Internet of Things (IoT) plays a critical role in Supply Chain Management in today’s fast-paced and competitive environment, by enabling critical business decisions and strategies. Be it the business functions of enterprise asset maintenance, production line management, transportation management or enhancing worker safety and customer experience, having IoT capability goes a long way for an efficient and an effective supply chain ecosystem.
It is important for organizations to move up the value chain from a reactive and preventive approach to a more predictive and prescriptive approach. From providing the real-time status, reducing overall maintenance costs to diagnosing performance issues, IoT applications’ inherent AI/ML capabilities drive optimal results and deliver significant value to the business.
Why bring IoT capabilities into your Supply Chain ecosystem?
• Are you an asset intensive organization?
• Do you operate production lines to execute production plans and meet the requirements of upstream strategic plans?
• Do you have challenges in having real-time visibility to key parameters in your extended supply chain like transportation management?
If the answer to any of these questions is ‘Yes’, you should seriously consider bringing IoT capabilities into your application/technology ecosystem through Oracle’s IoT Cloud suite of applications.
Oracle’s IoT Intelligent Cloud applications offer capabilities to monitor assets; to monitor manufacturing equipment and production line; to monitor shipments and fleet vehicles; to monitor workers and environments; to monitor services for connected assets.
If you look at the overall concept of IoT in simplistic terms and the capabilities offered by Oracle IoT applications, the key word is ‘monitor’, to derive subsequent benefits.
Management guru Peter Drucker would often say ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’, which highlights the significance of having a measure of all key parameters in the supply chain ecosystem to manage for improved efficiency.
If you think about how continuous and intelligent monitoring will aid in measuring things right and hence manage effectively, Oracle’s IoT Cloud will help exactly do this for a connected workflow of ‘Monitor - Measure - Manage’.
Let’s get down to brass tacks!
It’s all about data, and how intelligently the data is handled and integrated across various application modules in your IT landscape, to eventually achieve supply chain excellence.
IoT for an Asset Intensive Organization:
As an asset intensive organization with huge dependencies on the uptime of critical assets for operational excellence and business outcome, see how Oracle Asset Monitoring IoT Cloud will help you achieve this. Critical assets like Cooling Towers, Boilers, Material Handling Equipment, Generators, Compressors, Lifts, Pumps, Motors etc. to name a few, will typically be maintained through a preventive maintenance schedule as well as breakdown work orders. Oracle Maintenance Cloud within the Supply Chain Execution suite of Oracle Cloud modules or any other Enterprise Asset Maintenance application will be doing these already.
With Oracle IoT Asset Monitoring Cloud in the landscape, it will monitor assets hawk-eyed, detect faults in the asset data through automatic anomaly detection, stream live sensor data. Oracle IoT Asset Monitoring Cloud builds Machine Learning models for anomaly detection.
While the journey of Asset Monitoring IoT starts with tracking performance, identifying exceptions & anomalies, it goes to the extent of predicting future failures, prescribing diagnostics & resolution and eventually optimizing performance. This means creating automatic work orders and from an integration perspective sending this information to Maintenance Cloud module to execute the work orders. In terms of optimizing performance and maintaining the uptime, recommendations are sent from IoT to maintenance applications for revised maintenance schedules (based on historical data on type & frequency of failures), thereby optimizing procurement of parts to drive down costs of both procurement and maintenance. Preventive maintenance schedule created initially for assets no longer need to be sacrosanct!
In summary, the business outcomes delivered are well managed assets, well planned parts procurement, reduced costs and improved uptime of assets for supply chain excellence through Oracle Asset Monitoring IoT Cloud.
IoT for Logistics Fleet Monitoring:
Companies can end up spending a lot of resources on fleet monitoring to ensure safety standards and optimize operations. Fleet monitoring can include fuel efficiency, vehicle maintenance, engine performance, transportation routes, or driver behavior. To achieve maximum productivity, you need accurate information about your fleet. Through IoT, you can place sensors on your vehicles to help fleet operators run more efficient operations. The sensors provide up-to-date information on the vehicle’s health—such as which parts are close to failure and need to be serviced, how idle time impacts fuel efficiency, or the driver’s impact on fuel consumption when accelerating and decelerating.
Sensors can also provide more automation, alerting drivers of route changes due to weather or other unforeseen events, or automatically notifying a tow service when a vehicle breaks down.
IoT for fleet monitoring can help operations run more effectively, improve fuel efficiency, increase service quality, and improve customer satisfaction.
IoT for the Production Lines:
In a manufacturing planning and control system there are five major levels: Strategic Business Plan; Sales and Operations Plan (Production and Marketing Plans); Master Production Schedule; Material Requirements Plan; Purchasing and Production Activity Control.
To achieve the goals and the objectives of all the upstream plans in a ‘Make’ environment (be it Make to Stock or Make to Order), the Production Activity Control which is responsible for planning and controlling the flow of work through the factory, plays an extremely significant role. The performance measures at the factory level flows back up to the respective plans either to alter or retain or reschedule. If the factory level plans and operations need to ensure the fulfillment of the strategic business plans at the top; the execution on the factory floor need to be at optimum capacity and should produce desirable quality.
As the customer requirements change and evolve and market competition turns crazy, the importance of creating beachheads for oneself, and the need to preserve change amid order and order amid change can’t be stressed enough. With Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing concepts being adopted widely by organizations in transforming digitally to remain competitive and survive, see how Oracle Production Monitoring IoT Cloud will help you be on the top rung on the ladder.
Work In-Progress Monitoring, Maximizing Product Quality and Preventing Unplanned Downtime are the three key levers of Oracle’s Production Monitoring IoT Cloud and is an IoT application that delivers ‘Smart Factory’ which is the primary goal of Industry 4.0. Moreover, it integrates with SCM products to deliver an effective smart factory for you.
Production Monitoring IoT analyses the machines, factories, and products with worst performance that pose a delivery risk. You can create a digital twin of your work orders to view the progress along with the stages of the operations and the completion times. It gives you real time visibility into the production process, helps you diagnose and predict production issues so that you can increase the uptime of your factories. It also helps you schedule maintenance so that you can minimize the disruption to your daily operations. You can integrate Production Monitoring IoT with other SCM Cloud applications, mainly Oracle SCM Manufacturing Cloud and Oracle SCM Maintenance Cloud.
In summary, the business outcomes delivered are maximum factory/machine uptime, minimum product quality issues, minimum operation cost, on-time customer deliveries and improved profitability - enabled by supply chain excellence through Oracle Production Monitoring IoT Cloud.
Your next steps - Choosing the Right Oracle IoT Cloud Applications Implementation Partner
1. IoT-Specific Expertise:
Leverage a partner who has a proven track record in implementing Oracle IoT Cloud Applications. Customer testimonials and case studies can provide valuable insights into their expertise and commitment to client satisfaction.
2. Regional Acumen:
Ensure your partner understands your unique geographical requirements. Look for expertise in country-specific localizations, global rollout capabilities, and a resource model combining onshore and offshore teams for optimal efficiency.
3. End-to-End Support:
Partner with a team dedicated to long-term collaboration beyond implementation. Explore their ongoing support and cloud management services to maximize the value extracted from your Oracle Cloud investment.
4. Personalized Services:
Align with a partner that prioritizes personalized training and testing in implementation. Their ability to engage business stakeholders, offer tailored training for diverse user types, and adopt various training methods reflects a commitment to customization.
5. Change Management:
Engage with an Oracle implementation partner adaptable to evolving requirements and timelines. Ensure a detailed plan for accommodating changing needs, anticipating common change requests like report formats and transactional field updates. This establishes flexibility within specific milestones.
Speak to the experts who have deep insight into Supply Chain and experience delivering diverse Supply Chain solutions, helping clients implement Oracle IoT solution and enabling their supply chain engine to run like a well-oiled machine!