InformationWeek

In addition to the supply-chain suite and updates to its accounting and human-resources applications that are available now, Oracle will roll out enhanced customer-relationship management and order-management applications next month as part of Release 11i. Last week, Oracle unveiled Oracle Service 11i, a new set of applications that manage customer-service efforts.

Oracle APS consists of four application components that help companies plan their production with suppliers and customers. Included are a demand planner, a supply-chain planner, a global "available-to-promise" application that calculates delivery schedules based on supply-chain variables, and a manufacturing-scheduling application.

The APS suite's components, which are designed to run over the Web, are central to Oracle's business-to-business trading-exchange platform as the vehicle that lets trading partners collaborate on forecasts and cut inventories. Analysts say that being a first-release product, Oracle APS doesn't yet measure up to systems from supply-chain competitors i2 Technologies Inc. and Manugistics Inc. Tom Harwick, an analyst at Giga Information Group, says supply-chain planning applications are complex and take years to fine-tune.

Juice and food-bar company Odwalla Inc. is embarking on an Oracle applications deployment this month to help simplify delivery to retailers. The company will start with Oracle's accounting, manufacturing, and sales and distribution software, and plans to implement Oracle APS next year.

"With any new product, there are concerns that there might be problems," says Gary Hensley, director of IT at Odwalla in Half Moon Bay, Calif. "We're giving ourselves several months before we implement APS and hope the bugs will be worked out by then."