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

Anthony Etzel 0 67745 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.
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BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: User Defined Transactions

Anthony Etzel 0 57906 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.

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

Kathy Barthelt 0 55449 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
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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: GRINYA Reconciliation – What Could Go Wrong?

Kathy Barthelt 0 57707 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.

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BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Inventory Control

Anthony Etzel 0 57999 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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BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Alternate Items

Anthony Etzel 0 56388 Article rating: No rating
How can I use an alternate item on a shop order?

The best way is to have the approved alternate item appear on the Bill of Material just after the standard item with a zero required quantity. Now the alternate item will appear on the Shop Order. So, if the standard item is not available, the alternate item can be issued to the shop order.

When the shop order is closed out, one item will have an unfavorable variance while the other shows a favorable variance. This is an easy way to provide alternate items provided engineering approves and they are part of the Bill of Material.

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Negative Inventory

Kathy Barthelt 0 54361 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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BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: User Defined Transactions

Anthony Etzel 0 59534 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 to the inventory to be impacted. You can create a user define transaction effect to allow the customer receipt and not update the inventory balance.

Read more
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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt
/ Categories: Infor LN & Baan Tips, Technology

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Data Sharing Methods (Advantages and Disadvantages)

Depending on the multicompany scenario you choose, an implementation team must decide whether or not tables must be logically linked or if data must be synchronized in another way to achieve availability of data across various companies. 

There are 3 ways in which data may be shared among companies. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of each:

  1. Logical Table Linking - If two companies use the same physical data, the physical table exists, or is used, in only one company: the physical company. Each piece occurs only once: one instance of the same data. If the term logical table linking is used, users from multiple companies use a single physical instance of the data. If the company tables are on the same server, this can be accomplished by logical table linking. Access to specific data can be restricted, if required.

    • Advantages: Logical Table Linking takes place in real time; therefore, the moment a record is created or modified in one company, a record becomes available in all other linked companies as well. The setup and maintenance of logical table linking is easier than the setup and maintenance of data replication. Logical table linking is extremely reliable because this type of linking is independent of network connections and user interventions. 

    • Disadvantages: Table sharing implies that all attributes for a record are the same in all companies. Therefore, suppose you share the item table and, for a particular item in a company, the product class is XXX. In this case, in all other companies, the product class for this item must be XXX as well.

  2. Data Replication - In this situation, each company has exactly the same data, but each company has a unique copy of the data. The same piece of data exists in multiple (physical) places: multiple instances of the same data. The process to copy the data is called data replication.

    • Advantages: Rather than using table sharing by means of the logical linking of tables, you can replicate the content of tables between companies. The advantage is that, on company level, some (non-key) attributes of a record can differ by company. For example, if the bills of materials are replicated instead of shared, for each company, you can link a different warehouse to the bill of material. As a result, the bills of materials can be the same across all companies and only the warehouses differ. Using replication, you can also make only a subset of the records available in other companies. For example, if you replicate items between companies, in a sales company, for example, by means of the item group, you can only make end items available. In addition, you can replicate only a subset of items, for example, depending on the item group. Note that replication also requires that the referenced tables are replicated or shared.

    • Disadvantages: Replication is not in real time, and therefore, for processes that require real-time integrated data as the financial integration processes, replication is not an option. For replication, you also must take into account the sequence in which you replicate. First, you must replicate the child tables and then the parent tables, and therefore first the business partners and then the purchase contracts. During the replication process, the data must be frozen. This point is of particular importance if the replication process takes a lot of time.

  3. Manual Syncronization - If only a small number of records are the same between some companies, you can enter, maintain, and keep the records synchronized manually. Note that the more dynamic data is, the more difficult this process is. This solution is strictly procedural. Therefore, depending on the discipline of the users, the solution is error sensitive: data can be forgotten, updated too late, or typing errors may occur.

  • Advantages - The main advantage is the flexibility so that only the data that really must be shared can be kept synchronized. By manually keeping data synchronized, not all attributes of a record need to have the same value.

  • Disadvantages - The main disadvantage is that this method depends on user interaction. Therefore, the method depends on the user’s time - because the method is not a real time procedure and the user may forget to update the data - and users can make mistakes.

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Kathy Barthelt

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