Warehouse Management

Another day and another new development on the Oracle WMS front. Oracle just announced the general availability of two advanced features in Oracle WMS:

This release provides customers the flexibility to deploy Oracle Warehouse Management as a distributed solution. Now, customers can take advantage of the latest industry-leading warehouse management capabilities from Oracle without upgrading to the latest version of the Oracle E-Business Suite.

"Oracle has always been committed to delivering best-in-class warehouse management capabilities through Oracle Warehouse Management," said Jon Chorley, Oracle Vice President, Supply Chain Product Strategy. "This expanded functionality combined with more integrated logistics capabilities and a new distributed deployment option is further proof of this commitment."

"Ensuring that today's complex and increasingly global supply chains run efficiently and smoothly demands effective warehouse management," said Dwight Klappich, Gartner Research Vice President. "The high velocity demands of today's supply chain require solutions that are always-on and always connected, regardless of network model, ERP or application infrastructure."

The additional features will be delivered as a patch on R12.1:

1. Distributed WMS Deployment
2. Advanced Wave Planning

WMS Deployment Flexibility

Until now Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) Warehouse Management System (WMS) required the transaction source systems like Purchasing and Order Management and execution systems like WMS reside and operate within the same instance. With the release of Distributed WMS feature, Oracle WMS can be deployed on a separate physical instance that is distinct from E-Business Suite (EBS) instance. This feature gives powerful choices to customers to deploy WMS either as an "integrated" as a module within EBS or as a "distributed" and independent solution installed on a separate instance. More specifically:

1. Customers who want the latest WMS features in R12.1 can have WMS deployed on a separate instance without upgrade of the entire application suite.

2. Oracle WMS can be deployed along with a EBS or non-EBS host system

3. Warehouse with network connectivity issues can have their independent WMS instance for an "always on" WMS solution

The feature also ships with an integration framework based on Oracle Data Integration (ODI) tool. More information on this release and useful whitepapers can be found using the following Metalink Note:

Distributed Warehouse Management System (Note: 821294.1)

One thing to be noted, is that Distributed WMS is not a separate product and all features developed in WMS (now or in future) will be available irrespective of the choice of deployment.

Optimize Warehouse Execution using Advanced Wave Planning

Another equally important milestone for us is the release of advanced wave planning. Until now the pick waves generated from pick release functionality lacked the planning aspects of fulfillment i.e. preview of lines and tasks, expected completion, fill rate and labor needs. Advanced wave planning gives planning capabilities and much more. Also included is a single Wave Dashboard that allows a warehouse manager to view wave status and drill down to detailed line or task status. The exception engine can be configured for specific business case to proactively look for exceptions such that corrective action can be taken. For example, a severe exception can be triggered if 80% of the lines in a wave are not loaded to the trailer 30 minutes prior to dock appointment end time.

We will follow-up with more detailed postings on these and other 12.1 features. As always stay tuned. These are exciting times to be in WMS world!

Yesterday I blogged about the Oracle announcement for distributed WMS and advanced wave planning. This story received wide coverage in the press.

Nicholas Kolakowski’s piece appeared on eWeek yesterday morning:

Oracle announced the release of a new version of Oracle Warehouse Management June 1. The scalable application allows users to manage complex warehouse operations, including multiple supply chain processes and materials management functionality. A version of the application had previously only been available to customers using the Oracle E-Business Suite. In its new and more modular iteration, the Warehouse Management application can be run outside of the E-Business Suite, allowing businesses to utilize a logistics and transportation solution without necessarily needing to upgrade other parts of their operations’ IT.

However, the new version does support earlier versions of the Oracle E-Business Suite. It also features support for multiple order capture systems under one independent fulfillment engine, multiple inventory solutions, and a variety of warehouse execution systems operating against a single global ERP system.

Jeff Moad from Managing Automation also covered this story yesterday.

Oracle Corp. today rolled out a new, stand-alone version of its Oracle Warehouse Management application, decoupling the tool from the E-Business Suite (EBS) ERP platform. Oracle Warehouse Management, previously available only as a module within EBS, can now be deployed independently, with links to Oracle and non-Oracle ERP systems. The move is part of an ongoing strategy to offer best-of-breed applications to customers outside Oracle’s customer base. The company has taken similar steps with its transportation and demand planning applications.

The announcement also signals a plan to more closely bundle Oracle Warehouse Management with the company’s transportation management application, offering them together as a best-of-breed logistics management suite. Recently, with its introduction of EBS 12.1, Oracle announced new integration points between Oracle Warehouse Management and Oracle Transportation Management, including the ability of the warehouse management system to collaborate with Oracle Transportation Management on load sequencing and cross docking.

Shayana Garlick from TechTarget covered it on their blog:

A new version of Oracle Warehouse Management, released June 1, allows users to deploy the warehouse management application as a distributed product. Users no longer have to be an E-Business Suite customer to use the application, as was required in earlier versions.

Meanwhile the documentation is available on Metalink (Note: 821294.1)

Distributed Warehouse Management System (Architecture and Solution)
The Oracle Distributed Warehouse Management System paper (April, 2009, 1.1 Mb)

The Oracle Distributed Warehouse Management System (Setup Document) paper (May, 2009, 1.9 Mb)

The Oracle Distributed Warehouse Management System (Technical Implementation) paper (May, 2009, .5 Mb)

The Oracle Distributed Warehouse Management System (Integration) paper (April, 2009, 1.0 Mb)

Want to learn more about the new 12.1 Oracle E-Business Suite? Come join us for our special webcast next Wednesday.

Details

*Date:* June 17, 2009
*Time:* 2:00 pm MDT
*Conference ID:* 145574018
*Conference Title:* What's New in Oracle E-Business Suite Warehouse

Registration link(requires MetaLink login)

Replenishment is an important driver in boosting fulfillment efficiency especially in those warehouses that fulfill a large number of orders with relatively small order quantities. In this type of scenario Warehouses can be divided into zones based on material characteristics and inventory sorting e.g. a warehouse can have a bulk area that is optimized for high density storage and a forward pick area optimized for high volume picking. The forward pick area can improve order fulfillment and enhance picking productivity by minimizing travel and material handling. It is used commonly by warehouses that process large number of smaller orders and hence process units picks or each picks.

The material in the forward pick area is replenished from the reserve or bulk area which stores pallets, cases or eaches as shown in Figure 1. It typically stocks material based on the demand and helps enhance material flow in a high volume unit/each pick environment. The quantity to be replenished depends on the requirements for the item in a wave as well as the available capacity of the locators. The locators can be fixed or dynamic. For a fixed item locator replenishment always occurs to the same locator where as for a dynamic locator replenishment occurs to a dynamically identified locator.

The forward pick area replenishment feature released in R12.1 supports two different types of replenishment that can be used in the warehouse:

- Pull Replenishment
- Push Replenishment

Pull replenishment can be considered for items with uniform demand. It is called “pull” as it is initiated based on the demand, the concept is that the warehouse pulls replenishments into forward pick area based on sales order demand. It is activated during sales order release as seen in Figure 2. If the forward pick area does not have enough stock a replenishment request is automatically created, and the order lines waits for the replenishment to be completed before a task can be assigned to an operator (as shown in Figure 3). A pick task is automatically created when replenishment task is completed.

Push replenishment is suitable for items with non-uniform demand. It is called “push” replenishment as it is initiated prior to release the pick waves and the replenishments are pushed to the forward pick area before the orders are picked. The forward pick area is stocked up with the future demand based on orders coming into the warehouse in a given time period. Push replenishment can be conditional based on certain parameters. With insufficient quantity in the forward pick to fulfill the orders before they are released for picking, replenishment is requested.

Some of benefits of using replenishment:

1. Eliminate Fragmentation – Replenishment allows warehouses to setup rules to pick full cases or pallets without breaking them to eaches hence maintaining the packing integrity. The loose units in the bulk area often render the pallet unusable for movement as an entity also leading to inefficient resource allocation. However, the cases or pallets once brought to the forward pick area can be broken to loose units thus also improving labor productivity.

2. Prevent Backordering – Warehouses that have inventory will not backorder material simply because it is not in the forward pick area or in a particular subinventory. Instead replenishment is automatically requested, and a replenishment task is created to move the material from the reserve area. Following completion of this replenishment task, a pick task is automatically created thus preventing backorders.

3. Replenish Flexible Quantity – Replenishment occurs based on a fixed multiple and a min-max quantity. Warehouses can change either or both parameters to adjust to the optimal quantity for replenishment. During peak season the forward pick area can be expanded and quantity to be replenishment changed for different items. Maximum quantity to be replenished should be careful chosen. Too low of a maximum quantity will create very frequent replenishment requests. Conversely, with too high of a maximum quantity, the forward pick area leads to non-optimal storage.

4. Minimize Travel Time – Warehouse operator’s travel time is minimized by reducing the number of trips to the source inventory. Instead of fulfilling every order from the source subinventory, a replenishment request accumulates the total quantity for a line item in a pick wave. This request replenishes the forward pick area, and the operator can then fulfill the orders from this location.

Here is a new short video of Mobile Speech Client developed by Voice Insight in use along with Oracle WMS. In the past I have blogged about the benefits of speech client and especially how it can helps you deploy voice technology using your existing hardware and minimal capex. It also scales very well i.e. start voice picking for high volume pick area or certain selected items and roll out to other areas as you realize the benefits.

http://www.voice-insight.com/Videos/MSC_Video.html

It's 4 minutes long and demonstrates the benefits of voice and mobility in a nutshell:

1) works "out of the box" for Oracle mobile applications (e.g. WMS)
2) improve productivity with hands free operations (reduce data entry)
3) requires no middleware or modification of the host system
(location alias / check digits available for any version)
4) runs completely on the mobile device (from Motorola, LXE, etc.)

Check it out. Fascinating stuff!