HCL Workload Automation, Version 9.4

The company

Fine Cola is a medium-sized enterprise that produces and distributes soft drinks to retailers across the country. It owns a production plant and several strategically located distribution centers. The primary customers of Fine Cola are foodstore chains and the quantity and size of their orders is usually regular and stable. Order quantities, however, peek in the warmer season and during holidays. Moreover, in the mid term, Fine Cola wants to increase its business by gaining market in other countries. Fine Cola's sales people are always keen to place new orders and increase the customer portfolio. These characteristics determine Fine Cola's production and distribution processes. Production and distribution can be broken down into ongoing subprocesses or phases which are constantly interlocked with each other. They are:

Inventory: Underlays the entire production process. The raw materials database is sized on the production levels supplemented by minimum safety levels. The production levels are in turn based on the order quantity for the specific period.
Ordering: Raw material quantity levels must be available to production according to the preset production levels. Orders must be planned and issued in advance to take into account delivery times by third-party suppliers.
Production: General production levels are planned for well in advance based on customer orders. Production is regularly increased by an additional five percent to provide the capability to honor unplanned-for orders.
Supply: From the production plant the soft drinks are transported to the distribution centers according to the customer delivery schedules.
Delivery: The last phase of the process. Fine Cola sodas are delivered from the distribution centers to the customer shelves.

Inventory, ordering, and production take place in the production plant. Supply takes place from the production plant to the distribution centers. Delivery takes place from the distribution centers to the end destinations.

These phases are tightly bound to each other. While each soda placed on the shelf might be regarded as the outcome of a specific sequence that starts with inventory and terminates with delivery, all phases are actually constantly interwoven. In fact, the same data is shared in one way or another by all or most phases, and applications are designed to carry on the daily operations and set up future ones.

Fine Cola uses the following databases for running the above-mentioned subprocesses:

Customer Orders

Contains all orders for the upcoming period from Fine Cola's customer base. Provides input to:

Inventory

Raw Materials

Contains the quantities in stock of the raw materials required to produce Fine Cola's sodas. From here, orders are dispatched to suppliers when stock levels reach a pre-set minimum. Receives input from:

Production Volumes

Production Volumes

Contains the quantities of sodas that are to be produced daily according to order volumes. Provides input to:

Inventory
Raw Materials

Receives input from:

Inventory

Inventory

Contains the quantities in stock of the finished product. Is monitored to verify that the quantities in stock are sufficient to honor the orders of a specific time interval. Provides input to and receives input from:

Production Volumes
To Supply

To Supply

Contains the quantities of sodas that must be sent periodically from the manufacturing plant to the distribution centers to satisfy foodstore orders for the upcoming period. Provides input to:

Inventory
To Deliver

To Deliver

Contains the quantities that are to be delivered from each distribution center to the foodstores in its area. Provides input to:

Customer Orders

Receives input from:

To Supply

The company workload is both application oriented, such as accounting, payroll, supplier and utility payments, purchasing, ordering, fulfillment, and system-oriented, such as data backup, migration, export, transfer or load operations. Typically, the workload processes multiple data items such as accounts, orders, transactions, database records, at the same time.

These core applications are highly relevant for the profitability of the company and also directly influence customer satisfaction.

To create added value and exceed customers expectations, the company must strengthen integration with business applications and provide complete scheduling capabilities and tighter integration with enterprise applications.