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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: MATERIAL REQUIREMENT DATES AND LEAD TIME OFFSETS IN MRP

Anthony Etzel 0 67847 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-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.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Data Sizing Moving to LN

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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.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Work Center & Machine Locations

Anthony Etzel 0 65246 Article rating: 3.0

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.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: SIC Planning for MRP/MPS Planned Items

Kathy Barthelt 0 125715 Article rating: 3.0

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.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Indirect Time Reporting

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In Infor LX, there are two ways to enter indirect labor. You can use either SFC600 or SFC650.

  • If you use SFC600 and enter a reason code for the indirect labor, the reason you entered is written to the Labor Ticket file.
  • If you use SFC650 and enter a reason code for the indirect, the reason code is not written to the labor Ticket file.

In either case, the reason code is not validated from the transaction file because there is no indirect transaction code. The indirect code that can be setup is machine downtime. If you need to validate and track indirect by reason and validate the reason code, then you may want to explore an MES solution that works with Infor LX.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Differences Between Constraint Planning in Baan IV and Enterprise Planning in LN

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In Baan IV, a distinction is made between the actual ERP system and a separate planning tool which contains the Constraint Planning package. This tool was intended to work with any ERP system, not just with Baan IV. The Enterprise Planning package is now considered to be a package like any other package in Infor LN.

Users of Baan IV could choose whether they wanted to plan their supply in one of the following ways:

  • By using the MPS and MRP modules in the Manufacturing package.
  • By using the RPD and RMP modules in the Constraint Planning package.

Users of Infor LN can only use the Enterprise Planning package. The distinction between the MPS items and MRP items has been abandoned. In Infor LN, all items can be planned by using a combination of master-based planning methods and order-based planning methods.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Setting Up New Employees in LN

Kathy Barthelt 0 62010 Article rating: No rating

In LN, the People package is used to register the employee’s hours and expenses. To support the People package, the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session only contains the general employee data.

The title of the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session was changed to Employees – General (tccom0101m000).

From the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session, users can start the following sessions to define the more specific employee data:

  • Employees - People (bpmdm0101m000).
  • Employees - Project (tppdm8101m000).
  • Employees - Service (tsmdm1140m000).
  • Skills by Employee (tcppl0120m000).
  • Employees by Team (tcppl0150m000).
  • Roles by Employee (tcppl0170m000).

After users define the employees, users can also start the listed sessions from the Employees Dashboard (bpmdm0101m100) session in People.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Understanding What Goes On – Out on the Factory Floor

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Ok… so you want to know the status of a specific shop order that was released two days ago.

What do you do?

It’s a sure bet that you have a manager, supervisor, or planner who can walk the floor and find the order at whatever work center it happens to be at. He/she can then answer “what operations have been completed and how many were completed?” All this requires leg work, and of course, a fair amount of time.

Now, if you have setup your BPCS master files properly, and you report transaction activity, you should be able to get those shop order statuses much faster using the SFC300 Shop Order Inquiry Screen.

At your fingertips you can see:

  • Release date & due date
  • How many hours remain in total and at each operation
  • The quantity required, what was finished and the remaining quantity
  • What components (materials) have been issued

Pretty basic information, right? Are you getting what you need to know? If not, then you may want to reexamine how your BPCS files are setup and what transactions along with their frequency are captured.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for EXECUTIVES

TECHNOLOGY & FINANCE: Archiving Finalized Transactions

To support correct archiving in a multicompany structure, the following rules apply:

  • Each company must have its own archive company. Companies cannot share an archive company.
  • The structure of archive companies must be an exact copy of the live environment.
  • A company must keep the same archive company until the end of its lifetime. Once data has been archived, you cannot change the archive company.

If extra archiving capacity is required, it is recommended that you set up a second archiving environment, which must also be an exact copy of the live environment. Define the companies of the second archive environment as the archive companies of the companies of the first archive environment. If necessary, a third and more archiving environments can be set up. You must then archive the data from each archive company to its archive company in the second archiving environment, and so on.

When you archive the data, LN builds an array with all the companies of the group and the archive company linked to each company. If any of the companies in the group does not have an archive company, LN reports an error and aborts the archiving process.

Batches and batch lines are only archived and/or deleted if you perform archiving and deletion in the company in which they exist. This is always the source company. Any intercompany documents and related finalized transactions that belong to the batch are not archived and/or deleted until the target company is archived.

If the batch has been deleted from the live environment, such intercompany documents and transactions will then temporarily exist without a batch in the live environment until the target company’s transactions are archived. Therefore, it is recommended to archive all the companies of a group within a short time.

Finalization runs are also archived. A finalization run can only be deleted from the live environment if all the attached batches have also been deleted.

Financial documents are archived and/or deleted if you perform archiving and deletion in the company in which they exist. For each document, LN searches whether a related intercompany document exists.

If the document’s transaction type indicates that the document numbering does not have to be in a fixed sequence, the document is not deleted from the live environment, to avoid duplicate document numbers.

A finalized transaction is not deleted from the live environment if the fiscal year of the transaction does not equal the fiscal year of the batch and the fiscal year of the transaction cannot yet be archived. If the Archive option is selected, the related batch, batch line, and document are copied to the archive company and retained in the live environment.

If a transaction is still referenced by open sales orders or purchase orders, it is marked as Deleted but not actually deleted. The related batch, batch line, and document are copied to the archive company and retained in the live environment. They are deleted when the referenced open transactions are closed and archived, for example, when you run the Archive/Delete Fully Paid Purchase Invoices (tfacp2250m000) session

If the transaction’s ledger account is a matchable account, any related matching data is also archived.

During the archiving process, the originating company of the finalized transaction is replaced with the originating company’s archive company. In this way, the archive environment will not contain references to the live environment.

During archiving, intercompany document relations are also copied to the archive environment. In the archive environment, these relations are updated in such a way, that each document in the relation refers to the environment in which the document actually exists. In the live environment, the document relation is retained until all related finalized transactions are deleted. For invoice-related transactions, this only occurs during the removal of fully-paid invoices. The document relation is also updated in the live environment, in order to refer to the archived document if all related finalized transactions have been removed from the live environment.

After the normal archiving process, an additional archiving step is performed in which all transactions and documents in the live company that arise from intercompany postings, are archived. During this step, intercompany relations are archived and/or deleted as described earlier.

Batches, batch lines, and documents that have the Deleted status are deleted from the live environment, unless the document’s transaction type indicates that the document numbering does not have to be in a fixed sequence. Such documents are not deleted from the live environment, to avoid duplicate document numbers.

OPERATIONS: Simulated Purchase Prices (ticpr1170m000)

Use this session to define simulated purchase prices for purchased items per site.

Field Information:

  • Cost Calculation Code - price calculation code
  • Item

The raw materials, subassemblies, finished products, and tools that can be purchased, stored, manufactured, and sold.

An item can also represent a set of items handled as one kit, or which exist in multiple product variants.

You can also define nonphysical items, which are not retained in inventory but can be used to post costs or to invoice services to customers. The examples of nonphysical items:

  • Cost items (for example, electricity)
  • Service items
  • Subcontracting services
  • List items (menus/options)
     
  • ​Site - The site for which the purchase price is simulated.
  • Purchase Currency - The currency of the simulated purchase price.
  • Simulated Price - Purchase price

The simulated purchase price and currency are recorded twice.

  • Simulated Price Multi Currency - The purchase price in multiple currencies.

The simulated purchase price and currency are recorded twice. The amount in this field is related to the price of the supplier.

  • Unit - Purchase price unit
  • Cost Component - The cost component that must be of the type Material Costs.

Note: The cost component specified in this field does not become part of the standard cost detail structure if it is part of the cost component scheme of the selected item. If calculations are performed with a calculation code not used for actualization (simulations only), the simulated purchase price is mapped to the cost component defined in the records for this session.

  • Latest Price - The purchase price that is displayed on the most recent invoice received for the selected purchased item.

  • Average Price - The average purchase price which is based on cumulative purchases or on the current inventory, as specified in the Method of Calculating Average Purchase Price field of the Purchase Order Parameters (tdpur0100m400) session.

Previous Article Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for TECHNOLOGY: Table Sharing with a Multi-Company Setup - Using a Master Data Company
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Kathy Barthelt

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