 Dana Corporation Automotive EDI
and Release Accounting using
Oracle 11i
Dana Corporation is a global leader in the design, engineering,
and manufacture of value-added products and systems for automotive,
commercial, and off-highway vehicle manufacturers and their related
aftermarkets. The company employs more than 60,000 people worldwide.
Founded in 1904 and based in Toledo, Ohio, Dana operates hundreds
of technology, manufacturing, and customer service facilities in
30 countries. The company reported 2002 sales of $9.5 billion.
Dana Commercial Vehicle Systems Division designs, manufactures,
and markets front-steer, rear-drive, trailer, and auxiliary axles;
driveshafts; steering shafts; brakes; suspensions; and related systems,
modules, and services for the commercial vehicle market. Major components
and modules are marketed under the Spicer® brand name. The Division’s
six North America based manufacturing and assembly facilities serve
most of the heavy truck OEMs, such as Ford, General Motors, Paccar,
Freightliner, Mack, Oshkosh, International, Volvo, Crane, and Workhorse.
Dana Corporation is an OAUG member and has been an active participant
of Oracle’s Automotive Customer Advisory Board since its inception.
In addition, Dana participated in Oracle Automotive’s 10.7
Controlled Production/Beta testing program. Oracle Automotive and
Radley CARaS were the precursors of what is Oracle Release Management
today.
Their new Oracle Application modules lacked the means to accurately
convert existing Oracle Automotive setups into equivalent 11i setups.
From a Release Management perspective, Dana’s goal is to
upgrade Oracle Application 10.7 supplier and customer base EDI solution
to Oracle 11.5.8 while minimizing the impact to current business
processes and existing key/critical Oracle Application customizations.
Dana’s existing 10.7 solution includes Oracle Automotive
and the Radley CARaS application software. The latter provides EDI
translation, communication, automotive
release accounting, and CUM
management as stand-alone software or as an integration suite for
ERP software (in Dana’s case, Oracle Applications).
Oracle Applications release 11i, introduces two new application
modules: Oracle Release Management, and the Trading Partner Architecture
ToolKit. Oracle Release Management provides release accounting and
CUM management functionality (similar to what is provided by Radley
CARaS). The Trading Partner Architecture ToolKit provides mechanisms
to embed custom code into standard Release Management code which
enables trading partner specific processing (functionality that is
native to Radley CARaS trading partner modules).
An EDI Solution that is integrated with Oracle 11i.
Dana Corporation has been using Oracle Applications to manage its
financial and manufacturing requirements since 1995. In January 2003,
Dana began implementing the Oracle 11i manufacturing and distribution
suite of products. Use of Oracle’s Release Management Module,
eCommerce from Radley Corporation, and services from Radley’s
Automotive Consulting Group, enable Dana to meet the unique and demanding
requirements of their customers. “It was a logical decision
to continue our partnership with Radley. They understand our business
and our EDI requirements,” adds Mr. Davis.
Radley's eCommerce solution provides the communications, translation
and mapping functionality required to retrieve the EDI data transmitted
by Dana’s trading partners and map it into the Oracle Applications
e-Commerce Gateway transaction sets. Using a scheduling utility (UNIX
crontab), Radley's eCommerce solution automatically retrieves the
data for each customer without human intervention, typically during
off-peak hours. Radley's eCommerce solution translates the data,
generates an interface file and automatically submits a concurrent
request to process the inbound transaction. The data is validated
based upon predefined business rules established within the Oracle’s
Release Management module.
Improvements in the shipping department, ease in managing their
trading partner processing.
An inbound material release (830) typically contains several weeks’ worth
of requirements. A predefined amount of these requirements are used
to update the forecasting module within Oracle. Firm requirements
are then used to populate the Order Management module and define
the manufacturing and shipping requirements for the coming week(s).
The daily shipment (862) or production sequence (866) schedules received
from a customer refines the shipping requirements to meet each customer’s
daily production requirements.
The ability to manage the differences in trading partner processing
is provided by Oracle’s Trading Partner Architecture Toolkit.
But the key to success is a thorough understanding of each trading
partner’s data formats and mapping them appropriately. This
is where Radley’s extensive automotive experience added significant
value to the software tools we have discussed. For example, each
trading partner has different requirements for the turn-around data
required for outbound EDI documents sent. Oracle Applications accommodates
a significant amount of this data using pre-defined database table
columns. Where these columns for a data element do not exist, specialized
flex fields, as well as standard Oracle Applications Flex Fields,
are used to store the data until is it needed for outbound transmission.
Once the scheduled orders have been executed through the manufacturing
process, shipping execution begins. Shipments are staged, confirmed,
loaded, and the delivery vehicle pulls away from loading dock. Then
comes the last step of the shipping process which is "closing
the Trip" in the Oracle Shipping Execution module. At this point,
an interface file (DSNO) is generated and Radley’s Outbound
Automation sends it to Radley's eCommerce solution. After ASN compliance
validation, the outbound document is generated (which includes detailed
shipping data extracted from the Shipping Execution module and the
previously mentioned turn-around data stored in flex fields) and
transmitted to the trading partner. Oracle Applications then updates
the appropriate sales order lines, inventory, and updates the cumulative
per part shipment (CUM) quantity within the Release Management Module.
All that is left is for accounts receivable to invoice the customer
shipment and the business cycle completes. |