Oracle E-Business Suite

Oracle drops the E-Business Suite requirement for Warehouse Management app

Are you an Oracle user who wants all the latest warehouse management capabilities, but can’t always afford to update to the latest version of E-Business Suite?

Then today’s your lucky day.

A new version of Oracle Warehouse Management, released June 1, allows users to deploy the warehouse management application as a distributed product.  Users no longer have to be an E-Business Suite customer to use the application, as was required in earlier versions.

Oracle Warehouse Management can now either stand alone or be deployed as a module within E-Business Suite, giving customers the choice between an integrated or standalone product, according to Oracle’s Warehouse Management blog.

And that’s not its only enhancement — Oracle Warehouse Management will also be integrated more closely with Oracle’s transportation management application. According to Managing Automation, Oracle recently announced that Oracle Warehouse Management and Oracle Transportation Management have new integration points — such as load sequencing and cross docking — that indicate a plan to offer the applications together as a best-of-breed logistics management suite.

Other new capabilities with this release include advanced wave planning, task planning, demand-driven forward pick replenishment and high-volume performance, according to Oracle.

What’s behind all these changes?

Oracle Warehouse Management was originally built for industrial manufacturing and high-tech sectors. However, the product has evolved to have more appeal for higher volume environments such as wholesale distributors, food and beverage, life sciences and consumer packaged goods, according to Jennifer Sherman, Oracle senior director of logistics product strategy, in this Logistics Management article.

Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how new features such as these allow Oracle to compete with best-of- breed warehouse management systems.  If you’re an E-Business Suite user (or a non-EBS user who can now use the application), how will these extended capabilities help you?