During Quest Form Digital Event: JD Edwards Week, A.J. Schifano, Oracle JD Edwards Product Manager, presented Orchestrator usage patterns that will challenge your definition of ERP.
What is ERP?
To begin, we must consider the definition of ERP. Traditionally, what you do is your enterprise, and the JDE ecosystem stretches across several types of enterprises. To build upon this belief, enterprise is also how you do what you do.
Your enterprise needs resources. These resources may include matter, energy, innovation, imagination, or otherwise. The resource goes into the enterprise in order to receive something out of it. Traditionally, resources are the things we need for the things we make. For example, if you make bicycles, you need wheels and spokes. People are another part of the resource equation. In lean manufacturing, the elimination of scrap material is the main goal. Have we considered the elimination of waste in regard to human resources? Honing in on the skills required by the human, instead of encouraging unnecessary energy leverages the value of your human resources.
Planning is the third part of ERP. Planning is required in order to foresee the mission of the enterprise and make sure you have the resources to succeed. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Traditionally, this involves planning for near-term, imminent events to ensure success. Do you have enough inventory? Cash? ERP software helps to forecast beyond the immediate future.
The following image displays an enterprise. It is a non-stop metabolism. In the context of ERP software, it is Oracle’s mission to capture that metabolism as data, record it, process it, and prepare to report it out for some future purpose. If your ERP captures enough data accurately, then your ERP becomes a digital twin of your enterprise, giving you an incredible advantage for viewing the entire organization. In order to be a working digital twin, the data must be complete, accurate, and timely. Otherwise, the digital twin gives a false image of the enterprise.
Finally, what specifically is ERP? Traditionally, it would be called a set of interconnected applications. Applications would include financials, inventory, manufacturing, procurement, payroll, and sales. Today’s digital economy causes the boundaries of these interconnected applications to blur. The image changes from this:
To this:
The set of functionalities once recognized as an ERP suite may be paradoxically expanding and contracting. Functions never before part of ERP can now be fulfilled with new enhancements. Core functions may be served by external systems with new constituents, new definitions of users, new technologies and new techniques. Some are clearly better, and some are yet unproven. There are new business models and digital services, new expectations from customers, suppliers, employers, and management. Therefore, we are in a period of transformation. It is not incremental reformation, but new transformation.
Perhaps we need to redefine ERP.
Orchestrator Usage Patterns: Challenging Your Definition of ERP
The following four axioms, as presented by Schifano, are transformational yet attainable improvements for your organization’s enterprise.
Axiom 1: Do More Work. Use Less Energy.
Consider the following example for using less energy to accomplish more work.
You want to track the following assets for the forklifts in your capital asset management:
- Equipment number
- Description
- Site number
- Serial number
- Product model
- Product family
- Status
- Location
In JDE Equipment Master, you can view the following:
First, you will record these assets into Equipment Master. You can’t track them if they aren’t in the system, which would make your digital twin of the enterprise incomplete. The data can be downloaded from the manufacturer, scanned from the equipment, itself, etc. For our example, the data has already been collected.
In Equipment Master, you can see one forklift, but you need to onboard five additional forklifts. Open up the Equipment Master form. Use Orchestrator to do more work with less energy. AJ used form extensions to add a custom button called “Load New Equipment.” He clicks the button, and the forklifts are loaded into the system. An orchestration read all of the data from a file stored on a secure FTP site and automatically created the records.
Imagine how this example could apply to your organization. Sales orders, journal entries, leases, etc., could be all applied in the same way.
Axiom 2: Let the Data Collect Itself.
If your ERP system is going to be accurate in real-time, you can’t expect people to collect the data accurately and on time. Fortunately, JDE users do not have to be people.
As portrayed above, an orchestration can be triggered by a button on a form, or from a schedule. In the same way, an Internet-connected device can trigger an orchestration by sending little bits of data to Orchestrator. To continue the above example:
Your forklifts are IoT devices, capable of sending messages over the network to Orchestrator. The forklifts can send their device ID and status.
From the two bits of information sent by the IoT device, the example orchestration proceeds in this way:
Apply this example to your enterprise in the way it fits best. Real JDE customers have taken this approach in several ways. Some are listed below:
- Manufacturing Line: Refinaria Nacional de Sal uses QR code readers.
- Rail Cars: Varo GPS tracks 1,700 rail cars every 5 minutes.
- Meter Readings: Seminole County, Florida takes automatic meter readings to save 5,000 labor hours per year.
- Construction Equipment: Veceillio Group, Inc. integrates Caterpillar VisionLink data to JDE CAM and Job Cost.
Axiom 3: Let the Data Come to You.
If you consider all of the data compiled as haystacks, then the data you seek are needles. How do you find them? You can use complex sequel statements such as this:
Or you can use JDE to Query by Example, Saved Query, Watchlists, etc.
However, each of these approaches assumes you are at your desk, chasing the data. Notifications, on the other hand, let the data come to you. View badges on the notifications list, or receive emails or SMS to grab your attention with the data you need to know.
Axiom 4: Think Globally. Act Locally.
Let JDE be a citizen of the world (wide web).
View your ERP system as an active participant, giving and receiving from the other members of the digital economy. The need for integration is not new. Traditionally, it has been expensive to pull off. In the relatively new digital transformation of Orchestrator, integration patterns do not require lengthy, expensive projects or a team of technical wizards. Business analysts can create and conceive and deploy these patterns in a day.
Key Takeaway
Hopefully, these axioms presented by Oracle’s AJ Schifano have allowed you to think differently about running your business, through an updated definition of ERP. Use Orchestrator to do more work with less energy. Leverage the system to collect data and bring it to you, instead of creating and chasing it down, yourself. Ultimately, you will have the freedom to act locally while Orchestrator thinks globally on your behalf.