Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 1 Is Release 11i Ready for Production? Two Manufacturing Case Studies Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton Disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of KPMG Consulting UK or KPMG Consulting LLC – however, this paper reflects the experiences at two active Oracle implementations as of 23 November 2000

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 2 Release 11i Stability Matsushita Implementation Robert Lawton

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 3 Background IBM AIX (first client in the world) Release Project started in June 2000 CRP1 completed early November for Finance, Operations and Sales CRP1 for Planning to start December 2000

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 4 Release 11i Scope of Project Oracle Applications Financials – General Ledger and OFSG – Accounts Payable – Accounts Receivable – Cash Management – Fixed Assets Operations – Bills Of Material/Engineering – WIP – Purchasing – Cost Management – Inventory – Flow Manufacturing Sales and Distribution – Order Management – Shipping Planning – APS – MPS/MRP Deployments to the UK and Eastern Europe Matsushita manufactures TVs, set-top boxes, microwave ovens, laser printers and PCBs at these implementation sites

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 5 CRP Overview TrackTests PlannedTests Completed Finance9076 Operations Sales & Distribution 407

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 6 Neat New Features Architecture easier to deploy to wider groups Increased use of Workflow (Order Management) Screens / Forms easier to use Cost management, more ways to do inventory valuations, e.g. Periodic Production and move order Kanbans introduced Discrete workstation in WIP (GUI) Phantom BOM’s can have their own operations Planning constraints for suppliers, e.g. Delivery calendars

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 7 Sample Bugs Period End Closing Inventory stock counts Cost Management Raising internal orders Drop shipments and deliveries

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 8 Overall Stability / Usability Finance – med/high Operations – med/high Sales / Distribution - low

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 9 Things to watch out for Scripts in install for AIX required modification by Oracle Oracle still getting up to speed with new modules, slow to resolve issues / fix bugs New modules, such as Order Management, not ready for production in

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 10 Release 11i Stability Precision Cast Parts Corporation Wyman Gordon Division Implementation Douglas Volz (courtesy of Behzad Shakibal)

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 11 Background HP UX, L and N class machines Release , incrementally patched up to Project started in late August CRP1 completed 25 Oct 2000 for Finance, Operations and Order Management CRP2 starts on November 27th

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 12 Release 11i Scope of Project Oracle Applications Financials – General Ledger and OFSG – Accounts Payable – Accounts Receivable – Cash Management – Operations – Bills Of Material/Engineering – WIP (Discrete Manufacturing) – Purchasing – Cost Management – Inventory – MPS/MRP – Quality – Capacity Sales and Distribution – Order Management – Shipping Deployments to multiple sites on the same database instance First division for go-live is Wyman Gordon, located in the Western United States Wyman makes forged parts for high precision aircraft engines, and metal extrusions for pumps, petroleum lines, and other applications

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 13 CRP Overview TrackApprox. Tests Planned Approx. Tests Completed 95% Finance Operations Sales & Distribution

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 14 Neat New Features Architecture easier to install than prior versions (11.03, 10.7, etc.) Increased use of Workflow (Order Management, Purchasing, Quality, Engineering) Screens more similar to Microsoft look and feel Discrete workstation in WIP (GUI), drop and drag transactions Planner workbench enhancements Better integration of Quality collection plans with Purchasing receipts and inspection

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 15 Neat New Features (Continued) Phantom BOM’s can have their own operations and labour No documentation in , but has alternate resources on a routing (used for downtime, etc.) Inventory item category codes are more flexible, items can share multiple category names across category sets Supplier scheduling and supplier management portal: view purchase orders, expected delivery schedules, etc online by your suppliers

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 16 Sample Bugs Order Management, pick and reserve by lot Inventory stock counts, cycle counting AP matching AR reconciliation

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 17 Overall Stability / Usability Finance – med/high Operations – low/med (lots of bugs with MRP and Capacity) Sales / Distribution – low Note, these ratings are after patches that bring you up to a level similar to is expected to be more stable and include patches for the above

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 18 Things to watch out for Scripts in install for HP UX required modification by Oracle (first install, , now fixed ) Oracle still getting up to speed with new modules, slow to resolve issues / fix bugs (such as lot control bugs) New modules, such as Order Management, not ready for production in , better after patches expect continued improvement in Oracle Vision not stable until you apply further patches

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 19 Overall Recommendations

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 20 Overall Recommendations Unless you only use Financials, is only suitable for prototyping, and only after many bug patches If you can wait, skip , start with Release (As of 22 November 2000, was not shipping to the Oracle public) If you can wait even longer, start with Release (but the Euro deadline is coming….)

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 21 Overall Recommendations Be prepared to add in “slack” or extra time into your project schedule for quality issues, especially if you are using Order Management or the new CRM modules Financials appears to be relatively stable, out since March 2000 Manage the expectations of your user community; Oracle Release 11i can enable new processes, but will not fix your broken business processes unless the business is willing to fix them

Dec UKOUG 23 Nov 2000 Douglas Volz & Robert Lawton 22 Questions and Answers Thank you for your time and participation!