1. The attendance was marginally down as compared to 2008. Something that can be explained by the state of the economy
2. WMS sessions were very well attended. There was a lot of interest in MSCA sessions especially the mobility session by Jennifer Sherman and Carrie Lukatch
3. The questions during my presentation at the SIG and WMS Roadmap presentation were very interesting and indicated customer interest in new generation of features in R12.1 and R12 especially Advanced Wave Planning capabilities and forward pick replenishment.
4. WMS SIG events will be rescheduled on a weekday from next Oracle Open World. This is a really good move by OAUG
5. Increasing interest in WMS and OTM. This was also evident from the interest in the joint OTM+WMS sessions by Derek Gittoes and Jen Sherman.

Members of both development and strategy team will be present at OpenWorld, so you can come with questions, leave with answers.

You can find us at:

Warehouse Management Systems Demo Grounds

Date & Time: Mon 10/12 - Wed 10/14 (all day)
Location: Exibition Hall, Moscone South S-023

Additionally, here are a few sessions that you might also want to check out:

Transportation & Warehousing: Oracle's Integrated Logistics Strategy

Host: Derek Gittoes, Jennifer Sherman
Date & Time: Mon Oct 12, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Location: Moscone West Oracle Room 2014

Supply Chain SuperSession (Dual Session)

Host: Rick Jewell, Jon Chorley, Maha Muzumdar & Executive Customer Panelist
Date & Time: Mon Oct 12, 1:00-3:30 p.m.
Location: Moscone West Oracle Room 2014

Going Mobile in the Supply Chain: Which Solution is Right for You?

Host: Jennifer Sherman
Date & Time: Wed Oct 14, 10:15-11:15 a.m.
Location: Moscone West Oracle Room 2005

What is new in Release 12.1?

Host: Aditya Agarkar, Aby Joy (Igloo)
Date & Time: Thu Oct 15, 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Location: Moscone West Oracle Room 2015

BABYRIDE ( 09C003000 ) (Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EST)
PIRELLI ( 09T012000 ) (Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EST)
DUCATI ( 09V365000 ) (Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EST)
IMI Cornelius Recalls Juice Dispensers Due to Fire Hazard (Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:00:00 GMT)
Price Rite 25 Ct Beef Bouillon is Being Voluntarily Recalled Due to Allergy Alert(Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:11:00 EST)

A poorly handled recall can be extremely damaging to a company. If not enough products are recalled, there is a chance that potentially risky item can still put customers at risk. If too many products are called, it can incur significant added cost to the company. Furthermore, a slow response to crisis would be damaging to company brand and could even result in lawsuits. This is where genealogy comes in handy.

Genealogy is often one of the less mentioned topics of logistics planning, but nonetheless it is an important one for the reasons given above. In short, genealogy is a tool that captures and maintains product composition history. In this post, we'll discuss the two general forms of genealogy in the Warehouse Management System (WMS) and put it in context of how genealogy can be useful.

Lot Genealogy

The most commonly genealogy in warehouse operations is in the form of "Lot Genealogy". Lot genealogy tracks the composition and where used history of a lot through split, merge and move. WMS automatically logs these transactions performed on any given lot and displays them in a tree-like structure. Lot genealogy is particularly useful in product recall situations. As an example, lot genealogy can be used when a company issues a recall for all finished goods containing a tainted lot of supplier raw material.

Serial Genealogy

Serial genealogy is the complimentary version of lot genealogy commonly used for discrete manufacturing. Serial genealogy is recorded upon job assemblies when the operator enters the generated serial numbers for each assembly. Serial genealogy works seamlessly with lot genealogy in the case of lot -> serial transactions. The ability to track individual item is useful in the case of asset maintenance and returns. As an example, it is possible to look up a returned faulty return product's serial number to compile a list of components and assemblies.

Genealogy in E-Business Suite tracks in more ways than serial and lot genealogy, and can be applicable in more scenarios than return or recall. This post merely touches two out of the many ways it can potentially benefit your organization. As traceability and accountability becomes more important in industries like consumer goods and pharmaceutical, genealogy is likely to become a focus of the next generation logistics processes.

The recorded sessions for these webcasts are now available:

Post Presentation Recordings can be found using Metalink Note 740297.1

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!

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.

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)

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)

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!

Let’s say your warehouse operator needs to pick 100 cases of the same item. Under the current setup, one must affix label on a case, enter pick information, scan label and then confirm. The process is efficient for a single item/case pick, but it is a time-consuming process to repeat 100 times.

Here’s a better solution:

High Volume Case Picking feature in 12.1 allows the operator to affix all of the labels at once onto the 100 cases. Since the source and destination are the same for all 100 cases, the operator enters the information only once. In a single task window, an operator is asked to scan all 100 cases, one after another. Once complete, the operator confirms once for all 100 case picks and drops the picked items to a pallet or conveyor. In essence, 12.1 High Volume Case Picking feature speeds up the outbound processing by eliminating the need to enter any duplicate information. This feature is a small improvement over the current implementation, but can potentially be a huge impact for customers with high volume picking need.

It is also worthwhile to point out that High Volume Case Picking feature is EAN-128(UCC-128) label compatible.

Let’s take the following scenario for example.

Three picks are ordered in a large warehouse shown in the figure above. The three picks are randomly scattered around the warehouse as denoted by colored dots. If an operator is commissioned for each pick order, in total these three picks would require three full trips around the warehouse. A better picking strategy is to divide the warehouse into three smaller pick zones as shown below, and allow the operators to pick the three orders simultaneously.

Here’s how Cluster Pick by Label is currently implemented in 12.1. Using the flexible cartonization feature, WMS can suggest a pick container as well as generate the shipping label for it. The operator first scans all three shipping labels and proceeds to pick up the proper shipping containers as suggested by the system. WMS intelligently combines the three orders and orders picks for items nearest to the operator. The operator proceeds to pick and confirm items as suggested. At any time, the operator can stop the picking process and pass on the pick slips to the next operator. Each operator repeats the same process of scan, pick, and pass to other operators until the shipping containers reach the end of the line in staging or all pick orders are finished. The last operator is responsible to pack and deliver the container to staging area to complete the process.

There are many benefits to using Cluster Pick by Label, namely
- Eliminate wasted travel time
- Shorten total travel distance from three full rounds into one
- Alleviate machine handling equipments(MHE) and other traffic congestion
- Allow operators to specialize in a particular zone

Cluster Pick by Label feature is a classic example of sum of the efforts being greater than its individual parts.

For the advanced user of Cluster Pick by Label, it is now possible to commission bucket brigade to create a self-labor-balancing warehouse. Please follow the link to read the great article from John Bartholdi of Georgia Tech on this topic.

So, what is cartonization?

Simply put, it is a process by which WMS suggests a container with a LPN for picking one or more items. If the container is a shipping container, warehouse operators can combine the “picking” and “packing” steps into one. Done this way, cartonization in effect removes the need for a packing station, and speeds up the overall outbound process. It works by allowing the operator to pick up the proper shipping container prior to picking (size calculated based on picks) and assign a shipping label to the container. The operator then scans the LPN on shipping label and proceeds to pick directly into the shipping container. Once complete, the carton can be directly dropped in the staging lane for shipping. It is a useful feature commonly used by R12 WMS customers today.

And what is new?

What sets 12.1 flexible cartonization apart from its predecessor is its flexibility and customizability. One of the features is the ability to specify Cartonization Rules using rules Workbench:

Rules Workbench(1) is a familiar tool for many to manage all rules related to Pick, Put Away, Cost Group, and Crossdock. Cartonization is now added to the Rules Workbench as a central location to manage all the cartonization related setup.

Using this workbench, warehouses can easily commission (2), prioritize(3), and schedule(6) any cartonization requirements. Cartonization setup allows for customized strategies(4), and as an added feature it can be assigned down to a particular subinventory(5).

Cartonization can be done using one of the following algorithms:

1. Single Item Cartonization: This uses the container load relationship to cartonize. This is ideal when standard quantities of a single item are packed into a container.
2. Mixed Item Cartonization: This algorithm uses contained item and container item categories to pack one or more items into a container. Weight, volume and dimensions are considered to suggest container.
3. Pick Slip Grouping: This is a new cartonization algorithm in R12.1 that creates a carton for the entire pick slip grouping e.g. if pick slip grouping is defined for zone pick, it creates a cartonized container for all picks coming from a zone. By configuring pick slip grouping, warehouses can effectively use pick and pass, zone picking and cluster picking with cartonization.
4. Customer Specific Algorithm: This can be used to define any site specific algorithm using a PL/SQL stub API.

As shown in the screenshot above, cartonization is only enabled under the EACH subinventory using the “Pick Slip Grouping Rule”, while rests of the subinventories are unaffected. This ability provides great flexibility to the warehouse with special outbound needs.

Another added improvement allows the use of cartonization in parallel with cluster pick by label. It is now possible to “Pick and Pass” or “Zone Pick” directly into shipping containers. We will talk in details about this feature in a later post.

Last but not least, cartonization can also generate GS1-128(UCC-128) compatible shipping labels. This is a common usage scenario in a number of warehouses.

Questions? Comments? We would love to hear from you, please drop us a line.

This latest release of the Oracle E-Business Suite provides product enhancements across human resources, supply chain management, procurement, projects, master data management, customer relationship management and financials.

With the Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1, organizations can achieve rapid value today, as well as standardize and simplify their infrastructure and business processes for long-term results.

The Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 also features industry specific features and solutions that help drive greater value across the enterprise. Industries with significant new functionality advancements include Wholesale Distribution, Public Sector, High Technology, Engineering & Construction, Life Sciences, Retail, Professional Services, Communications, Consumer Goods and Utilities.

This release is important for WMS as there are many powerful features available in this release. The main features for WMS are:

a. Forward Pick Area Replenishment: This includes demand driven "Pull" and "Push" replenishment to a pick area from reserve or bulk area.
b. High Volume Case Picking: Ability to generate case labels and perform picking and labeling of multiple cases using a single task. Cases can be picked and loaded to conveyor (Pick To Belt) or picked on to a pallet (Pick to Pallet).
c. Flexible Cartonization: Enables "Pick and pass" and "Zone Picking" directly into shipping cartons.
d. Cluster pick using labels: Enables cluster pick or batch pick of multiple orders directly into pre-labeled shipping cartons.
e. Load Sequencing and Dock door appointment synchronization: Leverage transportation planning and carrier appointment in Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) to plan execution in WMS. Ensure that material is staged to the right dock door at the right time.

There are many more features in this release. A complete list of features in this release is available in the R12.1 Release Content Document.

We will be doing a series of blog posts for each of these features in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

1. LPN Setup: GS1-128 label requires an LPN to be generated as per SSCC standards. An SSCC-18 number is a unique 18-digit license plate number that is generated as per specific UCC standards. Therefore to generate GS1-128 label requires this 18 digit number to be generated.

2. Create GS1-128 label layout (see sample label) in a label designing software. In this example, the number following (00) is the SSCC-18 number. Whereas (00) is the application identifier. Please note that application identifier should appear in the human readable format as “(00)”. However in actual barcode the application identifier should be encoded as “00” (i.e. without brackets). The variable following the “00” is the 18-digit LPN number from WMS.

3. To auto-generate LPN using SSCC-18 standard, the following setup is needed in org parameters form:

4. Note: As per GS1/UCC standards, application identifier (00) is not part of the SSCC-18 data structure and need not be transmitted as a prefix for LPN in ASNs. However there are customers who require incoming ASN must have LPNs with 20-digit container reference. In this case the 20 digit number consists of 18 digit-SSCC number prefixed with SSCC application identifier “00”. Prefixing “00” to SSCC number will not change the check digit of SSCC. If a customer requires 20-digit container reference, a prefix of “00” can be added in either the label printing software or the prefix of “00” can be added to the extension digit. The setup in this case may look like:

Sometimes customers also enforce a range of container serials for certain warehouses e.g. W1 container serials start with 1, W2 with 2 etc. in such as case, the leading digit from the container serial can be removed and suffixed to LPN prefix:

This way, W1 will always generate LPNs in SSCC18 format that is distinct from W2.

5. Create a label format “UCC128” for type “Shipping Content”. Include fields such as LPN (SSCC-18), Ship to address, PO, Ship from address, etc. as shown in the figure above. You can make this the default label format for “Shipping Content” label.

6. Select a valid printer.

7. Assign “Shipping Content” label to business flow “pick drop” (you may use other business flows like packing workbench, ship confirm or pick load)

As background information, the GS1-128 label is derived from Code 128, a simple symbology that translates numbers and characters into what's commonly known as "barcode". GS1-128 looks like a longer version of the typical barcode. It stores not only the serial number, but also the company and the application identifier. In essence, GS1-128 is an advanced barcode that provides the relevant business context in addition to identifying a product.
Here's an example:

Let’s take a closer look at the last set of numbers in the previous example. The label roughly breaks down into 4 sections, plus an application identifier.

It’s worthwhile to note that the Application Identifier field can refer to wide range of data contents. In the example shown, (00) implies the content is a License Plate Number(LPN). This number can also be used to identify zip code, expiration date, weight, container code and other information. Here’s the full list.

The 18-digit after Application Identifier is the LPN, also known as SSCC-18(Serialized Shipping Container Code). This number is 18 digitals long, and it is globally unique. SSCC-18 tells any operator what the product is and where it is from.

The versatility of GS1-128 is what makes it the standard labeling format in the world today. In the next post, we will be discussing how Oracle WMS can be used to generate GS1-128 label and Advanced Shipping Notices (ASN) in the customer’s inbound process.