Attempting to build out its Fusion middleware offering and extend its Data Hub line of products, Oracle Corp. has rolled out a master data management tool for product information.
The product, Oracle Product Information Management (PIM) Data Hub, will compete with product information master data management products from rivals including SAP AG and IBM. The PIM master data management tool joins Oracle's Customer Data Hub which, in the last year or so, has attracted about 50 customers, Oracle officials said.
The PIM Data Hub consists of two primary elements: A product information data model and a PIM data librarian. The data model is based on the data model which underlies Oracle's eBusiness Suite enterprise applications, said John Webb, vice president for supply chain management applications strategy at Oracle. The PIM data librarian allows users to create their own product attributes and families so that data about those products can be managed from the PIM Data Hub.
Data hub or master data management products from vendors like Oracle and SAP are often used to create a single, managed repository of important enterprise information that may otherwise be disbursed among many legacy systems. "The two biggest areas with disparate data are customer and product-related," said Webb. "It's rare to find everything on one system."
Many manufacturing companies are being forced to build a consolidated view of product information by retailer mandates and government regulations, said Rob Bois, a senior research analyst at AMR Research.
Many retailers, for example, are requiring manufacturers to share product information through the UCCNet and Global Data Synchronization standards. And government regulations such as the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) law are forcing manufacturers to consolidate and track information about product content.
The new PIM Data Hub includes data model extensions that enable compliance with those mandates, Webb said.
Oracle will make the PIM Data Hub available both as an adjunct to its eBusiness Suite line of enterprise applications and as a stand-alone product, Webb said. Current eBusiness Suite customers would only need to license the Data Hub librarian since they already have access to the product information data model.
The PIM Data Hub does have the potential to attract non-Oracle applications customers as a stand alone product, Bois said. "PIM is at the forefront of a lot of manufacturers' concerns right now because of the regulatory and retailer mandate issues they face," said Bois. "We definitely see a demand for stand-alone PIM."
Over the next year, Oracle will add two more Data Hub products focused on consolidation of different types of enterprise data. Webb declined to identify the specific data types involved.
Beta customers working with the PIM Data Hub so far include Master Lock (Oak Creek, WI) and Pella Corp. (Pella, IA), Webb said.