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Infor LX Tips, Infor LN Tips, BPCS Tips, Baan Tips, Infor M3 Tips & Infor ERP News

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Infor ERP Tips & News from the Experts

Infor LX | Infor LN | BPCS | Baan | Infor M3

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Actual Versus Standard

Anthony Etzel 0 53362 Article rating: No rating

Job costing based on standards is great, but what if reality doesn’t match up to that?

What if jobs are really taking twice as long, and you don’t know that? What if jobs are taking ½ as long as you think, but you’re scheduling based on how much time they “should” take? Either way, you’re losing money and productivity. Getting a handle on start/stop times for jobs, and therefore the total amount of time actually spent allows you to take proper action and be more productive.

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Project Templates

Kathy Barthelt 0 196375 Article rating: No rating

Project templates are useful because you can specify all of the information that you would normally want to include when creating a new project such as project structure, budget and so on.

In Baan IV/V, project templates do not exist, but you can set up a project template by creating a regular project, and setting the status to simulated or free. This is done so that the project does not create plans. Under this scenario, you can easily copy one project to another.

In LN, when you create a new project, a template can be used as the starting point. This is similar to copying a normal project, but unlike normal projects, no costs or revenues can be posted on a template.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

 

Infor LX and Crossroads MES Selected by Blonder Tongue

Crossroads RMC 0 34095 Article rating: No rating

Blonder Tongue, a global communication equipment supplier for TV broadcasters, cable system operator, lodging video, Internet system, and institutional systems, has selected Crossroads RMC to assist them with a BPCS 6.0.04 upgrade to Infor LX. Crossroads RMC will be providing all applications and technical consulting for this project. Also included as part of the project will be the implementation of the Crossroads MES solution. Go live for both solutions is expected in January of 2018.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: LX 8.3.5 Facility Period Close

Anthony Etzel 0 47790 Article rating: 5.0

The Facility Period Close process was introduced in Infor LX 8.3.4 and has been enhanced in 8.3.5. This feature allows continuous or 24-hour worldwide operations in multiple facilities to submit Period End Close jobs for each facility as daily operations cease, or shifts end.

This enhancement provides a batch mode for the Facility Period Close (INV930) process and allows the Update IIM Inventory from IWI (INV931) process to be submitted from the INV930B program. The enhancement also provides a batch mode for the INV931 process.

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Order Series Full – Switching to a Different Series

Kathy Barthelt 0 215865 Article rating: 5.0

In general, you can enter a different series in the order field if you have an available series.

To add a new series, find the appropriate group in the First Free Number session, and add a new series and first free number (usually 1).

In Baan IV, go to the Maintain First Free Numbers Session (under Common, Tables, Maintain Logistics Tables, Maintenance 1).
Groups are easily identified (e.g., Purchase Order, Sales Order, etc.).

In Baan V, go to the First Free Number Session (under Common Data, Tables, Logistics). There are number groups (e.g., 570 may be for Purchase Orders, 650 may be for Sales Orders, etc.).

In LN, go to the First Free Number Session (tcmcs0150m000 – it is in different places in the menu under different Feature Packs). There are number groups (e.g., 210 may be for Purchase Orders, 310 may be for Sales Orders, etc.).

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Revisit The Last Brilliant Idea

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Sometimes the best ideas have to be tabled due to competing priorities. That doesn’t mean that the idea was bad. Revisit previously suggested cost savings ideas, or ideas to make a manual process more efficient. Now could be the right time to do something great!

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Difference Between a Serialized Item and Unit Effective Item

Kathy Barthelt 0 142857 Article rating: No rating

A serialized item is not the same as a unit effective item. A serialized item has a serial number that is used to identify and track individual items, whereas a unit effectivity item has an effectivity unit that provides some information about the item's configuration. However, an item can be both serialized and unit effective.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!
 

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Alternative Materials in BOMs:

Kathy Barthelt 0 443164 Article rating: No rating

Often, multiple items are interchangeable even when these are purchased from various vendors. You can use any of these items as material in a bill of material (BOM). If a shortage of a standard material is expected to delay a production order, LN can automatically select one of the alternative materials. You can define up to nine alternative materials for any material in a BOM.

The use of alternative materials has the following advantages:

  • LN can handle material shortages for some items without user intervention.
  • The use of alternative items can reduce the average inventory level.
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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for EXECUTIVES

TECHNOLOGY & FINANCE: Archiving Finalized Transactions

To support correct archiving in a multicompany structure, the following rules apply:

  • Each company must have its own archive company. Companies cannot share an archive company.
  • The structure of archive companies must be an exact copy of the live environment.
  • A company must keep the same archive company until the end of its lifetime. Once data has been archived, you cannot change the archive company.

If extra archiving capacity is required, it is recommended that you set up a second archiving environment, which must also be an exact copy of the live environment. Define the companies of the second archive environment as the archive companies of the companies of the first archive environment. If necessary, a third and more archiving environments can be set up. You must then archive the data from each archive company to its archive company in the second archiving environment, and so on.

When you archive the data, LN builds an array with all the companies of the group and the archive company linked to each company. If any of the companies in the group does not have an archive company, LN reports an error and aborts the archiving process.

Batches and batch lines are only archived and/or deleted if you perform archiving and deletion in the company in which they exist. This is always the source company. Any intercompany documents and related finalized transactions that belong to the batch are not archived and/or deleted until the target company is archived.

If the batch has been deleted from the live environment, such intercompany documents and transactions will then temporarily exist without a batch in the live environment until the target company’s transactions are archived. Therefore, it is recommended to archive all the companies of a group within a short time.

Finalization runs are also archived. A finalization run can only be deleted from the live environment if all the attached batches have also been deleted.

Financial documents are archived and/or deleted if you perform archiving and deletion in the company in which they exist. For each document, LN searches whether a related intercompany document exists.

If the document’s transaction type indicates that the document numbering does not have to be in a fixed sequence, the document is not deleted from the live environment, to avoid duplicate document numbers.

A finalized transaction is not deleted from the live environment if the fiscal year of the transaction does not equal the fiscal year of the batch and the fiscal year of the transaction cannot yet be archived. If the Archive option is selected, the related batch, batch line, and document are copied to the archive company and retained in the live environment.

If a transaction is still referenced by open sales orders or purchase orders, it is marked as Deleted but not actually deleted. The related batch, batch line, and document are copied to the archive company and retained in the live environment. They are deleted when the referenced open transactions are closed and archived, for example, when you run the Archive/Delete Fully Paid Purchase Invoices (tfacp2250m000) session

If the transaction’s ledger account is a matchable account, any related matching data is also archived.

During the archiving process, the originating company of the finalized transaction is replaced with the originating company’s archive company. In this way, the archive environment will not contain references to the live environment.

During archiving, intercompany document relations are also copied to the archive environment. In the archive environment, these relations are updated in such a way, that each document in the relation refers to the environment in which the document actually exists. In the live environment, the document relation is retained until all related finalized transactions are deleted. For invoice-related transactions, this only occurs during the removal of fully-paid invoices. The document relation is also updated in the live environment, in order to refer to the archived document if all related finalized transactions have been removed from the live environment.

After the normal archiving process, an additional archiving step is performed in which all transactions and documents in the live company that arise from intercompany postings, are archived. During this step, intercompany relations are archived and/or deleted as described earlier.

Batches, batch lines, and documents that have the Deleted status are deleted from the live environment, unless the document’s transaction type indicates that the document numbering does not have to be in a fixed sequence. Such documents are not deleted from the live environment, to avoid duplicate document numbers.

OPERATIONS: Simulated Purchase Prices (ticpr1170m000)

Use this session to define simulated purchase prices for purchased items per site.

Field Information:

  • Cost Calculation Code - price calculation code
  • Item

The raw materials, subassemblies, finished products, and tools that can be purchased, stored, manufactured, and sold.

An item can also represent a set of items handled as one kit, or which exist in multiple product variants.

You can also define nonphysical items, which are not retained in inventory but can be used to post costs or to invoice services to customers. The examples of nonphysical items:

  • Cost items (for example, electricity)
  • Service items
  • Subcontracting services
  • List items (menus/options)
     
  • ​Site - The site for which the purchase price is simulated.
  • Purchase Currency - The currency of the simulated purchase price.
  • Simulated Price - Purchase price

The simulated purchase price and currency are recorded twice.

  • Simulated Price Multi Currency - The purchase price in multiple currencies.

The simulated purchase price and currency are recorded twice. The amount in this field is related to the price of the supplier.

  • Unit - Purchase price unit
  • Cost Component - The cost component that must be of the type Material Costs.

Note: The cost component specified in this field does not become part of the standard cost detail structure if it is part of the cost component scheme of the selected item. If calculations are performed with a calculation code not used for actualization (simulations only), the simulated purchase price is mapped to the cost component defined in the records for this session.

  • Latest Price - The purchase price that is displayed on the most recent invoice received for the selected purchased item.

  • Average Price - The average purchase price which is based on cumulative purchases or on the current inventory, as specified in the Method of Calculating Average Purchase Price field of the Purchase Order Parameters (tdpur0100m400) session.

Previous Article Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Table Sharing with a Multi-Company Setup - Using a Master Data Company
Next Article Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY & FINANCE: Archiving Finalized Transactions
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Kathy Barthelt

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