Introduction to ERP
Managing and automating the business processes is
one of the core errands of any given enterprise. Conventionally enterprises
created their own software packages to manage their automation needs and the
software used to be strict to their own business functions; until the concept
of standard customize-able software came into the market.
The thought was to create a software package that
would cater to all kind of businesses and processes. The software should be
customize-able and scale-able enough to make sure any given enterprise can pick
it and tweak it based on their requirements. That thought gave birth to
the ERP. Software, which is created keeping various industries in mind, in
order to satisfy the business needs on a global platform, still being adaptable
to support any further extensions / customization. But before that, it is
essential to understand the requirement of software to manage the business
process. So what all processes are involved in an enterprise that needs
automation / management? To answer this question, let’s take one enterprise as
an example. The example is a small company that deals with textiles. They take
cottons from a set of cotton sellers, who are their vendors. Then they make
t-shirts and sell those to the distributors, who are their customers. To keep
track of the money they spend on purchasing the cotton, they maintain a book,
let’s name it Purchasing. Similarly, they have their machinery with which they
make t-shirts, which is their asset and a set of people running them, who are
their employees. Similarly, they have another book maintaining the sales and
the Orders from the customer.
If we see, as they have the business to run, they
will need software to automate all their books. The one that should save all
the transactions, and should be able to tell the business management, how much
did they spend on what, what is the net profit, how much did they pay to their
employees etc. The more information they have, the better is the grip on their
business, because with the detailed information, they can make budget forecasting,
budget management etc with ease.
To automate the books, some company might give them
a software that will be made just for their business need, which will have
different modules, like Purchasing (to track the raw material cost), Inventory
(to manage the entire stocks of materials), Human resource (to enable them
manage their Employees and Ex-employees with automated pay checks and
benefits), Order management (to manage all the orders and deliveries), and
finally a General Ledger (to give them an eye on the entire financials)
combined together. This one will be like a jackpot, everything together. But
yes, they will have to pay a lot for it, just because it’s made just for their
business need with their business rules embedded on to it.
So what’s the solution now? Let someone come up
with a software package, which will be very generic in nature, however
intelligent enough to be able to be customized based on any business need and
business rule.
We just discussed a software product that is
similar to ERP. ERP is very generic software that can be customized based on
any business need. Although the design will be constant, it will still have
handles, so that the enterprises can tweak it, based on their business needs.
Again fail proof, as it’s tested and being used by a lot of other firms with a
broad spectrum of industries. It will also be capable of Inter-communications
of Modules, which solves a lot of the business logic implementation issues.
Another big advantage of ERP is that, it is frangible. The enterprise can pick
modules that they want, club them together and then start using it. They don't
have to buy everything in an ERP. For an example, if someone does not want a
Material Management module, they just wouldn’t buy it. Buy everything else and
start using them. Oracle E-Business suite, PeopleSoft, SAP, Sage, MS
Dynamics, JD Edwards, Baan are few big names in the ERP space today.
History of ERP
It was the early 60s where enterprises made
software to handle their material management needs. Although the
software inured to be highly customized, it was used to handle the Materials
and Inventory of the given firm. Later in 70s they came up with something
called MRP (Materials Resource Planning), this was better software that could
manage the Procurement and Inventory with the logic of timeliness. Then in the
80s MRP-II came. It was just an extension of MRP with the advantage of managing
shop floors and Distribution. Finally they started involving all other
functionalities as well, like Finance, Order management, Human Resource etc,
and then the software were named more suitably as ERP.
Oracle has been a big name in the software industry
since 1980s. Because of its robust hold on the database management and Business
intelligence sector, it was one of the leading software industries that time.
It started off with Oracle financials as one of its products in 1980s. It was a
software product that was capable of managing the financial ledgers of a firm.
That incepted the role of Oracle in ERP market. Gradually with time, it started
adding different other modules to its ERP sphere. Products like Supply chain
management and Human Resource Management increased its visibility and made it a
big name in the ERP market.
It started introducing oracle forms and reports as
tools to create and extend GUI for its products, they named it, Oracle
developers 2000; very popularly known as Oracle D2K. D2K brought in a fantastic
GUI and reporting capability to the ERP world, and made the Oracle ERP, one of
its kinds back then. The entire package was then called Oracle E-Business Suite
and came with the first release as Oracle 10i. Eventually, based on the
requirements, a lot of modules and sub-modules are added to the product. Along
with that, came in a lot of tools like Oracle Workflow, AME, XML Publisher.
These tools increased the scalability of the entire Product. Oracle released
its E-Business Suite version 11i in the mid of 1990s. It had near about 50
modules and many more sub-modules. In 2006 Oracle released Release 12,
popularly termed as Oracle R12.
While the E-Business Suite track kept on
challenging its own brand with wonderful new features release by release,
Oracle never stopped working on the supporting tool. It released the Oracle
Developer suite 6i, which was an advanced and sophisticated version of the D2K.
Later Oracle Developer suite 10g and 11g came up with an amazing product
embedded to it. The new addition were called Oracle Fusion Middleware and
Oracle Applications framework. These two products changed the look and feel of
the ERP line of Products. Finally grabbing a strong base in market, with the
acquisitions of PeopleSoft, JDE and sun Microsystems, Oracle was capable of
synthesizing its ERP line of products into a large-scale emblem. They called it
Oracle Fusion Applications. It was released in late 2010, and still being
piloted on a major set of its clients. The embellishment through innovation
continues and so does the chronicle of Oracle E-Business Suite.
Rest of the Market
E-Biz holds the second largest chunk of market
share in this field, followed by SAP. After the Acquisition of
PeopleSoft Inc, Sun and JDE, Oracle is measured to be one of the Prime stake
holders in this market. It’s considered to be the one and only package in market
with 360 degrees business support. Looking at the other contenders in Market,
SAP has the biggest pie. It has its own flavors to the segments it serves.
Apart from Oracle and SAP, some other notable names are Bann, PeopleSoft, JDE,
Microsoft Dynamics and Sage.
R12.x Oracle E-Business Suite Essentials for
Implementers
Overview of Oracle Applications
Oracle E-Business Suite is the most
comprehensive suite of integrated, global business applications that enable
organizations to make better decisions, reduce costs, and increase performance.
Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) version
12 is an internet enabled product that can be managed from a single site. A
company can operate a single data center with a single database, similar to
other ERP products. This release was launched in February 2007 and contains a
number of product lines which users can implement for their business. Oracle
EBS includes the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) product as well
as Human Capital Management, supply chain management (SCM) and customer
relationship management (CRM)
applications. Each application is licensed separately so companies can select
the combination that is suitable for their business processes.
The applications found in the Oracle
EBS include:
Oracle CRM
Oracle Financials
Oracle Human Resource Management
System (HRMS)
Oracle Logistics
Oracle Supply Chain Applications
Oracle Order Management
Oracle Transportation Management
Oracle Warehouse Management System
Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM)
Download
the "Introduction
to Oracle R12 Application Training Manual" document from below
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