Almost
2,000 business professionals attended the first annual Oracle Value Chain
Summit in San Francisco this February, a unique event that united six supply
chain disciplines: Product Lifecycle Management, Maintenance, Manufacturing,
Value Chain Execution, Value Chain Planning, and Procurement.But what was equal to its value in breadth,
is what the conference offered in depth.So to get the details beyond my own account of PLM at the Summit, I asked
my fellow value chain colleagues to share their perspectives.
Here’s what they had to say…
EAM/ALM
Maintenance Summit 2013
By Stephen Slade, Sr Director
Product Marketing Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Asset Lifecycle Management
The 7th Annual Maintenance Summit, held at the Value Chain Summit was a resounding success according to early polling. A kick-off presentation by David Loesch, Sr Director of Oracle’s Competitive Intelligence Unit provided a unique perspective on Emerging Trends in Asset Management. The standing-room only crowd extended into the hallway as David spoke of the new disruptive technologies entering the maintenance arena. Attendees were overwhelmed with the overall content and number of sessions offered across the 3 major EAM/ALM pillars: E-Business Suite (EBS), PeopleSoft and JD Edwards (JDE). Executive speakers from a variety of major maintenance organizations in several leading vertical industries presented their best-practices and case studies on their successful journeys in reliability, effectiveness and cost containment. Sample representation of speakers from ESCO, Graymont Mining, Smuckers, National Express, Oregon Health & Science Univ, Wells Dairy, Simmons Foods, Barrick Gold, Facebook and Energy Alloys are a few of the companies presenting. The second day of the Summit concluded with a free-form meet-the-experts panel where participants were able to ask specific product questions on applications use and function to the enlightenment of the audience. The week concluded with a series of Customer Advisory Boards and Product Line Focus groups to improve the product understanding and use in the market.
Manufacturing
Summit 2013
By Stephen Slade, Sr Director
Product Marketing Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Asset Lifecycle Management
The 5th Annual Manufacturing Summit brought together users, experts, partners, developers, analysts and strategy professionals with a unique focus on manufacturing operations. Abe Eshkenazi, CEO of APICS, presented the leading manufacturing pillar session on Talent Development and Retention in Manufacturing that included a unique view on globalization and the impact of emerging economies. Tracks were held for Discrete and Process Manufacturing as well as the JDE suite. Speakers from a variety of leading blue-chip firms shared their challenges, vision and solution on how they evolved their operations into world-class organizations. A lean Manufacturing panel was hosted by Stephen Slade, Sr Director of Supply Chain Applications Marketing that included key seasoned participants from Emerson, Gentex and Cummins. They each described their five to ten year Lean roadmap and the progress made on that journey. Specifically, they focused on the new best practices tools and Oracle technologies that they employed to allow them to be more competitive in today’s global marketplace. One quote that summarized Cummins lean effort was the remark by Steven Harbor of Cummins “that our processes are so lean and solid that our competitors buy from us,” meaning that Cummins has achieved a world-class operating position, that it has created a true competitive advantage – but only for today.
Value
Chain Execution Summit 2013
By John Murphy, Sr
Director Value Chain Execution Applications Product Marketing
Capitalizing
on past Logistics event successes, the VCE focused attendees came out in force
to learn more about Oracle’s market-leading suite of supply chain execution
applications. Through interactive
sessions in Transportation Management, Warehouse Management, Distributed Order
Orchestration, Fulfillment, Mobile Logistics applications, Order Management,
Configurator and other focus areas, customers and prospects caught a glimpse of
the future of supply chain execution applications.
Also, with a strong showing of partner representatives, the VCE portion of the summit proved valuable for those looking to augment VCE services or applications.A special thanks to the VCE pillar and track sponsors which included IBM, Loftware, CSC, Eminent Group, Zebra and others.
Looking forward to seeing many of you at the OTM SIG event in Philadelphia in July.
Value
Chain Planning Summit 2013
By Paul Homchick, Sr
Director Value Chain Execution Applications Product Marketing
The first ever Oracle Value Chain Planning summit, which took place as part the early February Oracle Value Chain Summit in San Francisco, was a blow-out success. Over two hundred Oracle VCP customers attended. There wasn't a meeting room large enough, so the VCP pillar sessions were presented in the Grand Ballroom. Oracle VCP partners were also out in force in San Francisco, with Inspirage as an overall event sponsor, and AVATA, Bristlecone, Trinamix, Oliver Wight, Hitachi, and Nexinfo as track sponsors. And many Oracle VCP customers told their stories. Timex talked about the benefits of Integrated Business Planning, while executives from Acroni Steel won the distance traveled award, flying in from Slovania to tell about their success with Oracle’s VCP tools. Additionally, Pharmavite, Power Integrations, Teva Pharmaceutical, Smiths Medical, Emerson Micro Motion, Cisco, Qualcomm, Motorola Mobility, and Zebra Technologies participated in session presentations. The week wrapped up with a meeting of the Oracle VCP Customer Advisory Board where attendees learned of the new features planned for future releases of Oracle VCP, and were able to provide guidance. In addition to the formal sessions, ample time was provided to wander the demo floor, and to network with colleagues. Everyone I talked with was enthusiastic about attending next year’s event. And, though it may seem difficult, I'm certain next year will be even better.
Procurement
Summit 2013
By Dan Ashton,
Director, Procurement Marketing
Procurement
was a hot topic at the first Oracle Value Chain Summit. The General Sessions consisted
of discussions around key trends impacting procurement organizations along with
overviews of Fusion Procurement, Spend Analytics and Supplier Hub. Throughout the Summit, roadmaps and Procurement
product strategies were presented for E-Business Suite, Peoplesoft and Fusion. During the Procurement track sessions, Self
Service Procurement, Strategic Sourcing and Contracts were covered in depth
detailing customer experiences and benefits.
Land o’ Lakes shared their real life experiences in implementing Oracle Fusion Procurement. They discussed the initiatives that drove their decision to move to Fusion and benefits achieved, along with best practices and lessons learned. In addition PwC presented with their Oracle customer AutoTrader.com. Plus, Oracle partners Enrich IT and c-Three announced their merger now as an end-to-end provider of integrated SaaS Oracle procurement. During their session they reviewed their Source-to-Settle solution plus services.
Thank You!
Clearly,
all of us are extremely appreciative of everyone who supported the first annual
Oracle Value Chain Summit, regardless of your product focus area. We’re honored to see our community’s
enthusiasm and humbled by our customers’ resounding successes and eagerness to
share their stories in forums like this among their peers. Please take a moment to browse the publicly available
presentations, join
the virtual community on LinkedIn, follow
our new Twitter handle @OracleValChain, and contact your
Oracle sales representative if you have any questions or feedback about the
Summit. Several attendees have already
shared their thoughts (thank you!), and we plan to incorporate key improvements
next year. Hope to see you all then!