Inventory
1- Deferred Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Recognition
Starting in this release, Oracle Inventory can defer the recognition of COGS until all
contract contingencies are filled and Receivables has recognized the revenue. Oracle
Inventory holds incurred costs in a deferred COGS account until Receivables recognizes
it per the revenue recognition rules. This enables you to recognize both COGS and
revenue in the same accounting period. The new accounting rules also support
customer returns.
All sales order issue transactions are debited to the deferred COGS account except:
• Internal sales orders: For internal sales orders, the COGS account is debited directly
when the new accounting rule is not enabled.
• Intercompany transactions: For all intercompany transactions (external drop
shipments, internal drop shipments, and non-ship flows) COGS is debited directly
if the new accounting rule is not enabled.
Oracle Cost Management moves incurred costs from the deferred COGS to the COGS
account based on the revenue recognition events or order close events. The remaining
2- Material Workbench
In Release 11.5.10, Oracle Inventory introduced the option to use the Material
Workbench to view material that resides in receiving in addition to on-hand material. In
this release, you can use the Material Workbench to view detailed information about
material that resides in receiving, in-transit material, and on hand material. When you
choose to view in-transit material, you can view the following document types:
• Purchase orders
• Advanced shipment notices (ASNs)
• Internal Orders
Oracle Inventory calculates availability information according to the material location of
the relevant material. Instead of viewing on hand material, material in receiving, and
in-transit material through separate queries, you can perform one query that displays
an item across different material locations. You can also perform a query that displays
item information across organizations. This provides you with access to a global picture
of inventory for the item, and allows you to make quick decisions regarding item
sourcing and procurement.
3- Picking Rule Enhancements
In this release, the picking rule window enables you to capture individual customer
product quality and material characteristic preferences. For example, one customer may
require premium grade material, while another more price-sensitive client may not
have that restriction. To manage customer preferences, restrictions were added to the
picking rules engine allocation logic in addition to the existing sort criteria for
acceptable material. In this release, the Inventory Picking Rules window enables you to
create picking rules without installing Oracle Warehouse Management.
These rules are a subset of Oracle Warehouse Management rules and have the following
usage and restrictions:
• Allocate based on first in first out (FIFO) or first expired first out (FEFO)
• Ensure only one lot is allocated, or allow multiple lot allocation
• Restrict allocation by shelf life days
• Allow partial allocation, or ensure full allocation
• Specify matching based on item quality data
• Allocate lots in lot number sequence, or no sequence
• Allocate revisions by revision, effective date, or no sequence
• Allocate by sub-inventory, receipt date, or no sequence
• Allocate by locator, receipt date, or no sequence
• Allocate by preferred grade
• Ensure lots of indivisible items are fully consumed
• Allow over allocation
After you create the picking rules, you can use the Rules Workbench page to assign
picking rules in the following combinations:
• Item
• Item category
• Customer
• Source type
• Transaction type
When you enable a rule the system builds a rules package. After the system builds a
rules package, it creates an enabled strategy with the same name and description. If you
disable the rule, then the system automatically disables the strategy. You can only
disable rules that are not used in any disabled strategy assignments. You can also only
modify disabled rules.
Note:
The Rules Workbench available in an inventory-only
organization does not have the full capabilities of the Oracle
Warehouse Management Rules Workbench.
4- Enhanced Reservations
You can create linkages between supply and demand to guarantee material availability.
These linkages are known as reservations. A reservation guarantees the availability of
reserved supply to a specific demand. In previous releases, reservations supported
limited supply and demand types.
In this release, Oracle Inventory introduced the following new supply and demand
types:
Supply types
• Purchase orders
• Internal requisitions
• Discrete jobs
• Process manufacturing batches
• Shop floor jobs
Demand types
• Components for Complex Maintenance Repair and Overhaul work orders
• Components for process manufacturing batches
Reservations supports document validation, availability checks, and change
management for the new supply and demand types. In this release, reservations also
supports crossdocking in the warehouse, and enables you to reserve the most
appropriate inbound receipts for an outbound shipment. The crossdock attribute was
added to the Item Reservations window to link supply to demand. The system creates
crossdock reservations automatically. You cannot delete a crossdock reservation if the
supply type is receiving.
In this release, you can reserve a specific serial number and Oracle Inventory ensures
the system allocates the serial number at pick release. A new Serial Entry window was
added to enable you to reserve multiple serial numbers for a reservation. If you reserve
serial numbers, pick release allocates the serials irrespective of the picking rules. Pick
release allocates the reserved serials first and honors the organization parameter
Allocate Serial Numbers for the remaining demand. Oracle Inventory also allows you to
substitute serial numbers during picking and shipping. If you choose to substitute a
serial number, then the system deletes the reservation for the substituted serial number.
5- Demand Fulfillment Lead Time
Demand fulfillment lead time is the time between order placement and order
fulfillment. You usually set it either to the time allowed by the customer or based on
business practice. You can express a customer service level target in terms of a demand
fulfillment lead time. For example, you can set a 95% service level with a three-day
demand fulfillment lead time.
In previous releases, Oracle Inventory Optimization assumed that the lead time was
zero. And, service levels were specified in different places - item-specific service levels
as a flex field for the item, customer-specific service levels as a flex field for the
customer, and demand class-specific service levels when associating a demand class
with allocation rules.
In this release, service level and demand fulfillment lead time can be specified in one
place as part of a service level set at the following levels: Item - Organization - Demand
class, Item - Demand class, Item - Item category - Demand class, Item - Organization,
Category, Demand class, Customer site, Customer, Organization - Demand class, and
Organization.
You can enter lead time in days as a fractional number. For example, a 4-hour lead time
as 0.167 (4 hours / 24 hours).
6- Lead Time Variability
In previous releases, Inventory Optimization did not consider the variability of lead
times when it calculated safety stock levels. In this release, it calculates these variability
measures from lead times when it calculates safety stock levels:
•
Manufacturing lead-time variability: A standard deviation value that the planning
engine applies to the item processing lead time. You enter item processing lead time
in Collections Workbench form, Item Details window. Oracle Inventory
Optimization assumes that the statistical distribution of the manufacturing lead
time is normal.
•
In-transit lead-time variability: A standard deviation value that the planning
engine takes against the ship method transit time. You enter ship method transit
time in the Transit Times form. Oracle Inventory Optimization assumes that the
statistical distribution of the in-transit lead time is normal.
•
Purchasing lead-time variability: A standard deviation value that the planning
engine takes against the supplier processing lead time. If entered, Oracle Inventory
Optimization assumes that the statistical distribution of supplier variability is
normal. As in previous releases, you can also enter this value by specifying a
histogram of purchasing lead time-probability pairs. If you enter the value using a
histogram, Oracle Inventory Optimization takes the probability distribution from
the user inputs.
Order Management
Obsolete Profile Options
Here are the profile options that are obsolete. All functionality previously provided by
these profile options is now controlled by Oracle Payments.
• OM: Estimated Authorization Validity Period
• OM: Number of Days to Backdate Bank Account Creation
• OM: Payment Method for Credit Card Transactions. Control is now available at the
Payment Type level in the Define Payment Types window.
• OM: Process Payment Immediately at Booking. Control is now available at the
Payment Type level in the Define Payment Types window.
• OM: Risk Factor Threshold for Electronic Payments
Changed Profile Options
These profile options have been converted to Oracle Order Management system
parameters:
• OM: Credit Memo Transaction Type
• OM: Credit Salesperson for Freight on Sales
• OM: Employee for Self-Service Orders
• OM: GSA Discount Violation Action
• OM: Invoice Source
• OM: Invoice Transaction Type
• OM: Non-Delivery Invoice Source
• OM: Overshipment Invoice Basis
• OM: Reservation Time Fence
• OM: Schedule Line on Hold
• OM: Show Discount Details on Invoice
• Tax: Inventory Item for Freight
• Tax: Invoice Freight as Revenue
The system parameters retain the same names as the profile options without the
prefixes (OM: or Tax:). The profile OM: Employee for Self-Service Orders is replaced by
the system parameter called Requestor for Drop Ship Orders created by external user.
These profile options were changed to system parameters to support Multiple
Organization Access Control (MOAC), which allows you to access one or more
operating units using a single responsibility. Some addition benefits include:
• Implementers need to set some application controls at an operating unit level so
that the business flows they operate on can be consistent within that operating unit.
At the same time, the application controls can be set differently for different
operating units. Delivering those controls as system parameters (which are specific
to operating units) instead of as profile options meets this need.
• After you set the values of certain key application controls during an
implementation, you need to ensure that those values are not changed later in the
implementation process. Using system parameters for these controls ensures that
implementers are appropriately warned or disallowed from making such changes.
The upgrade migrates the values of the profile options to system parameter values.
Defaulting Rules
In previous releases of Order Management, seeded defaulting rules defaulted the Order
Type and Salesrep from the Customer. These defaulting rules are deleted. You can still
default the Order Type and Salesrep values from other sources, such as the Customer
Ship-to and Customer Bill-to.
The sources Customer.Order type and Customer.Salesrep are also disabled, so all
custom defaulting rules that used these source are deleted.