Oracle Updates Supply-Chain Software

Companies may want to apply lessons learned from Sarbanes-Oxley to their supply chains. That's the thinking at Oracle, which this week unveiled a new version of its supply-chain-management software.

In addition to other enhancements relating to global supply chains and lean manufacturing, the vendor has added to its Oracle Supply Chain Management 11i.10 expanded electronic signatures and records capabilities to provide better control, information, and flexibility while supporting more than 80 business events across process and discrete manufacturing, bill of materials, inventory, purchasing, quality, recipe management, and shipping.

There's also radio-frequency identification functionality to automatically track inventory movement and integration with Oracle Internal Controls Manager to help businesses ensure that their supply-chain transactions comply with corporate policies.

"We're talking with customers about extending this idea of compliance and risk management beyond financials and into supply-chain management," says Jonathan Colehower, VP of Oracle supply-chain management. "We've taken the basic principles of good governance, of recording and tracking, and extending that to processes where you see human intervention or interaction within the supply chain."

The upgraded software also includes automated, international drop-shipment capabilities and enhanced global forecasting capabilities.

The new lean-manufacturing capabilities are intended to extend lean manufacturing beyond the factory floor to other processes, such as warehouse management. The software is scheduled to be available within 90 days.