In PLM world there are some
security feature. However in Oracle ERP-Inventory module we lost this security
feature. I worked in Process Manufacturing/ Chemical Manufacturing due to
Specialty Chemical we don't want to share our Product information with other
facilities to avoid business risk/Data Security issues. It's always challenging
to restrict access of user who creates Master Product Data in ERP side. Hence
we have to use some custom approach or to use different item codes which add
more complexity in our ERP solution.
Oracle has Product Information
Management Module is mostly used as MDM tool. However in one of our
implementation we used it as add on Oracle EBusiness Module. PIM has lots of
functionality but we will talk only about security feature in this blog.
PIM provides Data security
feature at various level
1. Organization level - We can restrict data access of Group/ Users based Organization.
2. Item Catalog category level - Item catalog category (ICC) is one level of Grouping of Items. We can have different ICC in Business like in Computer business, we can have ICC like Desktop or Laptop or Hard disk, Key board, Mouse. Under this ICC we can assign different items which are relevant to ICC. One item can have only one ICC assigned. PIM use this ICC feature as controller in Most of other Functionality. We can restrict user access based on ICC. Hence we can restrict user access under one organization based on ICC.
3. Item Level - We can restrict access at Item level.
We can achieve Role based Data
Security based by using below feature.
1. Role & Privilege - Privileges determines data access to user like Create/Edit/ View. A role is collection of Privileges. Business roles can be defined in PIM like Product Engineer, Design Engineer and Application Engineer etc. We can provide Privileges based on Role like Product Engineer will have Item creation Privilege, Design Engineer will have Item Update privileges and Application Engineer will have only Item View Privileges. Hence this way we can restrict Product access based on Role.
2. Group -We can group multiple Employee/ Person under PIM group. Role and Privileges can be assigned to Group. Group can be defined like Business departments e.g. Planning, Sales, Engineering. This is optional setup feature and we can assign Role to Person also.
This security feature can be
effective to external stakeholders like Supplier and customer. Combination of
Role and Group or Person, we can restrict access of User to certain
functionality like Item creation access only, View Access only. Like shown
below example.
In our Example we have Chemical
Mfg Company and it has two product Group 1. Paint Based products 2. Oil based
Products. Company Manufacturing in Three plants so if we have to restrict
access of user based on Product type and Location/Plant then we can do it as
mentioned below.
Leveraging PIM Role based Data
Security, we can overcome Supply chain Data security concern. Role and Group configuration can be used for
other processes or workflow like Change order and Change management.
PIM is one of best in class Mater
Data Management tool. We can integrate various system and publish product data
to various system with various best features. Therefore Existing customer or
Future customer can implement PIM as additional Module or MDM tool in Ebusiness
suit to use its various functionality. I think Process Manufacturing industry
should consider PIM for their Data Management Requirements also. We will discuss about other virtuous feature
of PIM in next blog.