Please Wait a Moment
X

Infor LX Tips, Infor LN Tips, BPCS Tips, Baan Tips, Infor M3 Tips & Infor ERP News

Crossroads Connections

Infor ERP Tips & News from the Experts

Infor LX | Infor LN | BPCS | Baan | Infor M3

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Negative Inventory

Kathy Barthelt 0 1143 Article rating: No rating

What should you do if you have negative inventory reflected in your system?

You should do a cycle count or inventory adjustment, but first, do a review of the inventory or location history to determine when this happened.

If a negative inventory is allowed, it most likely will be corrected upon receipt of the item. For example, assume that there is a PO that has not been received in Baan/LN, but the goods came in and got shipped out on a sales order. The inventory goes negative, but when the PO receipt is entered, the inventory would be corrected. In this case, no adjustment should be made.

A little due diligence will go a long way to ensure that you are only making an adjustment to your system when warranted.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: What is Lean Make to Order?

Anthony Etzel 0 261 Article rating: No rating

This is a simple way to go from the customer order to making the order and shipping the order. It involves a few simple steps:

  1. Receive and enter the customer order
  2. Automatic credit review
  3. Automatic release of the shop order tied to the customer order
  4. Issue material, report labor to the production order receipt
  5. Pick the order, ship the order, invoice the customer


With lean, you can skip processing the demand through MRP. You can go directly from the customer order to the shop order creation.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Optionally Include Tax Amounts In Order Balance

Kathy Barthelt 0 133 Article rating: No rating

In Baan IV, the order balance amount always includes the tax amount. Consequently, the tax amount must be recalculated every time an order line is modified in order to update the balance correctly. If the tax provider is activated, this requires an API call for every re-calculation of tax.

In Infor LN, users can select or clear the new Include Tax in Order Balance check box in the COM Parameters (tccom0000s000) session to indicate whether users want to include tax amounts in the order balance amount. This parameter has an effect on various sessions in Order Management.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Day: Inventory Transactions

Anthony Etzel 0 586 Article rating: No rating

Define Inventory transactions for issuing components to the shop and receiving finished items. See the Inventory help text for examples of transactions.

  • Transaction type I - Single Issue to Shop Order. Use this transaction type to issue one component at a time. Use this for high-value items that are marked as Must Single Issue on the Item Master file.
  • Transaction type M - Multiple Issue to Shop Order. Use this transaction type to issue all the components as listed in the Shop Order, in one transaction. Note that this transaction type does not issue Must Single Issue items.
  • Transaction type S - Receipt from shop. Use this transaction type to receive the finished item into stock and update the shop order accordingly. 

The Shop Order Lot/Location Allocation program is an alternative to using the above Inventory transactions. Use this when the item is finished, and you want to review exactly what was used to make it. You can review the components as allocated, make any changes, and finally accept the finished order.

Baan/LN Tip of the Day: Multi-Company Warehousing 10.4

Kathy Barthelt 0 435 Article rating: No rating

You can define internal trade relationships between enterprise units or individual warehouses of the same logistic company for the transfer of material, labor, or other costs between warehouses, and to generate invoices for these without using sales orders and purchase orders. For example, you can use this to transfer goods between warehouses in different countries.


You can define warehouse surcharges, which are added to the actual costs of the goods either when the goods are issued from a warehouse or when the goods are received.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Day: MRP/MPS Simulation in LX

Anthony Etzel 0 785 Article rating: No rating

The system allows you to manipulate and maintain a simulated MPS and MRP. You can copy the simulation from the existing first cut, or you can create a totally new schedule. You can also perform a simulation of the rough-cut capacity plan. This allows a quick visual inspection by inquiry or menu of needed work center

loads for the proposed MPS. After you choose a suitable MPS and rough-cut capacity, the system allows you to transfer the simulated MPS to the live Master Production Schedule.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Default Order Frequency

Kathy Barthelt 0 1943 Article rating: No rating

In Baan IV, requirements for an MPS item with the order method lot-for-lot result in daily planned MPS orders.

For example, if a plan period contains 10 working days and the net requirements for an item in that period is 2000 pieces, an MPS planning run generates one planned MPS order of 200 pieces for each working day in the plan period.

In Infor LN, requirements for a planned item with the order method lot-for-lot result in one planned order per plan period.

For example, if a plan period contains 10 working days and the net requirements for an item in that period is 2000 pieces, a master planning run will generate a single planned order of 2000 pieces for the first working day in that plan period. To influence the order quantity of the planned orders, enter appropriate values in the Maximum Order Quantity field and the Order Interval field in the Items – Ordering (tcibd2500m000) session or choose a fixed order quantity.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Day: Cost Accounting – LX

Anthony Etzel 0 868 Article rating: No rating

The challenge in cost accounting is tracking your manufacturing to the levels needed for useful management information. You need feedback for corrective action; but, you need to minimize the cost of collection. Some parts of your operation require specific job-cost tracking while the Just-in-Time areas require

costing in terms of cost per process hour or day. Apply overhead in different ways to different processes and products. Segregate costs into enough detail

to provide management with an accurate picture of the contents of your product. Material, material overhead, labor, fixed overhead, variable overhead, outside processing, outside processing overhead, and so forth all have to be considered.

 

LX meets your cost accounting needs with the following functionality:

▪ Four sets of costs: actual, standard, frozen standard, and simulated

▪ Nine user-defined elements per set

▪ Full and partial cost roll-up and simulation

▪ Cumulative in-process cost tracking

▪ Cost summaries by item

▪ Cost definition tied to work centers or material type

▪ Process hour costing

First119120121122124126127128Last

Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

An ERP System Review is NOT a Report Card

It's a no-judgment-review - we promise!

report card C minusWe all remember our school days and the nervousness that we felt when it came time to get our grades. Even if we were doing well, we were still nervous. Sometimes we experienced that same nervousness when it came time for a performance review on our job. Nervousness…sometimes dread…knowing that our performance was not what we wanted it to be, or others expected it to be. 

Somehow I think the feelings that we felt in our past often find ways to creep into our present. I have seen this recently when I suggested an ERP system review to one of our customers. They immediately became flustered and thought about every possible problem that they knew existed within the software and how they were currently using it. I asked them to consider the purpose of the ERP system review.

An ERP Utilization Review will:

  • Document how your company is using your ERP system (or a particular aspect of the system) and to what extent the system meets the needs of the business.
  • Identify challenges encountered using the software.
  • Create opportunities for improving business processes and generating additional value.
  • Identify potential risks and areas that need improvement.


key hole to the futureSo, if the result of ERP system review is to establish a path forward for growth based on current status, then why doesn’t every company take advantage of it? I think for some, the answer lies in the feelings of nervousness and dread still stuck in the recesses of our brains.

An ERP system review or more specifically a utilization review is NOT a personal report card, or performance review showing how well a particular individual does his/hers/their job, nor is it an attack on the team that implemented the software. 

As they say, hindsight is 20/20. What we view now to be a less than ideal implementation methodology may have been absolutely appropriate at the time the software was originally deployed. The software has likely matured and the skillsets of the individuals responsible for the system have likely matured as well. In some cases, those resources are no longer with the company, leaving those that remain with no back story as to how and why implementation decisions were made.

Instead of viewing the ERP utilization review as a reason to find fault in previous decisions, think of it as discovering untapped potential – both of the ERP system and the people who use it. Viewing an ERP utilization review in this way puts a positive spin on it and allows us to challenge ourselves to identify opportunities for growth far greater than anything we imagined before. This means not only moving our businesses forward faster but also advancing the strength of the company as individuals and as a team.

What untapped potential lies within your company?

Consider a utilization review of your entire ERP system, or just a part of it like Finance, Technology, Materials Management, Order Processing, or Shop Floor Control. You just might be surprised at what greatness can be achieved… far greater than anyone could have imagined.  

Get a free phone consultation button

800.762.2077

Print
30672 Rate this article:
5.0
Kathy Barthelt

Kathy BartheltKathy Barthelt

Other posts by Kathy Barthelt

Contact author

x

Categories