Top 50 Oracle Scm Interview Questions You Must Prepare 25.Apr.2024

The following are the three components used in a traction

• Traction Source Type
• Traction Action
• Traction Type

A Traction Source Type and a Traction Action come together to form a Traction Type.

This wills determine whether to consider the onhand of the sub inventory as available for planning tasks.

So that we can have an item maintained at master level with common attributes and then we can use the same item across multiple organizations instead of defining it again and again.

Cycle count adjustment, Physical inventory adjustment, adjusting inventory quantity within an inventory organization and decrementing on-hand balances from a subinvemtory.

ABC analysis determines the relative value of a group of inventory items based on a user specified valuation criterion.

This technique divides inventory into three categories A, B & C based on their annual consumption value.

It is also known as Selective Inventory Control Method (SIM).

It is a facility which will enable you to store and tract the items. It can be a manufacturing unit, ware house, distribution center etc.

• Subinventiries are unique physical or logical separations of material inventory. These can be raw material, finished goods or defective material sub inventory. You must define at least one sub inventory. Sub inventories are of two types: storage and receiving.
• Storage sub inventories are intermediate or final put away locations for material. Material that resides in a storage sub inventory appears in on hand quantity, and is tracked by the system. The system can book orders against, and use manufacturing processes on material that resides in a storage sub inventory. You must define at least one storage sub inventory for your implementation.
• Receiving type sub inventory is only used for receiving items. Items in this sub inventories cannot be on-hand or reserved.

• Create a cycle count header with required data
• Assign the items to be counted
• Then run the required cycle count report
• Using the report do the cycle counts
• Then go and Approve the cycle count

MO generally is the request of movement of items in one organization. It may be of from 3 sources, MO requisition, Replenish MO, Pick Wave MO. MO can be MO Issue which will issue the item from the location and MO trfer which ll trfer the item to another location.

Move orders generated as part of Pick Wave are the ones from Sales order.

• Location
• Calendar
• Organization
• Parameter
• Cost Group
• Sub inventory
• Stock Locator
• Receiving Options
• Shipping Networks
• Intercompany Traction flows
• Cost Sub elements

The list of time zones and their other details can be found from below 2 tables.

fnd_timezones_b, fnd_timezones_tl.

We can define different status for an item combination these attributes as per the business need.

Following are the attributes:

• BOM Enabled
• Build in WIP
• Customer order enabled
• Internal Order enabled
• Inviolable
• Purchasable
• Stackable
• Tractable

The Rules workbench enables you to assign strategies, rules and cost group values directly to any number of objects in an assignment matrix.

Shipping methods are the way you ship material. When you create a shipping method, you must enable it before you can use it in a shipping network. If you disable a shipping method, it cannot be used in a shipping network.

A traction type is a combination of a traction source type and a traction action. It is used to classify a particular traction for reporting and querying purposes.

Ex: Sales order issue (txn type) + issue from stores (txn action) = sales order (txn source type).

Move order trfer (txn type) + sub inventory trfer (txn action) = move order (txn source type).

• Purchasable is a status attribute flag, so based on this flag, certain tractions can be controlled for an item.
• Purchased flag decides whether to purchase and receive this item.
• Purchasable flag decides whether to order this item in a purchase order.
• If purchasable is enabled, item can be ordered in a purchase order, if not, new purchase orders can’t be created and approved for the items.
• If purchased is enabled, item can be received if already present in an approved purchase order.

Mainly 2 types Linear (1 dimensional) and Matrix (2D).

There are 5 different planning methods in oracle Inventory:

1. Subinv Replenishment Planning
2. Min Max Planning
3. Re-order point planning
4. Kanban Planning
5. Periodic Automatic Replenishment

Lot control can be setup at item attributes at organization level.

Either No Control or Full Control.

Yes we can change the name in master level.

Seven KFF are there in Inventory: 

• Account Alias
• Item
• Item Category
• Item Catalogues
• Stock Locators
• Sales Order
• Service Items

Min-Max planning is a tool for planning inventory that looks at user-defined minimum and maximum inventory levels. It does not consider lead times.

We can perform this technique at org level or sub inventory level.

Consignment Inventory is inventory that is in the possession of the customer, but is still owned by the supplier. In other words, the supplier places some of his inventory in his customer’s possession (in their store or warehouse) and allows them to sell or consume directly from his stock. The customer purchases the inventory only after he has resold or consumed it. The key benefit to the customer should be obvious; he does not have to tie up his capital in inventory. This does not mean that there are no inventory carrying costs for the customer; he does still incur costs related to storing and managing the inventory.

• Depending on the requirement, we can trigger cycle count.
• We can define regular cycle count of high values items.
• If back ordered or pick denied, we can trigger cycle count for those items.

• This is used during material traction when source is Sales Order.
• Segments are Sales order Number. Sales Order Type. Sales Order Source.

A revision is a particular version of an item, bill of material, or routing. Revision control is normally enabled for identifying a modified item. Item can be placed under revision control by checking the box `Revision control` in Inventory tab while defining new item or for existing item. Base table for Item Revision is MTL_ITEM_REVISIONS.

A traction is an item movement within, into or out of inventory. A traction changes the quantity and location of an item.

The following are the different inventory tractions:

• Receive an item into an organization from GL account number.
• Issue an item from an organization into a GL account number.
• Trfer items from one sub inventory to other in the same organization.
• Trfer of items between various inventory organizations.
• Reservation of items.

• MO Issue will move out the stock from inventory against an account.
• MO trfer will move the stock from one sub inventory to other.

Yes. If you will not create any specific master org, then system will consider the same inv org as its master org.

• Picking Rule is used to determine the list of items for sales order/ shipping based on the revision, Lot, Sub inventory and Locator.
• Assign the required Picking Rule to the item in Order Management tab.

Item attributes are the collection of information about an item. These are used to store specific characteristics of an item, such as item status, unit of measure, revision control, etc. these can be controlled at either the master or the organization level. These attributes are stored in a table named MTL_ITEM_ATTRIBUTES.

• Type of product
• Type of manufacture
• Volume of production

Miscellaneous traction: This traction is used to do adjustments in stock due to damage, obsolescence, issuing items for R & D or issuing track able expense items.

Sub inventory trfer: This traction is used to trfer goods from one sub inventory to another within the same inventory organization.

InterORG trfer: This traction is used to trfer goods from one inventory organization to another.

Receiving traction: This traction is used to move goods from receiving dock to specified sub inventory and locator.

Sales issue: This traction is used to move goods from pick sub inventory to staged sub inventory.

WIP issue: This traction is used to issue materials against production orders.

• Create an item in the item master form.
• Copy the template from the tools menu to assign specific attributes to the item and save it.
• Assign the item to a category from tools menu and save your work.
• Select organization assignment from tools menu and assign the item to different inventory organizations by ticking the checkbox next to the inventory organizations.

• Material: An asset account that tracks material cost. For average costing, this account holds your inventory and in trit values. Once you perform tractions, you cannot change this account.
• Material Overhead: An asset account that tracks material overhead cost.
• Resource:  An asset account that tracks resource cost.
• Overhead: An asset account that tracks resource and outside processing overheads.
• Outside processing: An asset account that tracks outside processing cost.
• Expense:  The expense account used when tracking a non-asset item.

Other Accounts:

• Sales: The profit and loss (income statement) account that tracks the default revenue account.
• Cost of Goods Sold: The profit and loss (income statement) account that tracks the default cost of goods sold account.
• Purchase Price Variance: The variance account used to record differences between purchase order price and standard cost. This account is not used with the average cost method.
• Inventory A/P Accrual: The liability account that represents all inventory purchase order receipts not matched in Accounts Payable, such as the uninvoiced receipts account.
• Invoice Price Variance: The variance account used to record differences between purchase order price and invoice price. This account is used by Accounts Payable to record invoice price variance.
• Encumbrance: An expense account used to recognize the reservation of funds when a purchase order is approved.
• Average Cost Variance: Under average costing with negative quantity balances, this account represents the inventory valuation error caused by issuing your inventory before your receipts.

A category is a logical classification of items that have similar characteristics.

A category set is a distinct grouping scheme and consists of multiple categories. An item can belong to any number of category sets. We can assign item to one category within each category set. The categories can be retrieved from the table ‘MTL_CATEGORIES_B‘ and item category set from ‘MTL_CATEGORY_SETS_B’.

Inventory Control is the process by which inventory is measured and regulated according to predetermined norms such as economic lot size for order or production, safety stock, minimum level, maximum level, order level etc.

• An item is a part or services where you can Purchase, Sell, Plan, Manufacture, Stock, Distribute and Prototype.
• Items can also be containers for items as well as components you build into other items.

Oracle Inventory provides the following flex fields:

• System Items
• Item Catalogs
• Item Categories
• Stock Locators
• Account Alias 
• Sales Order

When on-hand quantity + supply – demand is less than safety stock (safety stock is nothing but minimum inventory level)

[On-hand quantity] + [supply] – [demand] < [min inventory level]

Traction manager is the interface managers which carry out all traction once submitted by the users.

You can generate new Lot numbers during tractions.

Reorder point planning uses demand forecasts to decide when to order a new quantity to replenish inventory. Reorder point planning suggests a new order for an item when the available quantity (on-hand quantity plus planned receipts) drops below the item’s safety stock level plus forecast demand for the item during its replenishment lead-time. The suggested order quantity is an economic order quantity that minimizes the total cost of ordering and carrying inventory. Oracle Inventory can automatically generate requisitions to inform your purchasing department that a replenishment order is required to supply your organization.

If the forecast is correct and the order arrives on time, the inventory level should be right at the safety stock level at the time of receipt. In cases where the desired safety stock level changes during the order lead time, Oracle Inventory uses the largest safety stock quantity during the lead-time.

When an order is triggered, the EOQ is the size of the triggered order.

EOQ = square root of: [(2 X annual demand X order cost) / (carrying cost percent X Unit cost)]

Oracle Inventory calculates annual demand as the current demand rate annualized by multiplying the current period demand forecast by the number of periods per year (12 or 13).

Reorder point planning can be performed at the organization level only.

We can setup locator control in 4 diff ways for each sub inventory:

None:  There will not be any locator information required during any traction.

Prespecified: System will ask you to select locator combinations which already been defined in the sub inventory during the traction.

Dynamic Entry: Either you can select any locator during traction or you can create a new combination.

Item Level: This will take the locator which has been defined at item attribute level.

• Lot control is to control a whole batch of items. for example in drug industry we have batch number which can be controlled using lot where we can track the complete batch using specific data.
• Serial control is to monitor and track every single qty of an item like electronic devices where we track by serial number.

An Item template is a set of attributes that enable the user to quickly create an Item. You can use the existing templates are you can create your custom template.

Warehouse Management (WMS) enables companies to maximize their utilization of labor, space and equipment investments by coordinating and optimizing resource usage and material flows. Specifically designed to support the needs of distribution, manufacturing, asset-intensive, and service businesses, Oracle WMS provides a single-platform across your entire global supply chain.

Min Max planning report under planning menu in Inventory responsibility

• To meet unforeseen future demand due to variation in forecast figures and actual figures.
• To average out demand fluctuations due to seasonal or cyclic variations.
• To meet the customer requirement timely, effectively, efficiently, smoothly and satisfactorily.
• To smoothen the production process.
• To facilitate intermittent production of several products on the same facility.
• To gain economy of production or purchase in lots.
• To reduce loss due to changes in prices of inventory items.
• To meet the time lag for trportation of goods.
• To meet the technological constraints of production/process.