Please Wait a Moment
X

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

Crossroads Connections

Infor ERP Tips & News from the Experts

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

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Learn More About Infor’s LX Exit Points Functionality

Anthony Etzel 0 48641 Article rating: No rating

Exit Points is a new feature in Infor LX Version 8 that allows users to customize, without changing the original LX source code. Exit points provide a way for you to call an external program and pass a set of parameters to implement any needed custom logic. By using Exit Points, LX customers are able to modify the software, and still take advantage of new releases from Infor. Exit points are available in many LX programs. A complete list is available on the Infor support website.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Top 10 Survival Tips For Manufacturers

by Guy Morgan / IndustryWeek

Kathy Barthelt 0 71854 Article rating: No rating

Under intense cost pressures, quality is at risk at many manufacturers. These 10 tips can help you survive the competitive challenges ahead.

  1. Maintain your focus. Make a decision about the kind of company you are and stick with it. 
  2. Reinvent your products regularly. Suppliers who sharply differentiate their products fare the best. 
  3. Maximize your productivity and increase your speed through enhanced product and process design. Lean manufacturing focuses on production and its associated costs from a component's conception.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Real Time Access to Your Data

Anthony Etzel 0 39597 Article rating: No rating

Poor performance indicators make for poor outcomes.

Companies today continue to tolerate and accept how labor and production information is recorded, and the reliability on that information is questionable. In addition to collecting labor and production information, there are many other pieces of information manually recorded from the shop floor.

A critical element of information for productivity throughput would be to examine how much time the work center or machine was actually up and running. Downtime is another critical element of data that is usually manually recorded along with a reason identifying what caused production to stop. If this information is not provided on a timely and accurate basis, then what good is it anyway? Forms are filled out, data may or may not be keyed to a spreadsheet, the forms are sorted and filed, but is anybody really looking at the information that was recorded? Think about the amount of time it takes to manage the manual collection of information from your shop floor. 

What would real time access to data mean to your organization?
The benefits:

  1. Real Time Production Visibility
  2. Reduced Paperwork Load
  3. Downtime and Scrap Visibility
  4. WIP Inventory Visibility
  5. Improve Efficiency, Capacity Utilization

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Real Time Access to Your Data

Kathy Barthelt 0 75281 Article rating: No rating

Poor performance indicators make for poor outcomes.

Companies today continue to tolerate and accept how labor and production information is recorded, and the reliability on that information is questionable. In addition to collecting labor and production information, there are many other pieces of information manually recorded from the shop floor.

A critical element of information for productivity throughput would be to examine how much time the work center or machine was actually up and running. Downtime is another critical element of data that is usually manually recorded along with a reason identifying what caused production to stop. If this information is not provided on a timely and accurate basis, then what good is it anyway? Forms are filled out, data may or may not be keyed to a spreadsheet, the forms are sorted and filed, but is anybody really looking at the information that was recorded? Think about the amount of time it takes to manage the manual collection of information from your shop floor. 

What would real time access to data mean to your organization?
The benefits:

  1. Real Time Production Visibility
  2. Reduced Paperwork Load
  3. Downtime and Scrap Visibility
  4. WIP Inventory Visibility
  5. Improve Efficiency, Capacity Utilization

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: January - Time to Reflect and Plan

Anthony Etzel 0 46319 Article rating: No rating

Happy New Year! January is always a great time to reflect on the prior year – what went well, and what didn’t. It is also the obvious time to plan for the coming year – what do I want to accomplish and how can I best achieve my goals?

As the saying goes, “you can’t improve what you can’t measure”, so if you haven’t already, it is time to start putting processes, procedures and programs in place within your company to measure how well each department is doing against their objectives. Start to analyze your numbers and publish them internally. Where are you at currently? Where do you want to be? Seeing both sets of numbers pushes employees to hit those targets. Do this now, and you’ll be seeing positive results before you know it!  

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: January - Time to Reflect and Plan

Kathy Barthelt 0 74655 Article rating: No rating

Happy New Year! January is always a great time to reflect on the prior year – what went well, and what didn’t. It is also the obvious time to plan for the coming year – what do I want to accomplish and how can I best achieve my goals?

As the saying goes, “you can’t improve what you can’t measure”, so if you haven’t already, it is time to start putting processes, procedures and programs in place within your company to measure how well each department is doing against their objectives. Start to analyze your numbers and publish them internally. Where are you at currently? Where do you want to be? Seeing both sets of numbers pushes employees to hit those targets. Do this now, and you’ll be seeing positive results before you know it!  

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

First96979899101103104105Last

Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

DATA: See it. Understand it. Discuss it.

Customer Orders SummaryWe’ve all heard author and management consultant Peter Drucker’s famous quote “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  

What’s the right way to manage “It” though? Is it enough to put the data in the hands of the responsible manager and wait for change to occur? Does the manager have a pulse on everything that went into those numbers?

Your numbers tell a story, but there is a lot of “how” and “why” that creates a backstory that affects the interpretation and the actions needed to improve. Does your manager have the backstory? Probably not, so you share the numbers and invite employees to participate in the discussion, only to discover that the 3rd shift was short-staffed for over a week, or a material shortage caused a delay in order fulfillment, or quality issues resulted in a large amount of rework, thereby delaying other production runs. How do you get ALL of this information without the need to discuss it with each person doing the work? 

D A S H B O A R D S !   See it. Understand it. Discuss it.

Production Summary Dashboard

Production
Summary

OEE, time usage, downtime, quantities, cycle times, and more...

Job Step Status Dashboard

Work Center Job Step Status

OEE, time usage, downtime, quantities, cycle times, and more...

Accounts Receivable Dashboard

Accounts Receivable
Summary

Revenue, income, working capital, assets,
and more...

Inventory Dashboard

Inventory
Dashboard

Planning, sourcing, procuring, transporting, storing, and more...

Dashboards are key to transforming your data into meaningful action that boosts performance. They show key performance indicators so employees can discuss what's going well, and what needs to be improved. Display Dashboards on individual computers, or tablets, or broadcast on big monitors in common work areas so your teams can establish a cycle of continuous improvement.

Crossroads RMC’s Analytics Dashboard product provides a meaningful tool for team discussion and improvement.

Request a demo or get started with a FREE 30-DAY TRIAL today.
(Includes pre-built views for Infor LN, Infor LX, Baan, and BPCS) 

Request a Demo / Free 30-Day Trial > Infor LX or BPCS
Learn More > Infor LX & BPCS

Request a Demo / Free 30-Day Trial > Infor LN or Baan
Learn More > Infor LN & Baan

Print
16180 Rate this article:
5.0
Crossroads RMC

Crossroads RMCCrossroads RMC

Other posts by Crossroads RMC

Contact author

x

Categories