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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: Using Pre-Assigned Lot Numbers

Anthony Etzel 0 55650 Article rating: No rating

Some items in the manufacturing process may require a lot number. A quick and easy way to release the Shop Orders with lot numbers is by using the Multi-Level Shop Order Release.

Simply select the end item from the selection screen and use action 10 for the multi-level order release. At the bottom of the release screen is the field “Pre-Assign a Lot Number to Shop Orders”. Select 1 for the pre-assigned lot number assignment option.

This option will use the pre-assigned lot number on the shop order, if the lot number exists. If the lot number does not exist, the system will automatically create a lot number and assign it to the shop order for all items that are lot-controlled.

CST Adds Warranty Service Claim System to Dealer Portal for LN

Crossroads RMC 0 32462 Article rating: No rating

Crossroads RMC has once again partnered with Xenitel Managed Service Solutions and CST Industries to create a warranty service claim system for CST’s dealers. The project will provide a way for dealers to create a “warranty request claim” from within the dealer portal, defining the customer and product, and parts that failed, and selecting what parts they are claiming for replacement to install the replacement part. This service will be offered in addition to the parts online ordering system previously developed for CST. 

 

CST is a global leader in the manufacture and construction of factory coated metal storage tanks, aluminum domes and specialty covers.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: How Accurate is Your Inventory?

Kathy Barthelt 0 52328 Article rating: No rating

Just a refresher on a tip I’ve shared previously from Supply Chain Technology Bulletin regarding how to attain greater inventory accuracy. I thought it would be worthwhile to share again:

  1. Record data regarding your inventory as soon as the items arrive at your door / receiving dock. With information, you can make decisions. Without it, you waste money, time, and effort.
  2. Leverage data collection, label generation, and RFID solutions to make your life easier.
  3. Set inventory accuracy goals for the business and for employees.
  4. Train your employees so they know what is expected of them, and how to best perform their job and therefore how best to maintain accurate inventory counts.
  5. Count the inventory – and do it regularly. Find a method that works best for your employees, and for your business.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: How Accurate is Your Inventory?

Anthony Etzel 0 67218 Article rating: No rating

Just a refresher on a tip I’ve shared previously from supply Chain Technology Bulletin regarding how to attain greater inventory accuracy. I thought it would be worthwhile to share again:

  1. Record data regarding your inventory as soon as the items arrive at your door / receiving dock. With information, you can make decisions. Without it, you waste money, time, and effort.
  2. Leverage data collection, label generation, and RFID solutions to make your life easier.
  3. Set inventory accuracy goals for the business and for employees.
  4. Train your employees so they know what is expected of them, and how to best perform their job and therefore how best to maintain accurate inventory counts.
  5. Count the inventory – and do it regularly. Find a method that works best for your employees, and for your business.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: User Defined Transactions

Anthony Etzel 0 57425 Article rating: No rating

When to use a user-defined inventory transaction

ERP LX (BPCS) provides you with the flexibility to create inventory transactions without program modifications. The typical transaction types are defined with effects set on how the transaction will impact inventory balances.

Perhaps you want to process a customer return and don’t want the inventory to be impacted. You can create a user define transaction effect to allow the customer receipt and not update the inventory balance.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Month End – Miscellaneous To-Do’s

Kathy Barthelt 0 54593 Article rating: No rating
  • Print Sales Order History Information
    • all invoices processed through sales
  • Check Inventory Valuation
    • this should tie out to your inventory accounts
  • Print Integration Information
    • see all postings from WIP to finished goods
  • Print G/L Transaction Information
    • print specific transaction types for any GL account
  • Print Lot Control Information
    • will show where serial numbers were used

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: GRINYA Reconciliation – What Could Go Wrong?

Kathy Barthelt 0 56658 Article rating: No rating

One common GRINYA issue would be incorrectly entered Integration Setups.

Check the Baan or Infor LN manual for recommended Integration setups. If such a mistake were to occur, it is important to know for what period of time the Integration was in error.

To ensure, it’s recommended that the Integrations Setup tables should be audited either through Baan/LN or Database Auditing. Corrections can be quickly calculated when an exact timeframe can be determined.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Inventory Control

Anthony Etzel 0 57682 Article rating: 1.0

Is Lot Control necessary?

Certain industries require lot control, where others may find it an option based on how they want to trace the material used in a product in the event of a defect, or recall.

LX provides tight lot controls and flexibility with lot number assignments. Shop orders can have a pre-assigned lot number, or a lot number can be automatically assigned when the item is produced. You can also assign a specific lot number for the entire shop order, or for each item/quantity reported against a shop order.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Improves control over PO costing changes during invoice entry by replacing passive warnings with an intentional override action.

  • In ACP500D3 (Invoice Entry PO Costing), users previously could unintentionally accept changes by pressing ENTER, even when quantity to cost or amount to cost values had changed.

  • A new “F14 to Override” warning message replaces the old message:
    “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”
    This ensures users acknowledge and confirm significant changes explicitly.

New System Parameter:

  • “Apply GRN Costing Tolerance for PO Costing” (optional):

    • Within tolerance: Displays the original message —
      “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”

    • Outside tolerance: Triggers the new override requirement —
      “F14 to Override”

Benefits:

  • Enhances oversight and reduces unintentional cost acceptance.

  • Enables better control of PO costs when invoice details differ from expectations.

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Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Manufacturing Tip: Performance Problems in Generate Order Planning (cprrp1210m000)

When the Generate Order Planning (cprrp1210m000) session is run it can take minutes to days to finish the process.

The performance of this session depends on many settings, like the number of plan items, the number of orders, but it also depends on hardware and database setup.

Here are some guidelines on how performance can be improved.

  • Be sure you are always on the latest solutions with the planning sessions. We are constantly improving the software to gain more speed in the Enterprise Planning (EP) sessions.
  • The number of planned items is critical. Try to reduce the number of planned items. Is it necessary that all items be planned via EP? For shop floor stock the TPOP or SIC replenish systems are often more suitable.
  • When you use PCS, be sure to close the projects when they are finished. When a PCS project has status Closed, the customized items will not be planned.

It's better to run Remove Plan Items for closed Projects (cprpd1220m000). This session removes the item planning data for customized items of closed projects.

  • If you run EP with the option, Also Generate Item Master Plan and/or Online Update Item Master Plan, consider if you need an Item Master Plan for all plan items. An Item Master Plan is usually meant for global long-term planning. Again this is not very useful for shop floor stock. Reducing the number of master-planned items improves performance.
  • When you use Resource Master Plans; are all your resources really critical? If a work center is not critical do not create a Resource Master Plan for it.
  • When using Item Master Plans and/or Resource Master Plans, set in Scenarios (cprpd4100m000) the total scenario length as short as possible. For example, if your sales order horizon is 2 years, a scenario end date which is 3 years after the current date is sufficient. During the calculations of the Item Master Plan and the Resource Master, all periods defined in the scenario are checked and calculated. So if you have the end date of the scenario on 2038, EP will do the calculations (for every master-planned item) until 2038.

Defining a rolling scenario will keep your scenario length constant and you don’t have to worry that you run beyond your scenario's end date.

  • Updating the pegging relations has a serious impact on the EP performance. In EP Parameters (cprpd0100m000) you can set the Pegging Horizon in days. Keep this horizon as short as possible. The Update Signals by Item/Planner option also has some impact, but less than the pegging.
  • EP uses the so-called phase numbers to detect the lowest level in which an item is used within a BOM structure or in a supplying relation. If the phase numbers are not ‘up-to-date’, EP will correct the phase numbers during the planning. This takes time during the planning run. If there are loops in BOMs or in supplying relations, this recalculation has a big impact on the performance. Therefore you could run Compute Phase Numbers (cprpd6200m000) on a regular basis. For example once a month. Always run this session with the Generate Report option selected. If loops are detected these are reported. Be sure to solve all the reported errors.
  • When unexpected results occur, especially when the data is imported from external packages, always check the number of records in tables cprpd100 and cprpd120. The number of records should match! Remark: From 10.4 onwards the table cprpd120 has become obsolete so this point not applicable anymore.
  • The number of calendars also impacts planning performance. Then for every warehouse, work center, or BP, and so on, a different calendar is defined. Planning has to read all of these calendars from start to end. This can have a huge impact on performance.
    • If you link a calendar to a work center or warehouse, avoid defining a new calendar for every work center/warehouse. Try to link the same calendar to more than one department.
    • Define the start of the calendar close to the start date of the scenario. For example, the current date is 01-07-2014, the start date of the scenario is 365 days in the past. So a start date for your calendar could be 01-07-2012.
    • Define the end date of the calendar not too far in the future. Depending on the end date of the scenario you could use 5 years ahead.  For example, the current date is 01-07-2014, the end date of the scenario is 3 years in the future. So an end date for your calendar could be 01-07-2022. Do not define an end date past 19-01-2038, which is the last UTC date Infor LN can handle.

Also, the interaction with the database can have a big impact on performance. 
A commonly used way to improve the total run time of the EP run is to start the session in parallel processing. 
See also Knowledge Base Article 22881401 Performance, Tracing and tuning Guide, for more details.

These guidelines are just some hints, and a good starting point because performance is a complex issue.

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