Oracle Forms migration in the dairy sector

Executive summary: Technological evolution based on a low-code platform

01 Client

The client is a key player in the European dairy market with over 40 years of experience. The company's platform facilitates the management of relationships and transactions with hundreds of cooperatives, handling over 26 billion litres of milk and €13 billion in payments annually.

02 The pressing challenge

The aging Oracle Forms architecture incurred huge technical debt, generated high costs due to support and licensing, carried the risk of a shortage of specialists on the market, and blocked innovation.

03 Pretius's solution

The company's strategic decision was to transform the system to the modern low-code Oracle APEX platform, the natural successor to Forms. Pretius was chosen as the migration partner due to its extensive experience, implementing the project in a co-creation model and recreating the complex system page by page.

Quantifiable impact & key achievements:

Reduction of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO):
Eliminating licensing and runtime costs associated with the tech stack required by Oracle Forms.
Mobile-ready:
The system gained a mobile-ready architecture, enabling remote access to the web application on various devices.

Innovation:
The modern Oracle APEX technology stack facilitated the development and introduction of new features.
Stability and Security:
The transition to a still-supported technology eliminated the risk associated with the potential end of support for Oracle Forms.

Client background

An innovation leader in the dairy industry

Over 40+ years of its operations, the this company has made an impressive journey from a local solution provider to a key player in the European dairy industry. The platform they provideallows their clients to manage relationships and transactions with dairy cooperatives that associate a multitude of smaller and larger farms. This software facilitates the processing of over 26 billion litres of milk and €13 billion in payments yearly.

A key aspect of the company’s operations is a system that allows their clients to manage relationships and transactions with dairy cooperatives that associate a multitude of smaller and bigger farms. These transactions are often nuanced and complex.

Key challenge: Limitations of Oracle Forms architecture

While the Client's long-standing market presence allowed it to accumulate unique domain knowledge, it also became a source of mounting challenges related to technical debt.

Systems based on Oracle Forms represented a classic approach to enterprise computerization from the turn of the century. Although this technology is known for its stability and deep integration with the Oracle database, maintaining it in the third decade of the 21st century generates several operational, financial, and competency risks. Moreover, in an era of ever-present mobility and increasing regulatory requirements, the traditional client-server approach began to limit the company's ability to innovate.

Economic and competency barriers to growth:
Maintaining Oracle Forms involves a high Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). This includes not only license fees for infrastructure like Oracle WebLogic but, more importantly, the rising costs of acquiring specialists. The market is seeing a "disappearing talent" phenomenon – the new generation of programmers prefers web and mobile technologies, making Forms experts a rare and expensive resource.

Dwindling support and a barrier to innovation:
Oracle Forms is an outdated technology that hinders the adoption of modern tools such as the cloud and AI. Moreover, for the Client, where real-time transport and logistics management are crucial, the lack of native mobility became a critical constraint. A system originally intended to support efficiency began to create information bottlenecks.

Solution: A strategic move to Oracle APEX

In January 2021, in response to these growing issues, the company's management made a strategic decision to transform the system to Oracle APEX. After an extensive examination, Pretius was chosen as the vendor due to extensive experience with both the Oracle APEX low-code framework and delivering complex software projects for enterprises.

Rationale for choosing Oracle APEX

The decision to adopt Oracle APEX was grounded in sound economic and technical reasoning:

Architectural Compatibility (PL/SQL)

Both Oracle Forms and APEX are built around native PL/SQL use, allowing for the direct transfer of significant existing business logic – such as calculation procedures and data validations – from the database. This eliminated the need to recode complex processes, thereby substantially lowering the probability of introducing new errors.

Cost Savings (Zero License Fee):

As an included, no-cost feature of the Oracle database, APEX incurred no licensing expenses for the new platform, especially since the client already possessed the database licenses. Furthermore, the high recurring cost of the required WebLogic server was removed, yielding extra savings and reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Accelerated Low-Code Development

APEX is a low-code platform that enables application development at a pace 10 to 20 times quicker than conventional coding methods. This speed was vital for quickly regaining time lost due to the limitations of the previous system.

Migration approach

To avoid the "phantom scope" error from previous attempts, Pretius applied a Data-Driven Scoping approach.

01 Co-creation model of collaboration

The migration was carried out in a co-creation model, with one developer embedded directly into the client’s team and additional specialists joining it when necessary. This cooperation provided Pretius with a better understanding of the needs of the Client company and its partners and enabled two-way knowledge sharing.

02 Gradual, page-by-page rewrite

Due to the complexity of the system, a lot of it had to be rewritten and recreated in Oracle APEX, page by page. While time-consuming, this approach also made it possible to address the unique requirements of the various iterations of the system implemented for specific clients.

Biggest challenge: Architectural complexity and meeting unique demands

The biggest challenge stemmed from the system’s scale and complexity, as well as the need to address unique requirements implemented for specific clients.

Problem

Developed over decades, the system became a conglomerate of code modified repeatedly to meet specific market needs as they arose, while the overarching product strategy took a back seat. Moreover, the company's clients often required unique changes in their specific platform implementation due to the complexities and nuances of transactions with their partners. This complicated things even further and made the migration very long, complex, and problematic.

Solution

Pretius approached the migration in a methodical, well-planned way. We didn’t even consider a “big bang” approach, since the system was way to large and complex for that, and it was bound to be disruptive to the company's operations. Instead, Instead, the team implemented a methodical, multi-phased transition designed to modernize the core while preserving essential client-specific logic. Modules were moved in an order based on the Client's business strategy and day-to-day needs.

Analysis of benefits and Return on Investment (ROI)

Summarizing the modernization process, several tangible benefits achieved by the company and its clients through the transition to Oracle APEX and AWS should be highlighted.

Financial savings

Elimination of licensing and runtime costs:
Abandoning Oracle Forms (and the tech stack it requires) significantly lowered the system's TCO. As a feature of the Oracle Database, APEX does not generate additional runtime license costs.

Operational gains

Mobile-ready architecture:
The system is available as a web app, which can be accessed remotely on PCs and mobile devices.
Future-proof low-code system:
Thanks to a new, modern technology stack, the Client can easily develop and sell new features, which makes retaining a competitive advantage easier.

Stability and security

Compliance:
A move to a modern, still-supported technology removed the risk associated with the end of support for Oracle Forms in the coming years.
Improved security:
Moving to a modern tech stack eliminated the risk of lacking support for legacy technology.

Client testimonial

Name and surname

position

Pretius helped us migrate a really large, complex system that would be hard to tackle with a less reliable partner. The key to success was their methodical, multi-phased approach and the ability to adapt quickly to critical requests .

Conclusion

The transformation of the Client's system from Oracle Forms to Oracle APEX is a model example of modernizing technical debt in a large organization.

Despite difficulties arising from architectural complexity and the sheer volume of the system, the process was successful thanks to Pretius’ support and the choice of the right technological stack.

The company did not just save its platform from technological obsolescence; it transformed it into a modern, cloud-based solution ready for the challenges of today's market. The key to success was combining deep domain knowledge with top-level migration skills, allowing for an orderly, systemic approach. Today, the platform is the foundation of digital transformation for the European dairy industry, supporting not only operational efficiency but also ambitious sustainability goals.

Looking for a software development company?

Work with a team that already helped dozens of market leaders. Book a discovery call to see:

How our products work
How you can save time & costs
How we’re different from another solutions

Michał Lipiński

Account Manager

+48 666 038 971

mlipinski@pretius.com

Book a meeting

Modernizing legacy systems in the dairy sector: Digital transformation from Oracle Forms to Oracle APEX

Industry

System