Two big sources of inefficiencies in manufacturing are paper and spreadsheets. I know that you love ‘em, but they are the cause of more problems than you probably realize. Think of how long it takes you to get paper based data into the hands of those who can do something valuable with the data. Are you capturing all of the information correctly? Timely? What about those spreadsheets? Can everyone access that information across your organization? Is that data married with all of the related data regarding your operations to give your executive and middle management the information they need when they need it?

Make your shop floor paperless and put in place systems that talk to one another and automatically pull and push data to and from your ERP so that you can look in one place for all the information you need to run your business effectively.

If you’re not doing this today, you might as well be burning money.

Accounts Receivable:

• Check A/R Aging Balance with Trial Balance.
• Check for Detailed Customer Transactions.

Accounts Payable:

• Check A/P Aging Balance with Trial Balance.
• Check Open Purchase Orders for Potential Accruals and A/P Reconciliation.
• Check for Registered Purchase Invoices (Not Matched or Approved).
• Print Listing of all Purchase Invoices Entered for Period.

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.

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.

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.

In general, you can enter a different series in the order field if you have an available series. To add a new series, find the appropriate group in the First Free Number session, and add a new series and first free number (usually 1).

In Baan IV, go to the Maintain First Free Numbers Session (under Common, Tables, Maintain Logistics Tables, Maintenance 1). Groups are easily identified (e.g., Purchase Order, Sales Order, etc.).

In Baan V, go to the First Free Number Session (under Common Data, Tables, Logistics). There are number groups (e.g., 570 may be for Purchase Orders, 650 may be for Sales Orders, etc.).

In LN, go to the First Free Number Session (tcmcs0150m000 – it is in different places in the menu under different Feature Packs). There are number groups (e.g., 210 may be for Purchase Orders, 310 may be for Sales Orders, etc.).

On March 1, 2016, Hoffmaster’s Clintonville plant went live with Crossroads MES and LX. The goal of the project was to convert from another ERP to LX and replace a green screen MES system that required the manual recording of production and labor activity keyed from shop floor terminals.

Hoffmaster achieved their goal by completing a successful data conversion and detailed prototyping of LX and Crossroads. The project team remarked that the Crossroads MES implementation was by far the easiest part of the project. One of the critical requirements of the chosen MES solution was to verify UPC and UCC label formats that called for in-line labeling of product packages and cases. Crossroads MES satisfied that requirement, and also provided an interface to finished goods inventory via the scanning of LPN numbers when reporting production.

The Clintonville plant is a leading manufacturer of disposable tabletop products.

In LX, the actual costs that can be set up fall into three categories: Material, Labor, and Overhead. If your LX database is set up properly with the LX cost accounting, you should be able to identify:

• How much the item should cost
• How to track the cost of work underway
• How much the item actually did cost
• Why the job cost varied from the expected cost
   

Capturing the data to track activity with associated costs can be time-consuming. With an MES solution, the information you need for costing is tracked instantly.