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By Arun Malhotra — solution architect with Trinamix, an Oracle Platinum Partner

Supply Chain Management (SCM) involves the management of all the different processes and activities at each step that leads to value created in the hands of ultimate consumer. Modern day SCM Planners are responsible for most of these processes and are tasked with optimizing value in the entire supply chain from the Supplier’s supplier to the very end consumer. Some of the Key challenges for modern day SCM Planners are:

  1. Predicting the right levels of Sales Forecasts and Production Levels
  2. Managing Uncertainty of Demand
  3. Adapting to the Risk in modern day Global Supply Chains
  4. Meeting Customer Demand in the most optimum while Reducing Costs and Inventory Levels
  5. Monitor Exceptions to work on the Vital Few, rather the Trivial Many.

Let’s look at some of the key features of Oracle Cloud that make these tasks relatively easier and assist Planners in carrying out their Day-to-day activities.

Dashboard for Demand Planners:

Demand Planners would be interested in the following KPIs:

  1. Forecast Accuracy of System generated Statistical Forecast
  2. Forecast Accuracy of Sales Forecast
  3. Forecast Comparison between Statistical and Sales Forecasts
  4. Forecast Comparison between This Year versus Last Year
  5. Revenue and Margin projections

From the Summary Dashboard planner can analyze the above metrics.

Statistical Forecast generated by Oracle is called Shipments Forecast, as it is generated using Shipments History of the organization. The industry standard measure of Forecast Accuracy is called Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE).

By clicking on the Shipments Forecast MAPE, Planner is provided with a more detailed graphical analysis based upon Product Categories.

Heatmap of MAPE by Product Category, highlight to the Planner, the categories which need more attention. Forecast Comparison also provides more detailed graphical representation by Period or Product Category to better model the seasonal/categorical trends.

Demand Planner can also look at Revenue by Category to identify profitable Product Categories or monitor sudden demand changes by drilling into the Order Comparison from the Revenue graphs and comparing with achieved plans.

Dashboard for Customer Support/Inventory Planners:

Customer Support/Inventory Planner would be interested in the following KPIs. Summary Dashboard where planners can analyze the above metrics.

Demand Fulfillment:

  1. Demand Fulfillment Exceptions by Region
  2. Demand Fulfillment Exceptions by Product Category
  3. Demand at Risk Analysis

Each DC is modeled as Organization in Oracle and can report Exceptions at this level to look at Regional/DC level issues in Demand Fulfillment.

 

Planner can look in to Orgs with most number of Exceptions and drill to Supply and Demand of this Region or further drill into the Product Category level or look at the other Measures by Days, Quantity or Value to better understand the situation.

 

Inventory Analysis:

  1. Projected Inventory Stock-out Exceptions
  2. Projected Inventory Shortage & Excess
  3. Inventory Turns projections, as per current plan

The Planning Engine also creates some standard Exceptions but it can also be altered to create entirely Custom Exceptions like for example, here we have created a custom exception for Stock-out as where ever the Projected On hand falls below a certain threshold value a Stock-out exception needs to be reported. These exceptions can be analyzed using the following graph.

Similarly, Shortage and Excess exceptions can also be analyzed.

 

 

Dashboard for Supply Planners & Operations Manager:

Supply Planner would be interested in following KPIs:

  1. Plan Recommendations for Buy Items (Purchasing)
  2. Plan Recommendations for Make Items (Production)

From the Summary Dashboard planner can analyze the above metrics.

From the Buy and Make Plan Infotiles, the planner can get a summary view of the Monthly Requirements that can be compared to the Capacity/Quota of Suppliers. Also, Custom Measures can be configured that provide insights into the Importance of the Plan recommendations by looking at the pegging information, so recommendations pegged to Sales Orders take priority over others. The Weekly Plan also provide immediate Action Items to the Planners that need to be acted on.

Trinamix, an Oracle Platinum Partner and leading Oracle Supply Chain Planning implementation partner, hosts its signature PaaS based solutions on Oracle Cloud. Click here to read Trinamix Success Stories.

Further information on Oracle Supply Chain Planning Cloud products can be found via this link

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