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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

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Differences Between Constraint Planning in Baan IV and Enterprise Planning in LN

Kathy Barthelt 0 53327 Article rating: No rating

In Baan IV, a distinction is made between the actual ERP system and a separate planning tool which contains the Constraint Planning package. This tool was intended to work with any ERP system, not just with Baan IV. The Enterprise Planning package is now considered to be a package like any other package in Infor LN.

Users of Baan IV could choose whether they wanted to plan their supply in one of the following ways:

  • By using the MPS and MRP modules in the Manufacturing package.
  • By using the RPD and RMP modules in the Constraint Planning package.

Users of Infor LN can only use the Enterprise Planning package. The distinction between the MPS items and MRP items has been abandoned. In Infor LN, all items can be planned by using a combination of master-based planning methods and order-based planning methods.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Setting Up New Employees in LN

Kathy Barthelt 0 52894 Article rating: No rating

In LN, the People package is used to register the employee’s hours and expenses. To support the People package, the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session only contains the general employee data.

The title of the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session was changed to Employees – General (tccom0101m000).

From the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session, users can start the following sessions to define the more specific employee data:

  • Employees - People (bpmdm0101m000).
  • Employees - Project (tppdm8101m000).
  • Employees - Service (tsmdm1140m000).
  • Skills by Employee (tcppl0120m000).
  • Employees by Team (tcppl0150m000).
  • Roles by Employee (tcppl0170m000).

After users define the employees, users can also start the listed sessions from the Employees Dashboard (bpmdm0101m100) session in People.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Understanding What Goes On – Out on the Factory Floor

Anthony Etzel 0 40365 Article rating: No rating

Ok… so you want to know the status of a specific shop order that was released two days ago.

What do you do?

It’s a sure bet that you have a manager, supervisor, or planner who can walk the floor and find the order at whatever work center it happens to be at. He/she can then answer “what operations have been completed and how many were completed?” All this requires leg work, and of course, a fair amount of time.

Now, if you have setup your BPCS master files properly, and you report transaction activity, you should be able to get those shop order statuses much faster using the SFC300 Shop Order Inquiry Screen.

At your fingertips you can see:

  • Release date & due date
  • How many hours remain in total and at each operation
  • The quantity required, what was finished and the remaining quantity
  • What components (materials) have been issued

Pretty basic information, right? Are you getting what you need to know? If not, then you may want to reexamine how your BPCS files are setup and what transactions along with their frequency are captured.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Changing the Master Schedule

Anthony Etzel 0 760 Article rating: No rating

You can change your master schedule by specifying the type of master schedule update to perform. You can run a Net Change or Regenerative Schedule.

You also have the ability to clear the lower level requirements out of the Planned and Firm-Planned Order file.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Optionally Include Tax Amounts In Order Balance

Kathy Barthelt 0 1086 Article rating: No rating

In Baan IV, the order balance amount always includes the tax amount. Consequently, the tax amount must be recalculated every time an order line is modified in order to update the balance correctly. If the tax provider is activated, this requires an API call for every re-calculation of tax.

In Infor LN, users can select or clear the new Include Tax in Order Balance check box in the COM Parameters (tccom0000s000) session to indicate whether users want to include tax amounts in the order balance amount. This parameter has an effect on various sessions in Order Management.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: What is Lean Make to Order?

Anthony Etzel 0 1064 Article rating: No rating

This is a simple way to go from the customer order to making the order and shipping the order. It involves a few simple steps:

  1. Receive and enter the customer order
  2. Automatic credit review
  3. Automatic release of the shop order tied to the customer order
  4. Issue material, report labor to the production order receipt
  5. Pick the order, ship the order, invoice the customer

With lean, you can skip processing the demand through MRP. You can go directly from the customer order to the shop order creation.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Negative Inventory

Kathy Barthelt 0 1101 Article rating: No rating

If Location Control is turned on in Baan IV, then inventory should never be negative.

If Location Control is not turned on in Baan IV, and the parameter “Negative Inventory Allowed” in INV Parameters is set to “NO”, then inventory should never be negative.

In Baan V and LN, the parameters in Inventory Handling Parameters determine whether you can have negative inventory. If these parameters are set to “NO”, then inventory should never be negative.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

This enhancement provides additional views, additional order and line details, improved navigation, and additional capabilities to the IDF Customer Order Inquiry cards and to customer order-related business objects such as Allocations, Customer Invoices, Inventory Transaction History, Promotions, Drop Shipments.

Enhanced Order views based on user roles such as customer service, warehouse/logistics, salesperson/commission, data analysis/management reporting

  • Improved sort, select and filter capabilities
  • Enhanced navigation, data organization and data display
  • Improved customer service access to all transactions throughout the entire customer order life cycle – from quote to order, related invoices, and any RMAs, return orders, related credit memos
  • Improved grouping of related fields
  • New cards to present additional order and order line details
  • Consolidation of cards and card details when appropriate
  • Enhanced Display and Maintain capabilities for drillback to related customer, ship-to, item, carrier, terms, and other master file details
  • Improved display of dates, times and applicable time zones when Region Code time zone support is implemented
  • Multi language Description, Name and Address fields displayed in user’s language, if defined, else in base language
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Tips: LN | Baan

Don't laugh - the average lifespan of an ERP system is 7-10 years

Don't laugh - the average lifespan of an ERP system is 7-10 years

Don’t laugh! I know, I know…many of our customers say that after 7-10 years they are finally settling in after the implementation! We have seen many a customer stretch out the lifespan of their ERP system to 20+ years. That sounds great for the company’s bank account, but is it good for the business?

An outdated ERP system hurts your business in many ways, not just with slow performance. The best-of-breed functionality is now 2 decades old, and obsolete technology can't leverage newer technology. Lack of integration leads to siloed data that hurts communication and your internal teams feel the pain, and your customers are noticing. Poor visibility into your operations makes it nearly impossible to achieve industry-based regulatory compliance and meet financial auditing requirements. Not to mention the sheer size of Big Data that is being collected today vs. 2 decades ago or the fact that your vendor is no longer supporting your ERP version.

Let’s scrap it all and start over!

Is it that black and white though? There is an ocean between “do nothing” and “replace everything”. Taking incremental steps can give your organization a tremendous amount of benefit without the tremendous price tag that often goes with ERP replacement, but you need to be willing to take the first step. Maybe there is a manufacturing ERP add-on that you know would provide tremendous benefit and improve overall efficiency, or a web portal that you log in to that allows you to communicate with your suppliers, but it has no tie to your purchase orders, or maybe your team would benefit from a review of industry best practices and how that compares to how your ERP system is currently being used. Or at the very least you need to know if your ERP system is still meeting the organization’s needs.

Success will never be a big step in the future. Success is a small step taken just now.” – Jonatan Martensson

Crossroads RMC specializes in helping manufacturers maximize the benefit of “the small step”.  Not sure how Crossroads RMC can optimize your business?

Our Infor ERP Services can optimize your business with the following initiatives and many more:

Infor LX (ERP LX) Services>
Infor LN (ERP LN) Services>
BPCS Services>
Baan Services>

It's time to take the first step today!
800-762-2077  |  solutions@crossroadsrmc.com

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