidance of Circular Rebalancing
Circular rebalancing occurs when inventory is moved out of a warehouse to fulfill a
shortage at another warehouse, and then is concurrently backfilled via rebalancing from a
third warehouse. With this release, SPP has been enhanced to avoid circular rebalancing
and the associated excess transportation costs.
3.19.6.
Release 12.2.4
3.19.6.1. Integration to Enterprise Asset Management
Demands arising out of maintenance work orders within Enterprise Asset Managements
(EAM) Production plan will be collected, recognized and planned for within SPP.
Planned supplies created in SPP to meet these demands will be released to EAM as
Planned New Buy Orders or Planned Repair Orders.
3.19.6.2. Exhaust Existing Supplies (Repair First)
One of the key decisions in reverse logistics is deciding between repairing and
purchasing a part. Every organization would like to use up the parts they own either in
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the form of usable inventory, or defective parts that can be repaired before purchasing
additional parts. The planning logic of Oracle Service Parts Planning (SPP) is geared to
address this requirement. While deciding on this, meeting the demand on time is the
primary objective for SPP, so it recommends repairs only as long as that meets demands
on time.
In some cases, it is desirable to fulfill demands by either transferring existing usable
inventory from other locations or by repairing existing defective inventory even when
demands will be met late, either because the cost differential between repair and new buy
justifies this, or because repair lead times are in fact malleable and can be expedited
when necessary. SPP is therefore being enhanced to support this requirement. The
planner can turn this functionality on/off at an organization level, and if turned on, select
the supplies that can be considered before recommending a purchase. If SPP
recommends using self-owned inventory to meet a demand late, the planner can take
action on expediting the order outside of the system.
3.19.6.3. Rebalancing Source Priority (Replenish before Rebalance)
Oracle Service Parts Planning currently considers rebalancing sources as the highest
priority source while looking for supplies. However, this may not always be in line with
business requirements. For example, in some cases, a repair vendor may be closer to a
demand location than other organizations with which inventory may be rebalanced. In
this case, it might be desirable to assign a higher rank to the repair source than to the
rebalancing sources.
SPP is therefore being enhanced to support specifying a rank for rebalancing sources.
With this enhancement, a planner can get SPP to evaluate other sources before checking
for excess at sources with which rebalancing is enabled. All rebalancing sources have the
same rank, and, within those sources, the Inventory rebalance ranks are used to decide
the sequence in which SPP checks for excess.
3.19.7.
Release 12.2.5
3.19.7.1. Parts Classification
Since the Spares business typically deals with a very large number of part-locations,
often running into the millions, it is useful to combine these part-locations into logical
groups based on rules, and manage the groups, rather than manage individual part
locations. Further, it is often required to classify parts differently for different purposes.
For example, you may wish to group parts based on cost while setting safety stock
policy, but group parts based on ABC class while setting service levels. Therefore, the
same part will belong to a different group in each classification.
Oracle Service Parts Planning has been enhanced to support this. You can define rules,
based on which part-locations are automatically combined into logical groups. You can
classify parts based on dynamic criteria such as historical or projected demand, and you
can classify parts based on user-defined business criteria that you upload. You can then
control various planning parameters such as service levels and stocking rules based on
these groups.
3.19.7.2. Stocking Thresholds
Service supply chains often have a local distribution centers (DCs) that primarily service
customer locations within the DCs region. The parts that are stocked at each local DC
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are determined by, among other things, by the value of the part and the historical demand
for the part within the region. A high value part with low demand within a region is a
good candidate for stocking at a central DC or at an alternate local DC whose region has
more substantial demand for the part.
Oracle Service Parts Planning has been enhanced to allow automating the part stocking
decision. You can define stocking demand thresholds for part-region-DC combinations.
If the regional demand for a part does satisfy its stocking threshold at the local DC, SPP
will stock the part at the local DC and source the parts regional demand there. If the
regional demand for a part does not satisfy the stocking threshold, then SPP will source
the regions part demand to an alternate DC (from a list that you specify), one for which
the part stocking threshold is satisfied. Once you define stocking rules that contain
stocking thresholds and lists of alternate DCs, SPP will automatically generate the
sourcing rules and assignment set to source demands from and stock parts at the
appropriate DCs.
3.19.7.3. Fair Share Enhancements
When supply is constrained, business rules demand that it is fair-shared between
competing demands. Fair-sharing in SPP currently is based on the demand ratio parts
are allocated to each demand in the ratio of demand quantity, where all the demands are
of the same rank/priority.
Oracle Service Parts Planning is being enhanced in Release 12.2.5 to fair-share
constrained supplies between demands of the same type. Thus, supplies are first used to
meet all or fair-shared between - back orders, then sales orders, then forecasts, then
safety stock, and then specified stocking levels like Target and Max. While fair-sharing
against safety stock, Target or Max, SPP also ensures that fair-sharing fills each location
to the same percentage of target.
3.19.7.4. Exceptions Enhancements
Oracle Service Parts Planning flags exceptions (recommendation) to reschedule or cancel
existing orders in case there is a change in the demand-supply picture, due to which the
date or quantity on the supply order needs to change. While these exceptions are very
useful for planners to maintain a supply-demand match, the exceptions previously did
not specify why the order needs to be modified. Having this information would be very
useful for planners to prioritize their actions.
The Orders to be Rescheduled In/Out and Orders to be Cancelled exceptions have been
enhanced to also highlight information on the specific demand that is triggering the
change recommendation. The exceptions have additional fields that specify the type of
end-pegged demand, the demand number, date, quantity, and the reason for the
recommendation (to avoid a back order, to meet forecast on time, to meet safety stock
level, etc.)
3.19.7.5. Preserve Manual Forecasts
Demand forecasts are usually generated based upon historical data using statistical
techniques. Demand Planners often review the system generated forecast and impose
judgmental overrides.
In this release, Oracle Service Parts Planning has been enhanced to retain the manual
edits made to the forecast from a previous plan run when that plan is rerun. You can
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choose to retain the forecast overrides made in the previous run, allow them to be
overwritten by the newly generated forecast, or keep the overrides only within the
planning time fence.
3.19.8.
Release 12.2.6
3.19.8.1. Policy Planning: Summary of key features
In this Release, Service Parts Planning (SPP) has been enhanced to support Policy based
planning. This is a simpler planning mode where supply and demand at an Org are
considered and the policy applicable at that Org is evaluated to determine whether
additional replenishment is required. Policy Planning has the following characteristics:
Only Rank 1 Buy or Transfer sources are considered to create replenishments

(Repair sources are not supported)
No spreading and consumption is supported in Policy Plans the maximum of

forecast or sales order on every day is considered as demand for that day
Policy Planning works on daily level only
Only lead time and calendar constraints are considered by SPP supplier
capacity constraints are not considered
Since Repair is not supported by SPP, only Usable supply is used by SPP
Defective supply is ignored
No Pegging is generated by a Policy Plan
SPP will generate replenishments only for the latest revision item in a
supersession chain by default when doing so, it will consider eligible supply
from lower level supersession items when calculating replenishments. Lower
revision items will be considered by SPP only if their policy parameters have
been manually specified
A plan considers/evaluates policies only a single echelon at a time plans

generate the required replenishment after considering supply, demand and policy
parameters, but do not propagate demand to other supply chain tiers in the same
plan this can be accomplished by feeding plans as demand schedules to other
plans
When calculating replenishments, SPP can be configured to generate either a single

replenishment or time phased replenishment. In general, SPP will always generate
sufficient replenishment to cover the Target Service Level for every day of the plan
horizon. If SPP determines that the current policy parameters do not result in generating
sufficient replenishment to maintain the Estimated Service Level (%) above Target, SPP
may recommend overrides to the policy values and generate higher planned
replenishments. Sometimes, users may need to manually override policy values. SPP will
consider any manually overridden policy values with the highest priority and generate
replenishments accordingly.
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3.19.8.2. Plan Option Changes

A new attribute in the Plan Option screen header section called Replenishment Method
has been introduced in this release. When this is set to Policy Based, SPPs Policy
Planning behavior is enabled.
When the Replenishment Method is set to Policy Based some options are editable
while many existing Plan Options are not editable as per below:
Main: A new field called Replenishment Order Generation has been added
with permissible values of Single Replenishment or Time Phased
Replenishment. This determines whether SPP generates only a single
replenishment by considering only existing supply and demand within the lead
time of the item, or whether multiple replenishments are generated as required,
across the entire plan horizon. All other fields in the Main section of Plan
Options are disabled
Aggregation: Only the Plan Start Date and the Plan End Date are enabled
Organization: Only the Organizations and Demand Schedules section within

the Organizations tab are enabled for edit
Items: The Include Items from the Following Category Set is enabled, along
with the Category selection table
Optimization: This entire region is not editable
Release Rules: This entire section is editable
3.19.8.3. SPP Plans as Demand Schedules to other SPP Plans

In Release 12.2.6, you can specify an SPP Plan as a demand schedule to another SPP
Plan. This is required to propagate demand generated by the replenishment created at a
lower tier organization to the organization that replenishes it.
A Policy Plan can also be specified as a demand schedule within the plan options of a
regular SPP Plan. This enables you to combine Policy Planning and regular planning
behavior for example, at lower tiers of a supply chain you can run Policy Plans to
generate replenishments at higher tiers of the supply chain where inventory
rebalancing, fair sharing and other advanced planning features are typically required, you
can launch regular SPP plans by considering the dependent demand generated by
organizations at the lower tiers.
3.19.8.4. Reading Policy Parameters from Oracle Inventory Optimization
Policy Parameters are calculated in Oracle Inventory Optimization (IO). These are read
into SPP by referring to the IO Plan as a Demand Schedule. The values that are read in
by SPP from the IO Plan are the following:
Inventory Policy
Policy UOM
Min (Units)
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Max (Units)
Min (Days)
Max (Days)
Safety Stock (Units)
Safety Stock (Days)
Fixed Order Quantity
Economic Order Quantity
Order Cycle Calendar
3.19.8.5. Considering Policy Parameters specified in Item Attribute Mass

Maintenance
Policy values can also be specified through Item Attribute mass maintenance (IMM). The
following fields have been added to the IMM to support the specification of policies in
absence of IO the IMM parameters are read in only if SPP is not associated with an IO
Plan in its demand schedule
Inventory Policy
Policy UOM
Min (Units)
Max (Units)
Min (Days)
Max (Days)
Order Cycle Calendar
In addition to the above, the Fixed Order Quantity field will be used by SPP to determine
the replenishment order quantity for an Item.
3.19.8.6. Policy Planning related Measures in SPP
The following new measures have been added to SPP for Policy Planning:
On Order indicates the quantity of replenishment orders that have already been
created within the plan
Min (Units) This is an input policy parameter
Max (Units) This is an input policy parameter
Min Recommended (Units) This is a recommended policy parameter as

determined by SPP to maintain service levels
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Max Recommended (Units) - This is a recommended policy parameter as

Min Override (Units) This is the manually specified policy parameter to drive
replenishment in an override mode
Max Override (Units) - This is the manually specified policy parameter to drive
Min (Days) - This is an input policy parameter
Max (Days) - This is an input policy parameter
Min Recommended (Days) - This is a recommended policy parameter as

Max Recommended (Days) - This is a recommended policy parameter as

Min Override (Days) - This is the manually specified policy parameter to drive
Max Override (Days) - This is the manually specified policy parameter to drive
PAB + On Order This is a summation of the PAB + On Order and provides

visibility to a user of when and why a replenishment is created replenishments
are created only when the PAB + On Order falls below the Min
Planned New Buy Orders (Creation Date) This indicates the quantity of
replenishment bucketized by Creation date of the planned order this quantity
adds to the On Order quantity
Planned Transfer Orders (Creation Date) - This indicates the quantity of

replenishment bucketized by Creation date of the planned order this quantity
adds to the On Order quantity
Target Service Level % - this is an input parameter for SPP Policy Planning,
inherited from IO. SPP tries to maintain the PAB every day to correspond to this
Target Service Level %
Estimated Service Level % - this is calculated by SPP based on the projected

PAB, per day
Uncovered Demand SPP calculates the uncovered demand from the PAB by
comparing it with the forecast and its distribution ; this represents the demand
that may not be covered by the PAB on that day
Uncovered Variance - SPP calculates the uncovered demand from the PAB and
comparing it with the forecast and its distribution ; this represents the
variance/uncertainty of the demand that may not be covered by the PAB on that
day
The following existing measures are used by SPP for Policy Planning:
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Original Forecast: This is considered by SPP when determining replenishments

forecast is input into the SPP Policy Plan as a Demand Schedule in its Plan
Options
Sales Orders: Any sales orders are considered as demand by SPP when
determining replenishment for a given day, the maximum of the Sales Order or
forecast is considered as demand for that day (forecast spreading and
consumption is not performed in Policy Planning)
Dependent Demand: A Policy Plan can be specified as a Demand Schedule

within another Policy Plan the dependent demands placed on an Org from the
other plan is represented in the Dependent Demand measure
Purchase Requisitions
Purchase Orders
Internal Sales Orders
Internal Requisitions
Planned New Buy Orders
Planned Transfer Orders
Projected Available Balance
3.19.8.7. Editable Measures and Overrides in Policy Planning

The results of Policy Planning can be seen in the new ADF based Material Plan for SPP
in Release 12.2.6. The following measures will be editable:
Min Override (Units)
Max Override (Units)
Min Override (Days)
Max Override (Days)
The above measures will be used to drive replenishment based on user input SPP will
use the values in these measures to calculate replenishment, ignoring any values in other
measures.
3.19.8.8. Policy Types considered in SPP Policy Planning
The following policy types can be specified in IO or through the IMM, and are
considered by SPP to drive replenishment:
Min/Max: In this policy type, the Min and Max values are specified
ROP-OQ: In this policy type, the Re-order point is specified, and is considered
equivalent to the Min. Replenishment is generated for the order quantity (OQ).
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The Order Quantity itself is derived in IO and read by SPP, or can be

independently uploaded into SPP through the IMM
ROP-EOQ: In this policy type, re-order point is specified and considered

equivalent to the Min. The Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) itself is derived in
IO and read by SPP, or can be independently uploaded into SPP through the
IMM
FOC-Max: In this policy type, replenishments are generated only on working

days specified in the Fixed Order Cycle Calendar (FOC). The replenishment is
generated for a quantity that replenishes upto the Max quantity
Policy Values can either be specified in Days or Quantity. When specified in Days, the
Average Daily Demand is used to convert from Days to Quantity.
3.19.8.9. Single and Time Phased Replenishments
When a SPP Policy Plan is run in single replenishment mode, it only considers supplies
and demands within the lead time of the item. It then considers the policy parameters for
the item and determines the quantity of replenishment that must be created on the
Sysdate (the day the plan is run) to meet the policy parameters and also to ensure that the
Estimated Service Level % within the lead time are maintained above the Target Service
Level %. If necessary, SPP may recommend alternate Min and Max values and generate
an appropriate replenishment to achieve this. For FOC-Max policy, SPP will generate a
single replenishment only when the day the plan is run is a working day as per the Fixed
Order Cycle calendar. For this policy, SPP will consider supply and demand until the
next working day of the calendar and generate the relevant replenishment.
When the SPP Policy Plan is run in time-phased mode, SPP generates replenishments
across the entire plan horizon, as required. Its objective is to maintain the Estimated
Service Level % above the Target Service Level % - to do so, SPP may override the
specified policy parameters and create replenishments that are different from what the
default policy may suggest.
3.19.8.10. Enhancement to Parts Classification functionality
Parts Classification was introduced in Release 1225. In Release 1226, this has been
enhanced to enable the creation of Category Sets and Categories that are not collected
(and are only on the destination). In the Parts Classification Rule screen, you can create a
new Category Set and create new Categories under that Category Set when defining a
classification rule. You can then classify parts into these categories, override the
classification manually as usual (no change to this functionality as compared to Release
12.2.5).
A new button called Publish has been introduced in the Part Classification Rule. Once
the classification has been published, the association between a Category and its Items is
recognized by the Oracle Inventory Optimization engine. This is required because Policy
Parameters are setup only at a Category level through the Policy Parameter set, not at an
Item level IO will use the classification data to ascribe appropriate policies to Items
depending on which Category they are classified into.
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3.19.8.11. New Service Parts Planning Work Area

You now have access to an all-new ADF-based planning work area called the Service
Parts Planning Work Area. This will allow you to access and analyze plans in a simple,
browser based UI.
The new Service Parts Planning work area is completely configurable via user-defined
page layouts, and will have the following capabilities:
View/Edit Plan Options

View/Edit Plan Items
a. Item (Prime, Supersession)
b. Notes
c. Product definition
1. Supersession Chain
2. Failure Rates
3. Parts Usage
View/Edit Material Plan
a. Supply and Demand Analysis View (Seeded Table Layout) Aggregate
View Organization List
b. Forecast Analysis View (Seeded Table Layout) Aggregate View Zone List
View/Edit Supplies and Demands
View/Edit Favorites including Plan Summary
View/Edit Preferences
Replan Options
Create Plan
Copy Plan
Launch Plan
Release Plan
Seeded Layouts
a. Exceptions and Material Plan
b. Exceptions and Items
c. Items and Material Plan
3.19.8.12. SPP ADF UI Plan Options

In the 12.2.6 release of Service Parts Planning, you can use the Plan Options UI to define
the scope of the named plan, and control many aspects of the plan generation. Plan
Options page consists of two main regions:
Header Section This section includes the following fields:
Plan Name
Plan Description
Plan Type The value for this field is Service Plan
Inactive Date
Notification (Checkbox) When this checkbox is enabled, the plan generates

notifications to planners (using EBS workflow) for certain exceptions. The exact set
of exceptions for which notifications are generated can be found in the Users Guide.
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Organization
Assignment Set
Item Simulation Set Select a simulation set from the list of values. A simulation set
is a set of adjustments to the base. You can define different simulation sets to model
different scenarios.
Replenishment Method List of values includes Standard and Policy Based.

The default value is Standard.
In this release, you have two options for planning your service parts. You can either
select Standard or Policy Based replenishment method from the list of values of the
Replenishment Method field.
Standard This is the existing planning method.
Policy Based This is an additional planning method available in Release 12.2.6.
Aggregation Tab Below is an illustration of Plan Options Aggregation Tab:
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Organization Tab In Release 12.2.6, Organizations and Items are main level
tabs similar to other tabs (Main, Aggregation, Optimization, Release Orders, and
Policy Planning). In the previous releases, Organizations and Items were the sub
tabs of a main level tab called Scope.
Below is an illustration of Plan Options Organizations Tab:
Items Tab In this release the Items tab is a main level tab. In the previous
releases, where in the previous releases the Items tab was a sub tab of a main level
tab called Scope.
Below is an illustration of Plan Options Items Tab:
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Optimization Tab Below is an illustration of Plan Options Optimization Tab:
Release Rules Tab Below is an illustration of Plan Options Release Rules Tab:
3.19.8.13. SPP ADF UI Items View

In the 12.2.6 release of Service Parts Planning, you can access a new UI called Items
from the SPP work Area using the plan link Items. This page displays all of plan items
attributes at the organization level. The default columns in the Items page are:
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1. Item
2. Organization
3. Description
4. BOM Item Type
5. Repair Program
The following repair programs for a given item and repair supplier combination. This
information affects both planning repair lead time and generated recommendation
messages.
Repair Return (pull)
Repair Return with prepositioning (push)
Advanced Exchange without prepositioning
Advanced Exchange on PO issue
Advanced Exchange on Defective Receipt
Advanced Exchange with prepositioning

o
Advanced Exchange on PO issue
Advanced Exchange on Defective Receipt
6. Planner
7. Repair Lead Time This attribute represents the amount of time that the repair
organization requires, in days, to process a defective part into a usable part. This
definition is always in the context of the final usable part or product. For example, if
item B is created by repairing item A, then planning uses the repair lead time for
item B when calculating the lead time offset to repair defective item A.
8. Repair Yield This attribute represents the proportion of the item quantity sent to
repair that is successfully repaired to specifications for usable parts. It is inputted as
a decimal representing a percentage (ex. 0.75= 75%).This definition is always in the
context of the final usable part or product. For example, if item B is created by
repairing item A, then planning uses the repair yield for item B when calculating the
proportion of defective item A that is successfully repaired.
9. Repair Cost
Product Definition
The Product Definition UI will be accessible by using the Drill To button from the
following pages:
Items
Supplies and Demands
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Exception Details
The context will be based on the selected Item-Organization in the above UIs.
Product Definition UI consists of 3 sections in an accordion region with the following
sections
Supersession Chain
Failure Rates
Parts Usage
Supersession Chain
Supersession items are considered in the service supply chain. Engineering changes in
the product generate revised items that are managed based on the supersession definition.
For details on the supersession definition and use in Service Parts Planning, refer to the
Oracle Spares Management User Guide.
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Failure Rates
This represents the average periodic failure rate of the product population. If the failure
rates of service parts are known along with the overall product population, you can use
that information as a basis of forecasting the demand and supply of the service parts. The
overall product population is composed of the current products in service and future or
anticipated products to be serviced.
Parts Usage
The Parts Usage window provides a where-used view of all the products that consume a
given service part during maintenance or service.
Supersession, Prime, Item

A new button named Item in the Items page toolbar with the list of values of Prime
and Supersession allows you to see the context of a selected item in the Items page as
well as its Prime and Supersession in the Material Plan or Supplies and Demands when
they are open as the second page.
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In the above example, user has selected the value of Supersession from the Item
LOV. Then user opens the Material Plan which displays the related information for the
item BUY12020 Supersession Chain. There are 3 items in this chain: BUY12020,
BUY12021, and BUY12022. This means now that the Material Plan page shows the
related information for all those 3 items, the Supersession Chain.
Note When the Items page is open, you can select Prime or Supersession from the
Item LOV and then if you open one of the following pages listed below, the
corresponding context of the selected items in the Items page are passed to these pages:
Material Plan
Exceptions
Notes Page
Customers often require the ability to add free-form notes associated with an item.
You can use the Notes from the Drill To menu in the Items page toolbar to access
the Notes window to create and delete notes for the selected items in the Items page.
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Planners can specify notes for a service part.

Notes are specific to plans.
Knowing in which plan the notes were entered is useful. Thus, while saving the notes,
the plan name is also saved.
Deleting Notes
In general any notes can be deleted by any user.
In addition the system should allow for the delete to be a separate privilege that can be
removed from a custom responsibility if necessary.
3.19.8.14. SPP ADF UI Material Plan
The Material Plan for Service Parts Planning can be accessed from the SPP work Area
using the plan link Material Plan.
When coming to Material Plan page with no item context, you can use the Item button
in the tool bar to search and select for items.
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Material Plan can be displayed at the item level or at the aggregate level of single or
multiple organizations or zones.
Organization List is only applicable to Supply and Demand Analysis view.
Zone List is only applicable to Forecast Analysis view.
Please see the Material Plan Seeded Layouts section for more information.
Organization List and Zone List
An Organization List can be defined or modified in the Edit Org List Popup window
accessible by using the Org List button in the toolbar of the Supply and Demand
Analysis view.
Material Plan at Aggregate Organization Level

Step 1 Define an aggregate org named BG ORGS in the Edit Org List window. As an
example, the aggregate org includes the following organizations: SLC:M1, SLC:M2,
SLC:D1, and SLC:S1.
Step 2 Select the BG ORGS form the list of values in the Organization field in the
Supply and Demand Analysis view tool bar.
Step 3 The Material Plan results for the selected items are aggregated for the selected
organizations in the aggregate org BG ORGS.
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Similarly, a Zone List can be defined or modified in the Edit Org List Popup window
accessible by using the Zone List button in the toolbar of the Forecast Analysis view.
The SPP Material Plan UI has three seeded table layouts:

1. Supply and Demand Analysis
2. Forecast Analysis
3. Policy Planning
Supply and Demand Analysis
Below is an illustration of Supply and Demand Analysis view:
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The measures for the Supply and Demand Analysis table layout are:
1. Sales Orders The open sales order in the supply chain
2. Open ISO (Internal Sales Orders Field Organizations)
3. Net Forecast Forecast quantity after consumption (Remaining unconsumed
forecasts = Original Forecast Consumed)
4. Independent Demand (Internal Sales Order Field Orgs + Sales Orders + Net
Forecast)
5. Dependent Demand
6. Total Demand (Independent Demand + Dependent Demand)
7. Beginning On-hand
8. In Transit The in-transit material
9. Inbound Shipments Does not include internal repair
10. External Repair Orders Purchase order to repair supplier
11. Internal Repair Orders Transfer in from depot
12. New Buy Purchase Orders
13. New Buy Purchase Requisitions
14. Planned Transfer Orders Transfer of supply from one org to the other
15. Planned External Repair Orders
16. Planned New Buy Orders
17. Total Supply
18. Safety Stock
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19. Projected Available Balance Cumulative (Total Demand Total Supply)

20. Defective On-hand On-hand with condition of Defective
21. Projected Available Balance (Defective) Cumulative (Defective Part Demand
Defective Supply)
Forecast Analysis
Below is an illustration of Forecast Analysis view:
The measures for the Forecast Analysis table layout are:

1. Original Forecast Original forecast quantity
2. Consumed Quantity of forecasts that has been consumed by sales orders
3. Net Forecast Remaining unconsumed forecasts (Original Forecast
Consumed)
4. Returns Forecast Customer returns forecast quantity
5. Demand History (A Year Ago)
6. Returns History (A Year Ago)
Note When accessing Material Plan, system displays the last selected table layout for
each user in a session and across sessions.
For example if your last selected layout was Supply and Demand Analysis, when you
accessing Material Plan again system displays the Supply and Demand Analysis layout
as the default layout.
Note If there is no last selected layout it will show then system displays Supply and
Demand Analysis (default) layout.
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3.19.8.15. SPP ADF UI - Supplies and Demands

The Supplies and Demands for Service Parts Planning can be accessed from the SPP
work Area using the plan link Supplies and Demands.
The Supplies and Demands UI used by SPP planners includes a pegging (tree-table)
view. Similar to Supplies and Demands UI in ASCP, planners can switch between tree
table and flat table view. When drilling to Supplies and Demands, the tree-table view
will be the default view that is displayed when in Plans mode. When in Plan Inputs
mode, the default view is the flat table view.
Edit Supplies and Demands

The Edit Supplies and Demands dialog is initiated by selecting the Create action
(either from the Actions menu or the iconic button on the table toolbar). The dialog
allows the user to create planned orders.
3.19.8.16. SPP ADF UI - Favorites including Plan Summary

The new Service Parts Planning Work Area supports the ability for you to define lists of
favorite Orders, Exceptions, Items, and Metrics. These can be defined based on
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configurable business criteria. Metrics are a special type of configured Favorites list used
measures. Each metric can be viewed in an Infotile format (graphs in a tiled view with
multiple tiles) or standard format (graphs arranged in a grid like view).
3.19.8.17. SPP ADF UI - Preferences
Starting with the 12.2.6 release, you can a Preferences window accessed from the SPP
work Area using the Preferences icon in the top right hand corner of the page.
You can select a category set and default plan in the Preferences window.
The fields in the Preferences window are:
Category Set
Default Plan
Note The functionality that was provided by View Recommendations for (Days from
Today) preference, it is now available by using a new column in the Supplies and
Demands page:
A new column is added in the Supplies and Demands page called "Due Date Days
Out." It is calculated as "Suggested Due Date" "Plan Start Date" for all orders
(supplies and demands).
This numeric field (Due Date Days Out) is also available in the Search panel with
the standard operators (Equals, Less than, Greater than with the default being
"Less than").
Note System is fetching data to the Preferences popup based on the seeded data for
Default Preferences Profile. So in case a new user tries to create/set user preferences, the
system associates the default profile to it and save it in DB.
Note The current preferences are migrated to Release 12.2.6. In addition the system
validates that the required fields are populated before they are saved in DB.
3.19.8.18. SPP ADF UI Replan Options
A service planner may need to recalculate the plan to see the effects of implementing
actions. This can be accomplished by use of Replan functionality in SPP.
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You can access the Replan Options popup window by selecting the Replan Item from
the Actions menu in the following Pages:
Items
Material Plan
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The fields in the Replan Options window are:
Generate Inline Forecast
Launch Planner
When the Replan functionality is used, all parts within the scope of the plan are
planned. If the Generate Inline Forecast option is enabled (The checkbox is checked),
then forecasts for all the parts in the scope of the plan are regenerated, regardless of
whether the time period specified in the Forecast Frequency field has been achieved.
3.19.8.19. SPP ADF UI Create Plan
You can create a plan by using the Create Plan in the Plan Actions menu:
You can define the Plan Options in the Create Plan window.
3.19.8.20. SPP ADF UI Copy Plan
You can copy a plan by using the Copy Plan in the Plan Actions menu:
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The fields in the Copy Plan window are:

1. Copy From This is the name of the source plan (Required).
2. Name This is the name of the destination plan (Required).
3. Description This is the description of the destination plan.
4. Copy plan options only (Checkbox) Only the plan options of the source plan are
copied if this checkbox is checked.
5. Notifications (Checkbox) Workflow notifications are generated for certain
exceptions if this checkbox is checked.
Please see Oracle Service Parts Planning Implementation and User's Guide
Release 12.2 for the list of exceptions.
6. Inactive Date This is the date that plan becomes disabled.
3.19.8.21. SPP ADF UI Launch Plan
You can launch a plan by using the Launch Plan in the Plan Actions menu:
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The fields in the Launch Plan window are:

1. Plan Name
2. Launch Snapshot This field cannot be edited.
3. Launch Planner This field cannot be edited.
4. Net Change List of values are: Yes and No.
5. Anchor Date The Planning Horizon Start Date
6. Archive Current Version of Plan Summary List of values are: Yes and No.
7. Snapshot Static Entities List of values are: Yes and No.
8. Generate Inline Forecast List of values are: Yes and No.
9. Generate SS and EOQ List of values are: Yes and No.
10. Launch (Radio Button) Choices are: Launch Now or Schedule. You can select
a date if you choose Schedule.
3.19.8.22. SPP ADF UI Release Plan
You can release selected orders of a plan by using the Release Plan in the Plan
Actions menu:
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3.19.8.23. SPP ADF UI Seeded Layouts

The seeded layouts are:
a. Exceptions and Material Plan
b. Exceptions and Items
c. Items and Material Plan
3.20. Oracle Strategic Network Optimization

3.20.1.
Release 12.1.1
3.20.1.1. Supply Chain Risk Management
Due to the dynamic nature of the global business environment, companies are searching
for ways to improve their supply chains in order to absorb disruptions that occur
unexpectedly. While providing other substantial benefits, Just-in-time, and Lean
Manufacturing initiatives have hindered many business's ability to absorb the impact of
unexpected events. Slack in the supply chain - usually in the form of inventory - is no
longer an acceptable hedging strategy and a sudden change such as a missed supply, can
have an immediate impact on a companies' operations. As an example, recent hurricanes
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have proved disastrous and exposed many weaknesses and companies' existing supply
chain. Less sensational events, such as an unexpected line shutdown can also have a
material impact to the business.
The ability to run simulations for these unexpected events is necessary for companies to
manage risk and these capabilities are now available in Strategic Network Optimization.
While most advanced planning software packages have simulation capabilities,
considering the unexpected nature of an event is absent. As an example, the simulation
of an unexpected plant shutdown in the future will trigger inventory pre-build in
anticipation of this event in most software packages. Since this event occurs
unexpectedly, this is not a realistic hedging strategy. Strategic Network Optimization
will simulate the surprise nature of this event and will present realistic options should
such an event occur. These simulations can also be run proactively to determine the
potential exposure, or risk, that your company faces.
The following enhancement will allow planners to analyze and mitigate risk by:
The Ability to consider unplanned, and planned events and its impact on the
supply chain
Easily compare scenarios using various Key Performance Indicators
Ability to consider multiple demand series and safety stock plans
Vital to this enhancement is the concept of unplanned events. In order to simulate the
unpredictable nature of such events, the element of surprise needs to be reflected in the
solution. For example, if a plant is unexpectedly shut down due to a natural disaster the
solver should not pre-build inventory in anticipation of this event. This requirement will
be a key differentiator for the Strategic Network Optimization and strengthen its position
in the marketplace as the leader in Supply Chain Risk Management decision support
systems.
3.20.1.2. Alerts
Alerts are used to assist the planner with identifying and resolving exceptions after
solving the model. The current mechanism to view and manage alerts in SNO is by
using the Over and Under User Sets. While this is useful, the generic Over/Under
categorization makes it difficult for users to quickly identify exceptions of a certain type.
Reports (Smart graphs) are typically created to supplement the Sets and present the
information in a more useful format. Reports require set up beforehand and multiple
reports are needed to identify exceptions of different types.
Introducing an alert framework in SNO alleviates the need to use both Sets and reports to
manage and review exceptions in the model. It will also provide a familiar alert
workflow that is typical in many planning applications. Because of it flexibility, SNO is
often used to solve non-traditional supply chain problems. This enhancement focuses on
the traditional strategic and tactical manufacturing & distribution use of the application.
Consideration for a more flexible framework to support non-traditional uses will be
considered in the future.
Alerts are categorized based on the business area. Within each category, the type of alert
violation will be identified. This provides the planner with the ability to quickly identify
and focus on the area of interest. The ability to drill-down and easily navigate to the
node or arc of interest is also an important requirement that is addressed.
269
Alerts will provide the following benefits:
Alerts provide an immediate visual representation of exceptions, which are faster

and more informative than using sets to identify exception.
You can drill-down to the exact location of the exception within a node or arc.
Alert categorization is more specific than Over and Under User Sets
categorization.
Little set up is required to use alerts.
This image shows the new Alerts area at the bottom of the Strategic Network
Optimization main user interface:
The number and type of alerts is displayed in the Model Workspace area. In the Model
Workspace tree, at the root level of Alerts, the number of alerts is displayed in brackets
and the word Alerts is displayed in bold font. If no exceptions are found in the model,
Alerts has no number in brackets next to it and the font is not bolded. In the example
above, total of (68) exceptions were found when the model was solved.
Within Alerts, there are six different alert categories. The number of exception found
within each type of alert is displayed next to the alert category in the Model Workspace
area. In the example above, (42) Demand alerts, (22) Inventory alerts, and (4)
Transportation alerts were found for a total of (68). Within each alert category, there are
several specific types of exceptions. If an exception is found, a red exclamation mark is
displayed next to the exception type and if no exceptions are found, a green checkmark is
displayed next to the exception type, as seen in the example above.
The Alerts section can be displayed across the bottom of the main user interface, as seen
in the example above. This section can be shown, expanded, or collapsed, using the up
and down arrows at the top of the section. If you double-click an Alerts folder in the
Model Workspace tree, the Alerts section at the bottom of the main user interface
270
expands. Single-clicking on an item in the Alerts section of the Model Workspace tree
displays the alert in the Alerts section at the bottom of the main user interface. The six
tabs; Demand, Inventory, Manufacturing, Transportation, Supply, and Other reflect the
alerts results and match the Alerts section in the Model Workspace tree.
When using alerts, each node or arc that you want to be alerted about is assigned an alert
category. To assign an alert category, a new Category drop-down list was added to nodes
and arcs:
3.20.1.3. Key Performance Indicators

After running a scenario, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can help you make detailed
scenario comparisons. They provide you with graphical representation of various metrics
in a model. KPIs can show you which scenario is most efficient at filling demand,
minimizing inventory costs, or providing the highest percentage of machine utilization.
Costs are categorized based on the types of costs in the nodes and arcs and are summed
across the whole planning horizon, not by period. KPIs are only visible in Key
Performance Indicators view.
An example of the Key Performance Indicators View

Strategic Network Optimization has nine different KPIs:
Total Cost - The sum of all costs in the model.
Transportation Cost - The sum of all costs for any node or arc in the model
where Category is set to Transportation.
271
Production Cost - The sum of all costs for any node or arc in the model where
Category is set to Manufacturing.
Supply Cost - The sum of all costs for any node or arc in the model where
Category is set to Supply.
Inventory Cost - The sum of all costs for any node or arc in the model where
Category is set to Inventory.
Other Cost - The sum of all costs for any node or arc in the model where
Category is null.
Labor Utilization % - Labor utilization expressed as a percentage.
Machine Utilization % - Machine utilization expressed as a percentage.
Demand Fill Rate % - Demand Fill Rate expressed as a percentage.
By default, Key Performance Indicator data is displayed in bar chart format. However,
the data can also be displayed in pie chart format or polar format by clicking the Pie or
Polar tabs. A polar chart displays points in a graph based on data in the scenario. An
example of a polar chart can be seen here below:
=
Polar chart
By default, each scenario defined in the Model Workspace appears in the Key
Performance Indicators view. However, you can use the KPI Selection Dialog to choose
which key performance indicators scenarios are displayed.
272
KPI Selection Dialog
The concept of scenarios was introduced in previous versions of Strategic Network

Optimization. However, scenarios are now created and run from the Model Workspace
tree as seen below:
Scenarios & Events in the Model Workspace Tree

The concept of events is new to this version of Strategic Network Optimization. Events
are individual occurrences which impact the supply chain. Events are created and then
added to scenarios. They specify the find and replace functions which are performed
within the model. Each scenario should have at least one event assigned to it. If you run a
scenario with no events in it, the model baseline solves. Several events can be added to
the same scenario. There are two kinds of events:
Unplanned
Planned
Unplanned events have been added to support Supply Chain Risk Management, they are
complete surprises. They are used when there is no warning that the event will occur. A
sudden change such as a missed supply can have an immediate impact on a companys
operations. Unplanned events allow you to incorporate the concept of surprise into your
models solution. Examples of unplanned events which can massively interrupt supply
chain operations include natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.
273
Planned events are not surprises and there is at least some react time involved. With this
advance warning, there is at least some time to make other supply arrangements and
activate contingency plans. Examples of planned events include seasonal supply chain
interruptions, anticipated shortages, and increases in demand caused by promotions.
The investment in usability continues with this release. In addition to the Alerts, and
KPI view the following enhancements have been incorporated to improve the overall
user experience:
Improved Find and Replace
Find, Replace, and Find Export are essential tools required by consultants, pre-sales, and
customers. The purposes for initiating any of these utilities are many from model
creation, navigation, and data editing to name a few. While each function serves a
distinct purpose, there is some overlap and the fact that they each have similar, yet
different dialogs is confusing. The usability suffers further as the number of modal
dialogs that pop up can be many. For example, a simple Find query with an ensuing
replace opens up to seven dialog boxes which must then be closed. This enhancement
provides the following in SNO:
Combined dialog boxes for Find, Replace, and Find Export

Ability to access the dialog boxes with shortcuts versus the multi-nested menus
Improved usability with a more intuitive graphical user interface
Quick access to common functions in the toolbar

Commonly used functions have been added to the toolbar for easy access. These
include:
Find & Replace

Hide Nodes
Hide Arcs
Fat Arcs
Align Nodes in Columns
Align Nodes in Rows
Select Adjacent nodes
Show/hide map legend
Improved Map Legend

The map legend has been improved to provide the ability to move the legend outside of
the map view to prevent the legend from covering up key areas of the map. The ability
to specify a shape and color has also been added in this release.
Overall Look and Feel
Node icons have replaced the dated node symbols to make the nodes easier to identify.
The node color has also been changed to match the color of the application and block
images have been updated in the sample models.
274
3.20.2.
Release 12.1.2
3.20.2.1. Aggregate Assignment Set and Lane Definition
When setting up a Strategic Plan, assignment sets and lanes are required to be defined for
each item that needs to be considered in a plan. For assignment sets the number of itemorganization combinations can potentially be very large since many of the aggregate
assignment levels are currently not supported. Similarly, when setting up lanes from
organization to customers each individual lane needs to be defined for every itemorganization-customer site-ship method combination. The setup for this can become
very tedious and error prone. A simple example will illustrate the current challenge.
Number of customer sites = 100
Average Number of DCs per customer site = 2
Number of ship methods (rail, truck) = 2
For this small supply chain 2 x 100 x 2 = 400 individual lanes would need to be entered.
The purpose of this enhancement is to ease the set-up required when defining strategic
plans. This is achieved by:
Support all available assignment type levels for input assignment sets.
Support for specificity rules to allow for defaulting. For example, a sourcing rule at
the item-organization level will override a previously defined assignment at the
category-organization level.
Support lane definition for regions or zones
This enhancement will ensure consistency with the other planning products and greatly
improve usability. This will also decrease the number of initial setup problems since the
most common problem is missing one of the many assignments or lanes that need to be
defined.
275
3.20.3.
Release 12.2
3.20.3.1. Specify Scenario File in the Plan Options
This enhancement improves the usability and robustness of Strategic Network
Optimization when deployed leveraging the standard integration to Oracle EBS or
EnterpriseOne. In many cases it is necessary to augment the model that is created using
the standard integrated process as the information may not be available in the source
system or the modeling constructs might need to be altered to satisfy specific business
requirements. Some examples include
Adjusting node-specific penalty costs
Considering future currencies
Modeling unique supply chain constraints
Leveraging Risk Adjusted Costs
These types of changes may be accommodated leveraging Strategic Network

Optimizations import file.
The plan options have been modified to allow the specification of one or more scenario
files (import files) to the plan.
Currently this can only be accomplished on the server side by expert users and requires
access to the server, appropriate server permissions and knowledge of the back end file
structure, scripts, and Strategic Network Optimization batch import commands. Server
side customizations will still be available and is the recommended approach for
276
significant customizations. The following diagram illustrates this enhancement in

context of the overall architecture.
Providing the ability to attach scenario files to the plan options will:
Lower the Total Cost of Ownership by providing an easy mechanism to import

model customizations
Improve usability and adoption in the field
Decrease data and model errors as the appropriate version of the scenario/import
file can be attached to the plan
Expand the relevance of the standard integrated model
3.20.3.2. Solver Upgrade

Strategic Network Optimization leverages linear optimization in combination with a
number of heuristics to solve long term supply chain planning problems. SNO leverages
the industry standard CPLEX solver which is capable of solving large scale Linear
Programming problems. In this release, the CPLEX version has been upgraded from
version 10.0 to 12.2, which enables the SNO solver to run significantly faster while
requiring less memory. This will be especially valuable to our customers with larger
SNO models.
The new CPLEX version also comes bundled with a Mixed Integer Programming (MIP)
solver which allows SNO to provide better (lower cost) solutions for go/no-go problems,
277
including Capital Asset Management. Typical Capital Asset Management problems

include:
How many facilities (Plants/DCs) should I have?
Where should my facilities be located?
What impact will off shoring have on my supply chain
Can I rationalize my facilities without compromising my ability to meet demand?
How can I mitigate supply chain risk?
When should I open/close my facilities?
Leveraging the MIP algorithm will better align SNO with current cost-driven objectives
used in facility planning.
3.21. Oracle Value Chain Planning Integration Base Pack (EnterpriseOne

VCP Integration)
3.21.1.
Release 12.2.5
3.21.1.1. User Interface for Setups
Prior to this release, integration parameters and supplemental data not available from
EnterpriseOne was maintained in a spreadsheet which was then converted to text files
and uploaded to the ODI server.
With this release, a new setup UI has been provided to maintain the integration
parameters and supplemental data. The new setup UI ensures that this information is
readily accessible by users in a central location. Integration parameters have been
classified as to whether the parameter is required or not to assist you with initial setup.
Where possible, validations are performed to ensure accuracy of parameter values.
A publish button is available from the Setup UI to generate text files which will still need
to be uploaded to the ODI server.
3.21.1.2. Support for Alternates
The EnterpriseOne integration has been enhanced to provide support for alternate bills of
material and routings. To leverage this feature, you need to set up bill of materials and
routings in EnterpriseOne with a bill type and routing type other than M. Alternate
bills of material and routings must be set up in pairs. For example, if an alternate bill of
material is set up with a bill type of A1, then an alternate routing type of A1 must
also be set up in order for ASCP to use the alternate bill and routing.
If there is more than one pair of alternate bill of material and routing, ranking will be
assigned based on ascending sort sequence of the bill and routing types. For example, if
Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content DocumentOracle Value Chain Planning Integration Base Pack (EnterpriseOne VCP
Integration)
278
A1, A2 and A3 are used, A1 will have a higher rank than A2 which will have a higher
rank than A3.
Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content DocumentOracle Value Chain Planning Integration Base Pack (EnterpriseOne VCP
Integration)
279

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ORACLE E-BUSINESS SUITE

RELEASE CONTENT DOCUMENT

Prepared by Oracle E-Business Suite Product Development

September 15, 2016

New and Changed Features in Value Chain Planning

Oracle Value Chain Planning

3.1.1. Release 12.1.1

Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center

3.2.1. Product Overview

Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning

3.3.1. Release 12.1.1

Oracle Collaborative Planning

3.4.1. Release 12.1.1

Oracle Demand Planning

3.5.1. Release 12.1.1

Oracle Demand Signal Repository

3.6.1. Product Overview

3.6.5. Release 12.2

Oracle Demantra All Products

3.7.1. Release 12.2

Oracle Demantra Demand Management

3.8.1. Release 12.2

Oracle Demantra In-Memory Consumption Driven Planning

3.9.1. Release 12.2.4

Oracle Demantra Real-time Sales and Operations Planning

3.10.1. Release 12.2

Oracle Demantra Predictive Trade Planning

3.11.1. Release 12.2

Oracle Demantra Trade Promotion Optimization

3.12.1. Release 12.2

Oracle Global Order Promising

3.13.1. Release 12.1.3

Oracle In-Memory Performance Driven Planning

3.14.1. Product Overview

Oracle Inventory Optimization

3.15.1. Release 12.1.1

Additional group for viewing Policy Parameters in the IMM

Oracle Manufacturing Scheduling

3.16.1. Release 12.2.5

Oracle Production Scheduling

3.17.1. Release 12.1.1

3.17.4.14. Visibility to Maintenance Visit Status

Oracle Rapid Planning

3.18.1. Product Overview

3.18.2.34. Clear to Build

Oracle Service Parts Planning

3.19.1. Product Overview

SPP ADF UI Items View

Oracle Strategic Network Optimization

3.20.1. Release 12.1.1

3.21.1. Release 12.2.5

New and Changed Features in Value Chain Planning

Oracle Value Chain Planning

Advanced Supply Chain Planning Oracle Transportation Management

Fewer elements and cleaner layout

Oracle Value Chain Planning

Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center

a robust reporting and analysis framework for supply chain planning;

Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center

How have my sales, marketing, manufacturing/distribution, financial, and

The Supply Review page answers questions such as:

Are we supply constrained?

The Executive Review page answers questions such as: