Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning (ASCP) is a comprehensive,

Internet-based planning solution that decides when and where supplies (for example,
inventory, purchase orders and work orders) should be deployed within an extended
supply chain. This is the supply planning function. Oracle ASCP addresses the
following key supply planning issues:

■ How do I plan my supply chain in the least amount of time possible?

■ How do I minimize the number of plans and iterations?

■ How do I plan my entire supply chain?

■ How do I involve my trading partners?

■ How can I access my plan from anywhere?

■ How do I keep improving my plans?

■ How can I plan all manufacturing methods?

The key capabilities of Oracle ASCP are:

■ Holistic Optimization, Planning, and Scheduling. Oracle ASCP can plan all supply
chain facilities simultaneously. Short-term detailed scheduling and long-term
aggregate planning are supported within a single plan. This single plan also supports
multiple manufacturing methods, including discrete, flow, project, and process
manufacturing.

■ Finite Capacity Planning and Scheduling. Oracle ASCP generates feasible supply
chain plans that consider both resource and material constraints.

■ Optimization. Users can easily configure Oracle ASCP to optimize specific business
criteria. No programming is necessary to access Oracle ASCP’s powerful mathematical
optimization capabilities.

■ Backward Compatibility. Oracle ASCP’s component architecture allow it to be

deployed against any combination of Oracle 11 and Oracle 11i transaction systems.

■ Workflow-Driven Exception Messaging. Oracle ASCP’s exception messages alert

planners to critical issues across the extended supply chain. Workflows that drive
these exceptions route data to and feedback from trading partners as required, thus
effectively involving them in the supply chain planning process.
■ Global Accessibility. Oracle ASCP’s database-centric architecture stores plan data
in a central planning server database. These data are accessible from Oracle
Advanced Supply Chain Planning anywhere via a simple browser. It is possible for
multiple planners to simultaneously access data from a single plan.

■ Integrated Planning and Execution. Oracle ASCP’s Advanced Planner Workbench

user interface not only displays plan results, but also allows planners to execute
planning recommendations. Planners do not have to move to the transaction system
to perform plan execution.

■ Simulation Capability. Oracle ASCP allows many types of changes to supply,

demand, plan options, and resource profiles to simulate changing business conditions.
You can generate a plan considering all the changes that have been entered via the
Planner’s Workbench. Unlimited numbers of scenarios can be simulated and compared
using online planning, copy plans, and exceptions. Examples of the types of changes
are firming, changing sources, modifying quantities and dates, modifying priorities,
modifying resource availability, modifying supplier capacity, and modifying objective
weights.

Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning corresponds to MRP2 in the

evolution of planning systems. MRP1 took care of unconstrained planning and mostly
addressed the BOM explosion and lead time offset requirements for simplistic
planning. But since MRP1 did not take care of in-house and out-sourced, vendors’
capacities the need for an advanced planning system which can take care of such
constraints was realized and Oracle enhanced its simple MRP solution to come out
with a more advanced constrained based planning solution. This let to the advent of
Oracle ASCP module.

Oracle ASCP comes as a separate module in Oracle Applications suite with separate
licensing requirements.

Let me start by dwelling onto some of the initial topics on ASCP configuration from
system perspective.
Typically there are two kinds of architectures supported to incorporate Oracle ASCP
module with your ERP system.

1. Centralized Architecture

2. Distributed Architecture

Centralized architecture essentially means that your transactional modules and

planning module be sitting on the same application instance and would be pointing to
the same database for data storage. This architecture is preferred where the
transactional data volume is not very high. Since planning engine can put significant
amount of load on the hardware it is very important to assess the overall data
volume load at the inception of ASCP implementation itself. From IT costing
perspective centralized architecture is good because there are obvious cost savings
that can be seen as this requires only one application tier and one database tier. But
then as mentioned earlier this decision should be strictly governed by the current
data volume and the kind of growth you are expecting for your business in future.

Distributed architecture, as the name suggests points to having planning modules

installed on a different instance. Again the decision to go for this architecture has to
be governed by the transactional data volume. This architecture has the inherent
benefit that you can always keep your planning data separate and continue your
planning functions even when your transactional system is down to due maintenance
or patching activities etc.

Difference in MRP and ASCP

The main difference between Material Requirement Planning and ASCP is that MRP
doesn’t look at the constraints (material or resource) when planning the material
supply. It assumes infinite capacity and plans the supply on the same day as the
shipment date of the assembly. To prepare an achievable production schedule,
planners have to do Capacity Requirement Planning (CRP). CRP presents the load
chart of the machines including available hours and required hours, but the
production schedule is still far from complete. So now a third tool is required to
realign the planned production jobs on each machine and finally come up with an
achievable production schedule.

The challenge does not end here. Although we have an achievable production
schedule, but is it going to be cost effective? Are we building the product in the right
sequence so we do not have to carry excess inventory? Are we minimizing the change-
overs? Do we have means to decide which supplier to source the material from so as
to have least impact on the production/shipping schedule still keeping the cost low?
How do I tell MRP that every vendor has a different work schedule and our calendar
does not match with theirs? The list goes on. MRP does not have answers to these
questions.

ASCP comes with answers to all the above questions and more. Sounds too good to be
true. So the clients begin lining up to buy the product. They invite consulting firms to
implement the product and wait for the grand returns. Since they are eager to get the
results, they implement ASCP with its functionality enabled; enforce capacity
constraints (ECC), Optimization turned on, vendor constraints enabled, dynamic
safety stock calculation, and automatic release of supply orders from the planning
workbench, online planner and so on.

Common Mistakes in Implementing ASCP

Let’s look at the few mistakes that most of the clients often make. Item master holds
the key to any planning engine. Item master has the order modifiers, lead times, time
fences, and various other planning attributes. Treat your item master with utmost
importance! It’s not just another table that you have to maintain so that you can
number your parts. If any of the above attributes are incorrect, it will throw your plan
out of balance, not only for that particular item, but every other assembly which uses
that part.

For a manufacturing industry, routing is another key master that needs great
attention. Most of the Engineers are challenged when it comes to accurately measure
the standard hours. If you do not have accurate standard hours (or accurate enough)
on any of the routings, shy away from the ECC plan till you get your standard hours
right. Mark the bottleneck resources genuinely which are true bottleneck. Make sure
the calendars of these bottleneck resources are kept accurate or if you are using
Oracle EAM, the maintenance schedule is properly updated to reflect the non-
availability of these resources. For those of you who are familiar with Goldratt theory
of constraints (Book: Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt), should know that bottleneck keeps
shifting. So if you see that phenomenon in your operations, try to catch up with that
too.

Patience is Virtue
At the end of the day, we are all human. We need time to adjust to and assimilate
the new concepts. The jump from MRP to ASCP is a big move. “Patience is a virtue”
and it is very true when it comes to implementing ASCP. Start slow with an
unconstrained ASCP plan. Get the feel of the workbench and all the information it
offers. Go for phased implementation.

Follow the big bang approach only if you have made sure that your masters are
accurate, the optimization rules have been given due considerations and more
importantly, subjected to heavy testing, important ASCP profile options are analyzed
and set properly, and list goes on. I know this is easier said than done as
unfortunately, need is not the only factor which drives the implementation plan.
Budget is often the biggest driving factor and all the planning follows the boundaries
of the budget. But the guys sitting on the top gets big bucks to make that happen,
isn’t it?

Application Set Up Control Sheet – Supply Chain Planning Parameters, Exception Sets, and Demands
Setup/SCP: Define Planning Parameters
Parameters, Exception Sets, and Demands Setup/SCP: Define Demand Classes Parameters, Exception
Sets, and Demands Setup/SCP: Define Exception Sets Product Family Setup/SCP: Setup – Product
Families
Setup/SCP: Define Forecast Sets
Planning Options Setup/SCP: Define MDS Names
Planning Options Setup/SCP: Define MPS Names
Planning Options Setup/SCP: Define DRP Names
Planning Options Setup/SCP: Define MRP Names
Planning Options Setup/SCP: Define Options – MPS
Planning Options Setup/SCP: Define Options – MRP
SCP: Define Options – DRP
Sourcing Rules Setup/SCP: Define Bills of Distribution
Sourcing Rules Setup/SCP: Define Sourcing Rules
Sourcing Rules Setup/SCP: Define Assignment Sets
Shipping Networks, Methods, and In-Transit Setup/SCP: Define Shipping Methods
Shipping Networks, Methods, and In-Transit Setup/SCP: Define Shipping Network 24
Shipping Networks, Methods, and In-Transit Setup/SCP: Define In-Transit Lead Time 25
Manager Project Setup/SCP: Start Planning Manager 26
Manager, Project Setup/SCP: Define Planning Group 27
Open and Closed Issues for this Deliverable 28