In Infor LX, based on how your items are set up and on how you structure the Bill of Material, the following are some usages of a bill of material by functioning area:

• Engineering & QA – change control, product design and specifications
• Manufacturing – build instructions , material pick lists
• Accounting – product costing
• Materials Inventory – material and inventory planning
• Sales – customer order processing
• Production Scheduling – item scheduling (also a component of an MES solution)

In the Shop Floor Control Module, you have the ability to key in both direct labor and indirect labor. However you want to establish specific types (reasons) for the indirect labor. The SFC600 labor entry program shows a reason code field, but it is designed for reject quantity and machine downtime reasons, not indirect labor reasons.

There is a way around this. With an MES solution you have the ability to setup and report indirect time against a specific reason code.

You can see the status of the Shop Order when using SFC300 Shop Order Inquiry. You want to be sure that your shop orders are at the correct status in order to report against them.

The following are the shop order status codes:

04 = The Shop order has been entered.

05 = The Shop order has been released and printed.

14 = The Shop order has been released, but not printed. If a shop order is at this status, you have released it and it is not printed due to a system failure, or the order has been put on hold.

XX = The Shop order is closed.

For either file, you must specify a valid location code as defined in the Location Master File.

If the machine master locations are blank, then the work center locations are used. There are cases where you may want to do a combination between the two in defining the locations.

Let’s say the end item has one operation. The operation is at work center 510 and Machine A is in the work center. You have locations setup in both the Work center file and the Machine master File. You report 100 complete at the work center without specifying the machine.

In this case, the inventory will be processed based on the locations defined in the work center file. If the transaction included the machine number, then the locations in the machine file would be used.

In Infor LX you need to determine how inventory will be moved in and out of warehouse storage locations, and which of the following transactions to use for inventory control:

• A transfer transaction can be used to move inventory from one warehouse location to another warehouse location.
• A production receipt transaction is used to add inventory to a warehouse location.
• A material issue or backflush is used to reduce inventory from a warehouse location.

Just because you've always done it this way doesn't mean it's the best way. The old way of doing things may get the job done, but is the job being performed efficiently, accurately, and on a timely basis?

People resist change because there is an element of fear behind change and having to learn something new. Sometimes it’s just that you’re comfortable with how things are done, and you don’t see the need to make any changes. 

Are you stuck in manual?

The LMP module (Lean Manufacturing Process) uses work centers but refers to them as production cells.

A cell is one or more work centers that produces an end item. So when a company decides to adopt the lean manufacturing philosophy, the concept of work centers takes on a new meaning.

In lean terms, the work center, or group of work centers, becomes a production cell. In other words, a mini-factory producing end items with similar characteristics.

Understanding:

The Machine Master File

Do your machines have a fixed asset tag? The machine master file has a field called Fixed Asset.

BPCS does not use this field, so you can use this field for anything. You can record your fixed asset tag in this field and use the effective date. You can create a custom fixed asset list by using a DFU or Query program.