In Baan IV Purchase Control, the purchase inquiry procedure enables the user to:

• Request a specific supplier to submit a quotation on the purchase inquiry for the delivery of an item.
• Compare the prices and discounts of the quotations that are submitted by different suppliers.
• Copy the inquiry data to a purchase order.

In LN, you can:

• Request multiple business partners to submit a quotation on a specific request-for-quotation for the delivery of an item.
• Compare the received quotations based on the following criteria:

1. Price
2. Quantity
3. Vendor rating
4. Delivery dates
5. RFQ subjective criteria

• Copy the quotation data to a purchase order, a purchase contract, or a price book.

The shop order release date is the date that the shop order is scheduled to be released for production.

If you want to use the backward schedule method, make sure the release date is blank and the due date is maintained.

If you maintain the quantity on the shop order and the due date is prior to the system date, the due date and the release date are the same.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.