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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

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Default Order Frequency

Kathy Barthelt 0 60281 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 Week: What is Lean Make to Order?

Anthony Etzel 0 44947 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.

PDIC Goes Live with Crossroads MES

Anthony Etzel 0 37343 Article rating: 5.0

PDIC, a leading producer of wire products, went live with the Crossroads MES solution on June 30th,2014. PDIC needed a better way to deploy and report shop floor information to BPCS 6.02. Their goal was to eliminate all their manual reporting and position themselves to take advantage of the Crossroads Dashboards.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Negative Inventory

Kathy Barthelt 0 69696 Article rating: 5.0

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.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Establish Costing For Purchased Items

Anthony Etzel 0 55764 Article rating: No rating

How Does Infor LX Establish Costing For Purchased Items?

In LX, you will establish a standard cost (you define the standard) that LX will use for the purchase items. You also need to establish in LX the Cost Type, the Cost Bucket, and the Cost Set needed for cost accounting.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Alternate Items

Anthony Etzel 0 56380 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.

Crossroads MES Version 11 Released

Anthony Etzel 0 38797 Article rating: No rating

Crossroads MES Version 11 was rolled out in March, 2014. Some of the new features include a new GUI interface, improved End of Shift review functions, pre-formatted production label printing, and an electronic shop packet on the factory worker Job In screen.

Crossroads MES Released for Tablet

Anthony Etzel 0 35095 Article rating: 3.7

Crossroads RMC announces that the Crossroads MES solution is now compatible with tablet PCs running Windows 8.1. Tablet PCs are becoming the clipboard replacement for supervisors and managers to monitor what’s happening on the shop floor.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Did you know that you can set up one-time vendors in LX? One Time Vendor (1,A): Specify Y to indicate that this vendor is a one-time vendor. Otherwise, could you specify N. The system removes a one-time vendor's information from the Vendor Master file after all transactions are reconciled. If this vendor already exists as a one-time vendor, you can specify N to change the vendor to a regular vendor.

Determining whether to use Master Production Schedule (MPS) planning or Material Requirements Planning (MRP) planning for items in Infor LX and BPCS involves understanding the nature of the items and their demand characteristics.

Master Scheduled Items typically encompass finished goods or service items. These items receive their requirements either from Independent demand, Dependent demand, or a combination of both...

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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.  

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Kathy Barthelt

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