1. Oracle APS - An Implementer’s View
Raghu Manjunath
President, Advanced Planning Solutions, Inc.

2. Introducing Advanced Planning Solutions, Inc.
Headquartered in the San Mateo, California
Worldwide reach - North America, Europe and Asia Pacific
A leader in implementing Oracle Supply Chain Management solutions across industry verticals
Oracle APS, OSFM and Oracle Manufacturing modules
Expanding into new areas like Distribution and Logistics
Types of Engagements
End-to-End implementations
Implementation Audits & fixes thereof
Solution Adoption
Advisory Roles

3. What’s this guy smokin’ !!!
Discussion Topic
Strategies for an easy and painless implementation of the Oracle APS modules
What’s this guy smokin’ !!!

4. Philosophy
Life’s all about expectations

5. Oracle APS Characteristics
Not the regular transactional application like Order Management or Purchasing
Not all black and white
More than one right answer
Balance conflicting priorities among planning, allocations and customer service functions
Garbage-in Garbage-out nature
Data inputs (especially forecasts) are not always pristine
80-20 rule for intermediary end-states
A journey, not a destination

6. Implementation Strategy – High Level
Get business and user community involved starting day one
Draw parallels between what user community is used to and what changes with APS
Unconstrained MRP Versus Constrained ASCP
Manually calculated customer commits to ASCP plan educated customer commit dates returned by GOP
Get to a solution prototype as quickly as possible and showcase the solution
Tie down the supply chain model & stabilize ERP
Product structure (planning related item attributes)
BOMs, Routings/Resources, Sourcing Network
Demand and supply elements
Validate solution design with a representative data set rather than rigging the data to stage the solution
For example penalties for optimization, sourcing networks, etc.

7. Implementation Strategy – High Level
Keep data maintenance in mind while designing the solution
For example end-item substitution chains, time phased setups
User defined allocation versus system generated allocation
Keep the model simple and go in bite-size chunks while adding complexity
Give data cleanup the place it deserves
Garbage-in, Garbage-out
Plan for a global implementation
Time zones, plan runtimes, downtimes, etc.
Fail-safe strategy for plan availability
Pay special attention to training & documentation
Plan for a post go-live adoption phase
Make use of the relationship with Oracle Sales, Support and Development
Strategic Accounts Program

8. Implementation Strategy – ASCP
Understand Plan Options
EDD, ECC and Unconstrained plans
EDD for long term aggregate planning
ECC for short term manufacturing planning and for Global Order Promising
Demand Prioritization
Based on schedule date
Sales orders ahead of forecasts
Combination of both
Custom prioritization
Plan bucketing
Days, Weeks and Months
Understand that supply/demand get lumped to the end of the plan bucket
Optimization and decision rules
Turning on decision rules kicks in the optimization code
Optimization is based on cost only and not revenue
Pegging types
Standard, Priority, FIFO, Priority + FIFO

9. Implementation Strategy – ASCP
Understand Profile Options
350+ MRP, MSC and MSO profile options that control plan behavior
Need to set only 60 – 100 of them; default values work for others
Learn how to run small plans & isolate problems
Especially helpful while working with TARs
Think ODS updates instead of customizations for planning
Evaluate planner workbench features before thinking custom reports
Query feature in
Copy horizontal plan for multiple items and export to excel
Supply/demand query
Evaluate custom reports based on data volumes and complexity of the model in the following areas
Planned orders
Exceptions
Pegging
Use request sets for automated plan run process
Regression test patches thoroughly
Back up code tree and the database before applying patches

10. Implementation Strategy – GOP
Understand different options available
Simple ATP
Supply Chain ATP / CTP
Allocated ATP / Product family ATP
Behavioral differences between ASCP and GOP
Backward versus forward scheduling differences in GOP
GOP profile options
Set on both ERP and APS instances in a decentralized architecture
Use Latest Acceptable Date and Latest Schedule Limit fields in Order Management
Allows for GOP to come up with best possible scenario if not able to meet request date
Manage handshake between planning and customer service
Request dates, Schedule ship dates, Promise dates, Material available dates
Look for upcoming enhancements to ‘Changes recommended for Sales Order’ exception
Evaluate need for custom form/report for bringing these dates together

11. Q & A / Follow up Contact E-mail: raghu@apscorp.net Ph: 650-867-4876
Internet site:

12. Thank You!