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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

BPCS/LX Tip of the Day: Accounts Payable / Purchasing

Anthony Etzel 0 981 Article rating: No rating

You can integrate Accounts Payable (ACP) with Purchasing. ACP requires more detailed information in the Vendor file than Purchasing requires. Accounts Payable automatically checks for a valid purchase order when you

match invoices to POs and receipts. Enter any outstanding active purchase orders through PO Release, PUR500, before you can match invoices in Accounts Payable.

 

Accounts Payable can also update the Actual Cost fields in the Inventory Master file directly from vendor invoices. You must provide the following information in order for Accounts Payable to complete this update:

â–ª Define a type C inventory transaction.

â–ª Enter a valid purchase order on the Invoice Entry header screen, ACP500D2-01, or in the Next Purchase Order field on the Invoice Entry: PO Costing screen, ACP500D3-01.

â–ª Enter the information for the actual cost transaction on the appropriate lines.

Baan/LN Tip of the Day: Virtualization

Kathy Barthelt 0 49192 Article rating: No rating

The advantages of virtualization include the following:
 

• You get more out of your existing resources. Pool common infrastructure resources and break the legacy “one application to one server” model with server consolidation.

• You can reduce datacenter costs by reducing your physical infrastructure and improving your server to admin ratio. Fewer servers and related IT hardware means reduced real estate and reduced power and cooling requirements. With better management tools, you can improve your server to admin ratio so personnel requirements are reduced.

• You can increase the availability of hardware and applications for improved business continuity.

• Securely back up and migrate entire virtual environments with no service interruptions. Eliminate planned downtime and recover immediately from unplanned issues.

• Gain operational flexibility. Respond to market changes with dynamic resource management, faster server provisioning, and improved application deployment.

 

The disadvantages of virtualization include the following:

 Virtualization adds overhead to the CPU, memory, IO, and network.

 Virtualization adds an additional layer to the hardware and software stack. Therefore, additional complexity is introduced in the following circumstances:

CST Industries Goes Live With LN Ecommerce Site for Dealers

Crossroads RMC 0 30768 Article rating: No rating

Crossroads RMC has partnered with Xenitel Managed Service Solutions and CST Industries to create an online parts ordering site for CST’s dealers. The site is live as of June, 2015. This site was developed largely to simplify the ordering process for CST’s dealers, providing information on available inventory, flexible ordering, fast shipments, and improved dealer support.

 

CST is a global leader in the manufacture and construction of factory coated metal storage tanks, aluminum domes and specialty covers.

Baan/LN Tip of the Day: First Free Numbers

Kathy Barthelt 0 316 Article rating: No rating

In Baan IV, users define series and numbers in the Maintain First Free Numbers (tcmcs0147m000) session. In the Type of Number field, users must select the type of documents for which the series will be used. The generated document numbers are always numeric and can consist of up to six characters.

 

In LN, users must define number groups in the Number Groups (tcmcs0151m000) session and then in the First Free Numbers (tcmcs0150m000) session, define the series and numbers of each number group. Users assign the number groups to various purposes in the corresponding sessions. For example, in the Sales Order Parameters (tdsls0100s400) session, users can select the number group for sales orders and sales schedules. In the Sales Offices (tdsls0512m000) session, users can then select a series of that number group for the sales orders generated by a specific sales office. As the series codes can be alphanumeric, the generated document numbers can be alphanumeric and they can consist of up to nine characters.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Day: Material Requirement Dates and Lead Time Offsets in MRP

Anthony Etzel 0 343 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-work days 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: Database Sizing – Moving to LN

Kathy Barthelt 0 219 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.

How Do You Measure Success in Your Business?

Anthony Etzel 0 53298 Article rating: 5.0

Business owners may measure success in different ways – some tangible, some intangible.

In order to establish how you should measure success for your business, you need to first examine how you measure your personal success. If you are a business owner, or a part of the management team of the company you work for, ask yourself these questions to see how you measure up:

Assess personal success.

1.    Am I happy in my job?

2.    Do I have passion for what I’m doing?

3.    Do I get the desired results based on the effort I’m putting in?

4.    Am I putting forth my best effort?

5.    Am I patient and allow for sufficient time to see results?

6.    Do I get respect from my co-workers?

7.    Do I have the endurance to hang in there when things get a bit rough?


Reflect on successes and failures.

After answering these questions, do you need to make any changes? Do you still have the same ambition and drive to achieve the goal? Are you content with your work, or have you come to the conclusion that you have not done your best?

To be successful...

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Manufacturing Tip: Performance Problems in Generate Order Planning (cprrp1210m000)

When the Generate Order Planning (cprrp1210m000) session is run it can take minutes to days to finish the process.

The performance of this session depends on many settings, like the number of plan items, the number of orders, but it also depends on hardware and database setup.

Here are some guidelines on how performance can be improved.

  • Be sure you are always on the latest solutions with the planning sessions. We are constantly improving the software to gain more speed in the Enterprise Planning (EP) sessions.
  • The number of planned items is critical. Try to reduce the number of planned items. Is it necessary that all items be planned via EP? For shop floor stock the TPOP or SIC replenish systems are often more suitable.
  • When you use PCS, be sure to close the projects when they are finished. When a PCS project has status Closed, the customized items will not be planned.

It's better to run Remove Plan Items for closed Projects (cprpd1220m000). This session removes the item planning data for customized items of closed projects.

  • If you run EP with the option, Also Generate Item Master Plan and/or Online Update Item Master Plan, consider if you need an Item Master Plan for all plan items. An Item Master Plan is usually meant for global long-term planning. Again this is not very useful for shop floor stock. Reducing the number of master-planned items improves performance.
  • When you use Resource Master Plans; are all your resources really critical? If a work center is not critical do not create a Resource Master Plan for it.
  • When using Item Master Plans and/or Resource Master Plans, set in Scenarios (cprpd4100m000) the total scenario length as short as possible. For example, if your sales order horizon is 2 years, a scenario end date which is 3 years after the current date is sufficient. During the calculations of the Item Master Plan and the Resource Master, all periods defined in the scenario are checked and calculated. So if you have the end date of the scenario on 2038, EP will do the calculations (for every master-planned item) until 2038.

Defining a rolling scenario will keep your scenario length constant and you don’t have to worry that you run beyond your scenario's end date.

  • Updating the pegging relations has a serious impact on the EP performance. In EP Parameters (cprpd0100m000) you can set the Pegging Horizon in days. Keep this horizon as short as possible. The Update Signals by Item/Planner option also has some impact, but less than the pegging.
  • EP uses the so-called phase numbers to detect the lowest level in which an item is used within a BOM structure or in a supplying relation. If the phase numbers are not ‘up-to-date’, EP will correct the phase numbers during the planning. This takes time during the planning run. If there are loops in BOMs or in supplying relations, this recalculation has a big impact on the performance. Therefore you could run Compute Phase Numbers (cprpd6200m000) on a regular basis. For example once a month. Always run this session with the Generate Report option selected. If loops are detected these are reported. Be sure to solve all the reported errors.
  • When unexpected results occur, especially when the data is imported from external packages, always check the number of records in tables cprpd100 and cprpd120. The number of records should match! Remark: From 10.4 onwards the table cprpd120 has become obsolete so this point not applicable anymore.
  • The number of calendars also impacts planning performance. Then for every warehouse, work center, or BP, and so on, a different calendar is defined. Planning has to read all of these calendars from start to end. This can have a huge impact on performance.
    • If you link a calendar to a work center or warehouse, avoid defining a new calendar for every work center/warehouse. Try to link the same calendar to more than one department.
    • Define the start of the calendar close to the start date of the scenario. For example, the current date is 01-07-2014, the start date of the scenario is 365 days in the past. So a start date for your calendar could be 01-07-2012.
    • Define the end date of the calendar not too far in the future. Depending on the end date of the scenario you could use 5 years ahead.  For example, the current date is 01-07-2014, the end date of the scenario is 3 years in the future. So an end date for your calendar could be 01-07-2022. Do not define an end date past 19-01-2038, which is the last UTC date Infor LN can handle.

Also, the interaction with the database can have a big impact on performance. 
A commonly used way to improve the total run time of the EP run is to start the session in parallel processing. 
See also Knowledge Base Article 22881401 Performance, Tracing and tuning Guide, for more details.

These guidelines are just some hints, and a good starting point because performance is a complex issue.

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