Oracle on Monday announced the general availability of its JD Edwards World A9.1 that delivers more than 1,250 enhancements in a single release.
The company says the new features are said to enable operational excellence, improve customers' upgrade processes, and help reduce the cost and complexity of integrations. As part of Oracle's early adopter program, companies including Fike Corporation, LaSalle Bristol, and HIT Entertainment have already begun to leverage the new capabilities in order to support complex business processes with minimal costs, says the company.
Considered by Oracle as the "Renaissance Release," JD Edwards World A9.1 is an example of Oracle's commitment to what it terms, "Applications Unlimited"ù Oracle's pledge to continue to enhance and develop current applications. Oracle also worked with IBM while developing this latest release to optimize the performance on the IBM System i, the company said.
"With this latest release, we committed to delivering the quality and innovation that customers have come to expect from Oracle's JD Edwards World products," said Oracle Vice President and General Manager of JD Edwards World, John Schiff. "The response and excitement we've received from customers on the new features, functionality, and upgrade capabilities in JD Edwards World A9.1 has been remarkable. The feedback also indicates that we're achieving our goal of giving companies valuable, user-friendly solutions to address the complexities and expense of operating in today's global and highly competitive markets."
Improving Global Operational Excellence
As part of the new release, Oracle has delivered Service and Warranty Management, a new module that provides functionality for managing, defining, and executing service and warranty contracts, allowing customers to record service contracts, accept returns of materials for repair, execute repair orders and seamlessly bill or expense repair costs to the customer. Now, service is fully integrated with other JD Edwards World applications, which facilitates planning and provides an automated process for tracking service request status. This latest release also includes enhancements to JD Edwards World Quality Management System to help customers identify areas where failures occur, reduce the costs of unused materials, and increase customer satisfaction by improving overall product quality.Fike Corporation, a customer in Oracle's early adopter program, has used JD Edwards World since 1995 in its business of manufacturing and distributing fire protection and fire detection systems. The company recognized an opportunity to eliminate or significantly reduce the number of disparate systems and custom programs by upgrading to JD Edwards World A9.1. "We wanted to benefit from a single, comprehensive software foundation that could support our manufacturing and distribution efforts and free us from the challenges of relying on siloed information and disjointed processes," said Fike Corporation Director of Business Systems, Marty Nelson. "Through our initial deployment, we've been impressed by the enhancements within the quality management and service and warranty management modules. Giving our users better tools to do their job is only part of the story. We are confident that through this upgrade we will have a new foundation on which to build upon the theme of continuous improvement of products and services to our customers."
Improved Upgrades through Technology Advancements
When completing a software upgrade, companies often face challenges ranging from retrofitting custom code to testing and training. With JD Edwards World A9.1, Oracle has significantly simplified the upgrade and retrofitting process with new tools. Customers can create a report that compares their current source code to the new release, helping to predict what custom code can be eliminated and what may need to be retrofitted. Another new tool compares the configuration settings of the customer's existing release with the new release. Because data cleanup is important for efficient operations as well as upgrades, this release also includes new tools to archive data and identify versions of reports that are no longer needed.The JD Edwards World Web interface now supports a Java deployment to ease installation, improve performance, and create a unified look and feel. A new Dynamic Build feature, embedded in the Java software, allows custom panels to be automatically converted to display in a Web browser.
LaSalle Bristol, a supplier to the manufactured housing and RV industries, took advantage of Oracle's early adopter program to receive personalized support from Oracle and a smooth implementation. "My experience with the JD Edwards World product dates back to 1990 and includes numerous upgrades. A9.1 has been by far, the easiest deployment with the fewest business interruptions," said LaSalle Bristol Vice President of Information Systems Michael Caldwell. "In particular, we were impressed by how quickly our files converted and the knowledge and support we received from Oracle. I would recommend an upgrade to this latest release to any current World customer."
Enabling Reduced Cost and Complexity of Integration
To improve integration and create a truly flexible, adaptable IT infrastructure, Oracle's JD Edwards A9.1 is service-enabled, improving extensibility and performance for customers who desire to adopt a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) as an integration strategy. As a result, customers are equipped to leverage legacy investments more fully, lower the cost of IT maintenance and operations and respond more quickly to dynamic conditions. Also, with JD Edwards World A9.1, customers gain more control and support for importing and exporting data between JD Edwards World and the multiple spreadsheets that exist within an organization.HIT Entertainment, one of the world's leading independent children's entertainment producers and rights-owners also participated in Oracle's early adopter program. HIT's portfolio includes internationally renowned children's properties such as Bob the Builder(TM), Thomas & Friends(TM) and Barney(TM). "We are already live and running our business on JD Edwards World A9.1," said HIT Entertainment Director of IT Greg White. "As a result of this latest release, we are able to benefit from an integrated solution that is increasing our productivity and our business efficiencies. The upgrade has been a solid decision for the health of our IT infrastructure and our business."
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