format, many of the smaller accounts were lagging, which was
a major stumbling block for efficient replenishment. Moreover,
the product list had dramatically expanded beyond decking to
include a variety of products in multiple sizes and colors.
“This industry is more technologically conservative and
doesn’t require leading-edge solutions that other industries have
had for years,” Miner says. “Although retail is more automated,
we had a very crude EDI process. It worked, but we wanted a
better way.”
By improving EDI, the company hoped to help distributors manage inventory more efficiently. “If they aren’t being
efficient with inventory, our product won’t get to the people
building decks,” Miner points out. “We need to get product
out more quickly, so they can carry less inventory. Companies
such as Lowe’s and Home Depot are very particular about how
much inventory they carry, and with cash flow an issue for
smaller lumberyards and dealers, it’s important to turn inventory more efficiently.”
The last hurdle lay in Trex’ IT infrastructure. The company
was unhappy with its current hosted computer environment,
which was costing roughly US$500,000 in vendor fees annually. “Our infrastructure was not kept fresh, nor were upgrades
Seven Reasons Why JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Looks Good in Red
One of the distinguishing virtues of the architecture of Oracle’s JD
Edwards EnterpriseOne is its open
platform strategy. Customers have benefited from a broad matrix of options
for hardware, operating systems, databases, and Web middleware. Among
their platform choices, customers can
now run JD Edwards EnterpriseOne on
a complete Oracle technology stack,
including Oracle Database 11g, Oracle
Fusion Middleware, Oracle VM, Oracle
Enterprise Linux, and Oracle Enterprise
Manager. Running JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne on a complete Oracle
stack offers users advanced capabilities that can help them better meet
their business challenges. Here are
seven good reasons to choose
Oracle’s full stack.
1. Ensure system uptime and performance with Oracle Enterprise
Manager. A system isn’t providing
any benefit to its users if it is down or
performing poorly. The Oracle stack,
Oracle Enterprise Manager, and Oracle
Application Management Pack for JD
Edwards EnterpriseOne enable administrators to provide better proactive
monitoring of servers, faster troubleshooting, and a higher level of service
to end users.
2. Give end users more control over
the content and formatting of their
reports. Also exclusive to Oracle’s
technology portfolio, Oracle Business
Intelligence Publisher is integrated
with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and
enables users to design more-robust
output templates for their reports,
with features such as pictures, logos,
and font control. Oracle Business
Intelligence Publisher also gives busi-
ness users the ability to write ad hoc
queries into the JD Edwards data and
run reports through common desktop
tools Oracle Business Intelligence
Publisher integrates with, such as
Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.
3. Reduce the cost, complexity, and
risk of integrating with Oracle appli-
cations. For organizations whose
evolving business needs require add-
ing new software, the Oracle stack
offers the flexibility of seamlessly
connecting to Oracle’s best-of-breed
applications that deliver project man-
agement, demand planning, forecast-
ing, and content management.
4. Improve the performance and
increase the flexibility of business
processes. The Oracle technology
stack helps customers integrate JD
Edwards EnterpriseOne with other
applications, even if those applications
are not in Oracle’s portfolio. By adopt-
ing the principles of a SOA, users gain
a more flexible infrastructure, enabling
better communication and interoper-
ability between applications.
5. Simplify and improve user access
and security. With Oracle Access
Manager, users can sign in to all of
their systems at once. This eliminates
the need for multiple usernames and
passwords and helps enforce strong
password and authentication policies.
It provides a centralized framework for
security and compliance enforcement.
6. Increase productivity with a consistent user interface. As JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne users switch from one
Oracle application to another, Oracle’s
standard user interface design enables
them to have a seamless design
experience that incorporates the latest advances in UI design. A standard
design eliminates the time users spend
learning how to navigate new interfaces and increases productivity.
7. Build enterprise IT on a trusted,
reliable, rock-solid platform.
Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
is engineered and tested to work with
Oracle’s core technology—Oracle
Database 11g, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle VM, Oracle Enterprise
Linux, and Oracle Enterprise Manager.
This allows for a more reliable experience as users work with different
applications. Also, Oracle’s technology and applications consistently
garner the industry’s top rankings—
Oracle Database is the #1 relational
database system in the world, with
49 percent of market share. With
technology from Oracle at the core of
the enterprise, customers get best-in-class performance that enables business to perform at its best.
