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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: Plan Codes

Kathy Barthelt 0 55840 Article rating: No rating

In Baan IV, plan items exist within the context of a plan code. A plan code includes only items of the MPS Item item type. Planned orders are independent of a plan code. Users can compare plan codes by means of the Plan Code Performance Comparison (cprmp4504m000) session.

The scenario concept in Infor LN replaces the plan code concept in Baan IV.

In Infor LN, the basic data for plan items is the same for all scenarios. However, users maintain not only the master plan within a scenario, but the planned orders as well.

For example, for each scenario, Users can specify:

  • Special demand for an item.
  • The availability of resources (in the Scenario – Availabilities (cprpd4160m000) session).
  • The sourcing strategies and supply strategies.

Users can compare scenarios by means of the Performance Indicators (cprao2201s000) session.

Filtec Selects Crossroads RMC for Baan Data Collection

Kathy Barthelt 0 26652 Article rating: No rating

Filtec, a leading provider of in-line inspection solutions for the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries, has selected the Web Collect, formerly RMC3 data collection solution from Crossroads RMC for their Baan IV system. Filtec plans to implement Labor Reporting and Report Operations Complete as part of this project with the goal of eliminating manual data entry and gaining better visibility to gap time. The project is scheduled to go live in early November 2015.

BPCS/LX TIP OF THE DAY: MATERIAL REQUIREMENT DATES AND LEAD TIME OFFSETS IN MRP

Anthony Etzel 0 56975 Article rating: No rating

The system automatically performs offsets for requirements dates for components in the MPS/MRP calculations. It also performs offsets for calculation of material need dates at the time that shop orders are released.

To calculate the offset, the system takes the parent lead time from the Item Master and adjusts it by the bill of materials offset (plus or minus) for the component. This gives the lead time days for that specific component. The system starts with the due date of the parent and backs up and skips all non-workdays in the shop calendar.

Note that the offset calculation uses only calendar records that have a blank work center (the calendar record applies to all work centers). See the information for the Shop Calendar Maintenance program, SFC140, in your Shop Floor Control documentation for shop calendar details.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Data Sizing Moving to LN

Kathy Barthelt 0 51223 Article rating: No rating

The Infor LN database must be created with the appropriate size. For example, if at least 150 GB is required for a year, create the database with the required size from the beginning. Do not let the size increase to the required size and cause additional fragmentation in the database and the NTFS volume.  Set the autogrowth to a minimum of 10 percent or 1 GB (for each extent) to avoid fragmentation on file system level. Never use the default extent size of 1 MB.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Work Center & Machine Locations

Anthony Etzel 0 54380 Article rating: 3.0

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.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: SIC Planning for MRP/MPS Planned Items

Kathy Barthelt 0 64022 Article rating: 3.0

If you have a parts warehouse and prefer to use SIC for planning (re-order point) but need to use MRP/MPS planning for production, create a non-nettable warehouse for the parts warehouse and run the SIC plan against that warehouse.

When running the SIC plan, be sure to set the Order System to “MPS to MRP” for Baan IV and to “Planned to Planned” for Baan V and LN.

Using this method you keep the parts inventory out of the production planning and in the hands of the parts warehouse planner.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Indirect Time Reporting

Anthony Etzel 0 54226 Article rating: No rating

In Infor LX, there are two ways to enter indirect labor. You can use either SFC600 or SFC650.

  • If you use SFC600 and enter a reason code for the indirect labor, the reason you entered is written to the Labor Ticket file.
  • If you use SFC650 and enter a reason code for the indirect, the reason code is not written to the labor Ticket file.

In either case, the reason code is not validated from the transaction file because there is no indirect transaction code. The indirect code that can be setup is machine downtime. If you need to validate and track indirect by reason and validate the reason code, then you may want to explore an MES solution that works with Infor LX.

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

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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.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Item Facility Master has a new attribute to define the override inspection days lead time CICP.ICINSD.

  • When an item facility has a defined override inspection days lead time, that value will be used instead of the system parameter inspection days lead time.

MRP exception report, MRP200B
Purchase planning report, PUR285B
Purchase order / Requisition maintenance, PUR500D3
Purchase order consolidation / release, PUR640B1
Vendor splits, PUR653B

This enhancement improved the subfile utilized in MRP320D Master Schedule Detail Inquiry -SCR001 by expanding the subfile with data rather than clearing the subfile as user pages. This change provides full support for the WebTop 4.8 Grid decorator.

This enhancement updated the approach used to populate the subfile to allow a deployed Webtop Grid to function correctly. There is no visible or user-impacted change to the way the program functions.

This enhancement provides improved functionality and full support of a Webtop grid applied to the subfile.

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Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt
/ Categories: Infor LN & Baan Tips

Infor LN & Baan Tip: Performance improvement by setting the First Free Number Cache (tcmcs0651m000)

Many transactions in all kinds of modules use order numbers or serial numbers. These order numbers are most often automatically generated. In the Number Groups (tcmcs0151m000) session you can define groups of order numbers used for dedicated areas. A Number Group is a group of the first free number series that you can assign to a specific use. All the numbers that Infor LN generates in the number groups that are dedicated to the same purpose are unique.

All the first free numbers are stored in the table tcmcs050.

As many different processes can request a free number from the number groups, we often see delays in the performance, due to locking on the first free number records. This locking issue can have a severe impact on the performance of huge batch-type transactions, but also on the performance perceived by individual users in many areas in LN.

For example:

  • Processing warehouse transactions. Single or in-batch
  • Completing / closing orders
  • Backflushing of production orders
  • Generate Order Planning
  • Cost calculation and warehouse revaluation


How this performance can be improved?

Resolution

In the Number Groups (tcmcs0151m000) session you can open the details of a specific Number Group (tcmcs0651m000) or start the session stand-alone.

In the Number Group, you define the Series with the related First Free Numbers. Per Serie in the First Free Number, you have the option to define the Cache Size.

This Cache size is defaulted on a value of 0 (zero). A cache size of zero means No Cache. How does the First Free Number caching works:

  • When the Cache Size is zero: With this setting a process requests a Free Number from the Serie and the first free number is issued to the process. But the first free number record is not updated yet. At the moment the requesting process is finished, without errors, it reports back that the number is used and the first free number record is updated. All the time that the process is working on the transactions the first free number record is locked. If another process is requesting a free number from the same series, it must wait (retries) until the record is updated and released by the previous process. This is the locking which is causing delays in the other processes.  
  • Setting the Cache Size to a higher value then zero activates the caching. When the Cache Size is set to 1 or higher, the requested free number is sent to the requesting process, the first free number is updated, with the number as defined in the Cache size, and the record is saved. It does not wait until the requesting process has reported back that is finished, with or without errors. In this way the record is immediately released and no locking will occur. If another process is requesting a free number, it does not need to wait until the free number record is released by the earlier process. If the process is ended with errors and therefor the number is not used, this number from the series is lost. This can result in gaps in the numbering. When the cache size is greater than 1, for example it is set to 5, the requesting process receives 5 free numbers. Even if it only needs less than 5. In this way the process only has to request for a new free number after it has used the first 5 numbers from the cache. This will also speedup the process in case of large batch transactions. For ‘warehouse integration users’, like for example Factory Track or WMS users we advise to set the cache size to 5.  

Note that financial documents are not based on number group series / first free numbers. Instead they are based on transaction type series, for which the caching functionality does not exist. Financial documents, like sales invoices, bank transactions, are thus not cached.

The caching is especially important to improve the performance of all logistical processes.

It is strongly recommended (mandatory) to set the Cache Size for all Number Groups to a minimum of 1.

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Kathy Barthelt

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