Oracle E-Business Suite series

ORACLE WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT 11i

SETUP AND EXECUTION GUIDELINES FOR
MATERIAL HANDLING
Introduction
Table of Contents:
Introduction..................................................1
Problem Statement.......................................1
Previous Options ..........................................1
Overview ......................................................2
Setup Considerations....................................2
Rules and Strategies ....................................3
Tasks and Departments ...............................4
Label Setup ..................................................4
Business Flows .............................................5
WMS Responsibilities....................................5
WMS Profile Settings ....................................5
Third-Party Printing Options.........................5
Radio Frequency (RF) and Wireless Devices 5
Summary ......................................................6
About the Author..........................................6

Oracle Warehouse Management provides

integrated barcode scanning and label
generation to improve material transactions
and advanced shipping processes.

Problem Statement
Traditional Oracle Inventory Management
requires users to receive material and perform
inventory transactions such as cycle counting
and material movement on the desktop
instead of real-time on the warehouse or shop
floor.
With Oracle Warehouse Management 11i,
users can scan barcodes, rfids (radio frequency
identifiers) of serial numbers, part numbers
and other information without entering it by
hand in the desktop Oracle forms.

Previous Options
Previously, Oracle Inventory and Shipping
users had to manually enter long serial and
shipping numbers into desktop forms a time
intensive task that was prone to entry errors.
Inventory management relied on paper reports
and offline physical and cycle counting for
tracking inventory transactions and serial
numbers. Additionally, prior to Oracle WMS,
the real-time integration of automated material
handling units was more difficult and relied on
customizations and bolt-on solutions.
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Overview

Setup Considerations

Oracle Warehouse Management (WMS) and

Oracle Mobile Supply Chain Architecture (MSCA)
have provided the ability to perform many
traditional material handling processes more
quickly and efficiently. Oracle WMS has the ability
to manage and improve the process of material
picking, receiving and replenishment by
incorporating barcode and RFID scanners.

The setups steps are completed using the

Warehouse Manager or Inventory Superuser
responsibility. The key steps are:
1. Define and enable the locator flexfield and
segments
2. Define at least one stock locator in each of
the subinventories

This paper focuses on the guidelines and setup

steps required for material handling including:
receiving, material adjustments, replenishment,
movement, shipping transactions and label
generation.

3. Enable WMS at org level

MSCA is an Oracle server that provides connection

for transactions in Oracle WMS modules via
mobile devices through a telnet connection.
MSCA is embedded into WMS.

7. Associate labels to printing software

The areas that benefit most from using WMS are:

4. Define label types

5. Associate business flows to events
6. Define printers to XML port

The first step is to define and enable the stock

locator flexfield and segments in inventory.
Oracle WMS uses the stock locator to drive rules
for material put away and picking. At least one
stock locator must be defined for each
subinventory.

Inbound Receiving

Order Picking

Shipping Execution

The next step is to check the Enable WMS check

box on the Inventory Organization Parameter
form.

Work Order Completion

Flow Schedule Completion

Kanban Replenishment

Cycle Counting

Physical Inventories
Scanners and radio frequency (RF) devices from
manufacturers such as Symbol, PSC, LXE and
Intermec connect to an exiting 802.11.b wireless
network and connect to the MSCA server.
Oracle WMS also relies on a third-party printing
solution such as Loftware or Optio Software to
read XML output and print barcode labels to label
prints. Popular label print manufacturers include
Zebra, Intermec and Sato.
The next section will discuss the setup
requirements needed to implement WMS in an
Oracle 11.5.10 environment.

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Enabling this parameter activates the allocation

and rules engine for this organization. This
parameter also allows for the use of containers
and License Plate Numbers (LPN).
License Plate Numbers (LPN)
LPNs combine the item part number, stock
location and serial/lot number into a single
scanable record or number for material
transactions.
LPN sequence needs to be set up in the
Organization Parameter form under the
Warehouse Management tab.

Rules and Strategies

Rules and strategies control the picking, put away
and cost group assignments for items in a WMSenabled organization. A strategy is a collection of
rules. A rule can control where an item is put
away or where an item is picked. Oracle WMS is
seeded with several default rules including an
empty locator rule which allows for material to put
into the locator only if there are no other items in
the locator. A variation to this rule would be to
allow for like items to be put into the locator if
they did not have different lot numbers. Rules
must be defined in a strategy and enabled using
the rules workbench.

Consolidation and Cross Docking

Cartonization and cross docking are also
controlled by organization parameters. Cross
docking allows for material to be received and
directly delivered to a shipping dock or
manufacturing assembly line. Cartonization
provides for box and container suggestions by
item based on rules for size and weight.
Cartonization can be controlled in manufacturing
and at shipping.

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Tasks and Departments

Another new feature introduced with Oracle WMS
is the control board. The control board allows a
warehouse manager to allocate activities or tasks
to a material handler. The control board also
allows for the prioritization of tasks assigned to a
material handler. In order for theses task to be
automatically assigned, material handlers need to
be assigned as a resource to a department. A
department is a term borrowed from Oracle Bills
of Material (BOM).
There are several tasks that need to be defined in
order for WMS to work properly. These include:

on the server, the file must be transferred to the

print server by FTP or another means. The XML
file can also be sent to XML-enabled printers, but
storing and updating the label template on these
printers can be complicated.
Oracle WMS is defined with several label types:

Material

Shipping

Shipping Content

LPN

LPN Content

Picking

Flow

Put away

WIP Completion

Cycle counting
The form below shows the setup for a Pick task.

The following is an illustration of the material

label. The material label is widely used in
Inventory Management and WMS to identify items
as they are received into a warehouse from Work
in Process (WIP) or Receiving. Label variable
names are passed as XML tags with the actual
value in the XML file that is generated. A rule of
thumb is to always make the variable name
uppercase so that the XML tag will match the
value in the label printing software.

Label Setup
The next step is to define labels and associate
them to business flows. A business flow in Oracle
WMS is an event such as a Purchase Order
Receipt or a Ship Confirmation process. The event
automatically generates an XML file that can be
stored on a file server or sent directly to the print
server. The advantage of sending the XML file
directly is there is no delay in the processing of
the XML file. If the XML file is stored in a directory

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Business Flows
After a label is defined, the label type needs to
associate to a business flow. Oracle WMS is
seeded with predefined flows including:

Purchase Order Receipt

Receipt Delivery

Ship Confirmation

Picking Confirmation

WIP Completion

WMS: Label Print Mode =

Synchronous (not used)

Synchronous TCP/IP
o Synchronous sends the XML directly to
a print server or XML printer

Asynchronous (Default)
o Asynchronous uses the next profile to
write the XML to a directory on the
server.

Flow Schedule
After the label type is associated to a business
flow, the label type must be associated to a
printer and to a user or responsibility.

WMS: Output Directory

This profile is only used if the Label Print
mode is set to Asynchronous.

This directory is used to write the XML file
out.

The print server may need to read this
directory to pull files from this directory.

Third-Party Printing Options

WMS Responsibilities
Two types of responsibilities exist for WMS. The
first is standard Desktop Applications. The second
is to navigate the telnet/mobile forms.
The seeded responsibility Whse Mgmt should be
copied and modified to support requirements.
These paths can be modified via the system
administration or AOL developer forms.

WMS Profile Settings

Several WMS Profiles need to be set to make
WMS to work properly. These include:

As described earlier, Oracle WMS does not provide

the ability to print barcode, RFID tags or labels. A
print solution from Loftware (www.loftware.com)
or Optio software (www.optiosoftware.com) is
needed. These products can receive the XML from
Oracle WMS via an open port on the server or
scan the output directory. Direct input via a port
is the best option since time between the
generation of the XML and the printing of the XML
is reduced. Special RFID printers and RFID tag
material are needed to embed the RFID
information into the tag. Companies such as zebra
(www.zebra.com) make the printers and RFID
materials you will need.

Radio Frequency (RF) and

Wireless Devices
The database administrator or network
administrator will need to install and start the
MSCA server. In addition, a network administrator
may need to install the printing software on a

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network server and create a share drive for label

templates.

Ability to scan inbound shipments

RF and wireless devices must have a radio and

must support a telnet session to communicate to
the MSCA server.

Ability to have directed zone picking for

sales orders and work orders

Scanners and radio frequency (RF) devices from

manufacturers such as PSC (www.psc.com), LXE
(www.lxe.com), Symbol (www.symbol.com) and
Intermec (www.intermec.com) connect to an
exiting 802.11.b wireless network and connect the
MSCA server. These companies also make special
scanners to read the embedded information in a
rfid tag.

Ability to perform cycle counts and physical

inventory transactions on mobile devices

Summary
Oracle WMS provides a very powerful tool that is
fully integrated into the Oracle E-business suite of
applications including Inventory and Purchasing.
Oracle customers are no longer forced to use
bolt-on or customized interfaces an
improvement that reduces effort and risk of error
dramatically.
In addition, Oracle WMS enables important
activities not addressed in this paper including:

Ability to have directed putaways

Ability to create kanban replenishments

Ability to perform real-time inventory

adjustments

Ability to complete work orders and flow
orders on mobile devices.
For more information on these activities or for
more detail on Warehouse Management setup,
please contact TUSC at 800-755-TUSC or visit
www.oracle.com.

About the Author

TUSC Management Consultant

Implementing Oracle E-Business suite
solutions since 1993

Bachelor Science In Mechanical
Engineering

Master of Science in Manufacturing
Systems

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