The Challenge of Completing/Fixing Someone Elses Work

Over the past nine months my major goal at work has been to manage our upgrade from 11.5.10.2 to 12.1. My time and attention is primarily focused on this upgrade, however, since this project includes so many other departments and users (DBA's and our Hardware team specifically) I find that I have spans of three to four days of downtime waiting for someone else to finish their part of the migration. During these waiting days I've gone through some of our older project plans to verify that things are functioning as they were originally outlined and I've found quite a few projects that got partway completed and then abandoned. After reviewing the projects and trying to resurrect them, I've decided that trying to complete someone else's work is infuriating.

Lets take our implementation of Daily Business Intelligence as an example. Two years ago a co-worker began to roll out daily business intelligence to our purchasing and payables departments. Shortly after he began this project he decided to take another job outside the company. Since he left not a soul has touched the DBI project he began.

I became aware of this project a couple months ago and so during my downtime with R12 I decided to see what needed to happen to finish the DBI implementation and rollout. Without going into too many details, here is what I've learned (actually the better term would be re-learned) from trying to resurrect and complete this project.

1. Documentation is absolutely critical
2. Open communication is a 'must'
3. Projects need more than one team member
4. Oracle documentation is weak (and I'm probably understating that point)

A quick explanation of each point above

1. Documentation: My co-worker outlined the project and began working on it, however he did not keep track of what steps he completed nor how the overall project changed during his discovery and initial rollout. Because he omitted completed steps and project changes I had to essentially walk through oracle documentation step by step in conjunction with a DBA to see how many steps he completed before I was able to get an idea of what needed to be done to finish the implementation. I also had to meet with the departmentes involved to verify that the original project outline still met their needs (which it did not).

2. Open communication: Not just between departments but within departments. If there had been more communication among our own department someone would have been able to pick up the pieces of this project much sooner than two years later.

3. Project Team: By including other people as project team members we would have been able to avoid losing as much information as we did when my co-worker left because other people would have been meeting with and discussing the issues they encountered while working together on the project.

4. Oracle Documentation: Trying to get each module's DBI up and running with accurate data has been somewhat of a challenge. When running a data load some of the processes fail with error but when researching the error on the internet or on metalink I am only able to find three or four links where someone received the same error, however their error was related to performing transactions in the system and not to a data load in DBI. I've also studied the DBI implementation guide and the DBI users guide to try and troubleshoot our issues but once again there is hardly any info that explains errors we receive or issues we encounter. I do understand that trying to provide thorough documentation for each and every module in the E-Business Suite has to be a gargantuan project and I do appreciate what documentation is available via the implemenation and users guide but it always seems to be that the troubleshooting guide is the document that oracle forgets to provide (maybe their in colusion with the consulting industry).

Hopefully going forward, as I work on and implement different projects, I'll remember to follow my own advice so others won't run in to the same issues I'm dealing with if they end up needing to finish a project that I started and left incomplete.

Make To Order for OPM

I'm loving this. Found this blog post via Oracle Mix. Finally, process manufacturing has the option of using MTO to drive actual production batches. Now if I could just get our company to import sales orders from our legacy order entry system so that we could use MTO to actually produce according to real sales orders. One step at a time though, guess we ought to get our migration to 12.1.1 finished before I get too carried away.

Oracle Pedigree and Serialization Manager

Today I sat in on a demo of the pedigree and serialization manager which is an Oracle product in development. Regulations being developed in Europe, Florida and California are the impetus behind this product. Pedigree and serialization manager is designed to reduce counterfeiting, primarily in the pharmaceutical industry, by having the manufacturer serialize each sellable unit and then tracking that unit through the supply chain via electronic pedigree until it is sold to an end consumer. From a consumer safety point of view I’m okay with validating that the prescription I’m filling is actually made by Pfizer or Merck instead of El Casa de Merck but from an operations and supply chain point of view I have two major questions: 1) How do you implement such an extensive tracking system without dramatically increasing the cost to the consumer and 2) What agency, company, or government is going to regulate and store all of this data?

Now let me get back to Oracle’s product. During the demo the presenter said that once a serial number is placed on a sellable unit, every transaction that happens against that unit will be stored electronically in the form of a pedigree. That pedigree will be passed from manufacturer, to wholesaler, to distributor, to pharmacy so that when a consumer purchases a product they can validate the origins of their medication. It’s a great idea, one which the state of California is looking to enforce by 2015 but how is each company going to pass this data back and forth in a meaningful manner. Sure, you can create a PDF and have a server forward a collection of files as you pass the drug from place to place but doesn’t that seem like one of those ‘red tape’ situations that bog down a supply chain?

One thought would be to have all companies use the same application so that data passed would be compatible for each specific system. It seems like Oracle is trying to go down this road by basing this product on their Fusion tech stack which is supposed to easily integrate with E-business Suite, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and even SAP. However it still seems like passing this much information for each sellable unit is going drastically affect database performance.

Europe is headed in a different direction. Apparently they plan on having a manufacturer serialize units and upload their production information to some central database, then when a consumer purchases a drug the pharmacy will be linked to that same database and it will verify that the drug being sold is a valid product. I like this idea a little better because doesn’t bog down each system within the supply chain with gobs of information. The only drawback here is how and who administers the centralized database.

Oracles Pedigree and Serialization Manager has capabilities to comply with either of the regulations stated above, however, until these regulations are strictly enforced I don’t see too many companies looking into implementing this product. Currently these regulations are being focused toward the pharmaceutical industry but sometime around 2000 the FDA began a ‘track and trace’ which is defined below. Based on that statement it seems like everyone within the food and drug industry ought to start preparing to implement some sort of pedigree/serialization. It will be interesting to see; how companies handle this regulation, how much it will increase costs, and how much of those cost increases will trickle down to the consumer.

‘The ability to trace products both forwards and backwards is critical for protecting consumers. FDA has formed an internal multi-Center group to meet with external entities (such as industry, consumers, and foreign governments) to better understand the universe of track and trace systems that are currently in use or are being developed. FDA is currently reaching out to various organizations to gain a better understanding of best practices for traceability and the use of electronic track and trace technologies to more rapidly and precisely track the origin and destination of contaminated foods, feed, and ingredients. FDA will use the information to develop the key attributes for a successful track and trace system. In addition, FDA plans to issue a Request for Applications to provide funding to six states to establish Rapid Response Teams to investigate multi-state outbreaks of foodborne illness.’

David Acheson, M.D., F.R.C.P.
Associate Commissioner for Foods
Food and Drug Administration

June 12, 2008