Internet of Things | Business Benefits for JD Edwards Customers

Get ahead of the Competition with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Internet of Things Orchestrator

“In a world where every device on earth can generate useful information, entirely new business opportunities are presented, and there’s no shortage of people who want to get after them.” 
Chuck Hollis, Oracle Senior Vice President of Converged Infrastructure

“IoT is going to be transformational...But realize there is no silver bullet. It’s going to take hard work and we have to think about how we can go through it in phases as opposed to the big bang of trying to do everything together.” 
Siddhartha Agarwal, Vice President of Product Management and Strategy for Oracle Cloud Management and Fusion Middleware
 

Business Benefits & Use Cases of IoT

In the report THE INTERNET OF THINGS: MAPPING THE VALUE BEYOND THE HYPE, The  McKinsey Global Institute suggests that “the hype may actually understate the full potential of the Internet of Things” . They estimate that IoT has a potential economic impact—including consumer surplus—of as much as $11.1 trillion per year in 2025 for IoT applications. 

While consumer uses of IoT such as fitness monitors and home automation like Google’s Nest have received a large amount of attention, McKinsey point out that, in fact, B2B applications of IoT have greater economic potential than consumer applications. 

“From monitoring machines on the factory floor to tracking the progress of ships at sea, sensors can help companies get far more out of their physical assets—improving the performance of machines, extending their lives, and learning how they could be redesigned to do even more.” Source: McKinsey, Unlocking the Potential of the Internet of Things 

JD  Edwards EnterpriseOne IoT Orchestrator

So, there is no doubt that the Internet of Things is a huge opportunity that needs to be seized and will soon be a key differentiator for businesses. However, as Siddhartha Agarwal points out in Profit Magazine optimizing this opportunity requires careful consideration and hard-work.

Thankfully, the JD Edwards team in Denver has given us a head-start with the new integration tool for JD Edwards  EnterpriseOne: JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Internet of Things Orchestrator (starting from tools release 9.1.5.5).

But what exactly is the JD Edwards IoT Orchestrator ? Let’s start with looking at the word ‘orchestrator’.  An orchestrator is a person who adapts an existing piece of music or composition for a different scoring, a particular style or a particular occasion (source: Wikipedia).  

Now, replace the words person and music with the words system and data item and the function of this new tool becomes clear: adapting data items received through the internet to a format that can be processed in Oracle JD Edwards applications.

How and when the data must be edited is determined by four individual components in the IoT Orchestrator:

1. White list: this component performs a rough security check (pass/fail) to detect whether the received data originated from a certified device.
2.  Rules Engine: This component designs the rules that determine what must be done in response to the received data.
3. Cross-Reference: this component defines the relationships for converting incoming data to data that is meaningful for the system. For example, a sensor ID that is translated into an item number.
4. Service Request: This component regulates the call to an Oracle JD Edwards application or email service.
   
   
   

Use-Case: Trek Bicycle Corporation, IoT & JD Edwards

A proof-of-concept implementation of the IoT Orchestrator was launched at Trek Bicycle Corporation* (yes, the global leader in the production and distribution of bicycles and bicycle parts).



The case:
The decals placed on the bicycles at the end of the assembly process are stored in a bin in the warehouse. These decals are
"non-stock items” and so are not recorded as stock in the system. Stock management is a simple process: the items on the warehouse shelves are counted regularly and, whenever necessary, the warehouse staff email the purchasing manager a list of the items that need to be re-ordered.  This was a major risk for Trek given that the decals had a long delivery time (no decal = no bicycle).
 
IoT Orchestrator was implemented to minimise this risk and automate the manual operations (counting, information supply to the purchasing manager, entering purchase orders). Trek did this in the following way:

• They attached a sensor to every stock shelf.
• Through the internet, the sensor sends IoT Orchestrator the height in centimetres of the items on the stock shelf.
• If the height is less than or equal to the order point, the sensor ID is translated into an item number.
• The system checks whether there are any outstanding purchase orders.
• If there are none, a new purchase order is created using a web service.
• Then a message is sent to the purchasing manager using an email service. 

How Can You and Your Business Benefit From IoT?

Previously, much of the data that can now be collected from devices was entered by users. Implementing an Internet of Things solution involves removing human agency from data collection and, to some extent, processing, thus reducing time delay and the potential for error. The JD Edwards EnterpriseOne IoT Orchestrator essentially makes the input devices the equivalent of JD Edwards users without the potential for error or lack of availability.

Another benefit is the fact that the deployment of the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Internet of Things Orchestrator can be driven by business analysts.(The JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Internet of Things (IoT) Orchestrator Studio is built for the business analyst—not the programmer—to design and deploy.)

The business analyst is the individual who knows the business intimately, has expertise on identifying critical conditions and events, and knows what to do about it. The business analyst knows which data are needed, knows which need to be filtered out and what rules and cross-references are needed to make the data usable for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications.

In short, with the IoT Orchestrator you can quickly gain uninterrupted access to real-time data and continuously process that data to optimise your operation and drive real-time, data-driven decisions.

* The Trek case-study was presented at Oracle OpenWorld 2015

Learn More about IoT 

Video Demo: JD Edwards Internet of Things of Things Orchestrator