In addition to assigning lot numbers in Shop Order Entry/Maintenance (SFC500) after the shop orders have been released, users can now pre-assign lot numbers during the Multi-level Shop Order Release process (SFC530) and the Multi-Level Back-flush process (LMP600) for sub-assemblies that are lot controlled items. The user has the choice of using the parent lot ID, using the next sequential generated lot ID, or not pre-assigning lot IDs. Multiple items per lot must be installed to use the parent lot number option.

If it is necessary to pause sending and receiving of BOD messages on your IBM i during your month end process, it is best practice for the document flows that point to the IBM i to guarantee delivery of BOD messages. Once the month end process has been completed, you will need to Resume the ‘Receiving’ and ‘Sending’ Active Connection Points so your documents will continue to process.

Pausing Sending messages

To pause sending messages to ION:

1. Select Connect > Active Connection Points.
2. Select the connection point that must be paused for sending messages.
3. In the Sending Paused column, click Pause. The page is automatically refreshed and the Sending Paused checkbox is selected. A Resume button becomes available. 

Sending of messages by this connection point is stopped....

Are you up to speed on all of the sale tax changes that could affect your business?

Tax Law Changes by the Numbers
A look at what's changed in 2018-2019

• 21 states adopted economic nexus as of December 31, 2018, requiring out-of-state businesses with a certain amount of economic activity in the state to collect and remit sales tax

• 33 states have enforced economic nexus as of June 30, 2019

• 43 states will enforce economic nexus as of December 31, 2019

• 7 states had marketplace facilitator sales tax laws as of December 31, 2018, requiring marketplaces to collect sales tax on behalf of their sellers

• 15 states have marketplace facilitator sales tax laws as of June 30, 2019

• 28 states will have marketplace facilitator sales tax laws as of January 1, 2020

The trend to tax remote sales is certain to continue, and there will be the normal slew of rate, regulation, and product taxability changes. 

Sales Tax is complicated! Crossroads RMC provides the integration from Infor LX & BPCS to Avalara to make it easy. Click Here to Learn More

Changes are great, but if you want to undo an IDF modification and restore to the default, you need to follow these steps:

Reset to an Infor shipped view (“un-modify” it)

1. Open the public node of an object you would like to reset to the shipped status. Notice that all of the standard views (i.e., those owned by Infor) are unmodified.
2. Select the row with the Modified column = yes
3. Select the Reset to default button on the toolbar
4. Say Yes to the prompt
5. The object is now back to the way it was shipped by Infor. Note that it now shows that it has not been modified. If you display the editor, you will see that the attribute you deleted has been restored. Note that only objects owned by Infor can be reset. If you change a standard definition, and later regret it, you can use this feature to restore it with a couple of clicks.

Setting Industry Service Standards

Shenandoah Manufacturing, a $20 million producer of poultry-raising equipment (heaters and brooders), had been having difficulty for some time shipping orders to customers in a timely manner. They had successfully implemented a popular ERP system and had been using it for more than 3 years, yet the situation didn't improve.

Customer Service Representatives were complaining about the frequent backorders and late orders. Employees were giving it their best effort, but were frustrated, and customers were threatening to take their business elsewhere.

The company considered installing an APS system as a possible solution, but found implementation would be difficult, expensive, and running the system might be a challenging task as a number of key business practices would have to be changed. A consultant familiar with OTTO suggested they look at that product as an alternative to APS. Several OTTO aspects cited by the consultant convinced them to consider a cursorily review. Specifically:

• The non-intrusive nature of the product.
• It's relative inexpensive initial investment.
• The low overall total cost of ownership.
• The integration with their ERP system.

The initial demonstration was impressive. OTTO was installed on Shenandoah's server within 45 minutes of arrival and, most impressively, it was fully functional with their real "live" data immediately. Needless to say, the demo was well received. Even more importantly Shenandoah was able to "test drive" the software to prove its applicability before making any dollar commitments.

According to Mark Shank, Information Systems Manager, some baseline measurements were made last year, and it was determined that approximately 50% of their customer orders had shipped on time. As they began using OTTO, on-time order performance rose to 90% for the month. And Shenandoah caught up on its entire backlog and started working ahead on February's orders. In February on-time shipment performance jumped to 92% and subsequently on-time performance has ranged somewhere between 98.3% and 99.5% — well above the 96% goal set by Management.

OTTO provides the means for keeping the whole production organization focused on the few things that have to happen as the ship date approaches to get each order shipped on time. Components that have the potential for delaying an order are identified so they can be managed. Shenandoah's staff, a precious and limited resource, now concentrates on analyzing information and managing the right things at the right time rather than digging out date. To quote one production control individual: "what use to take hours now takes seconds."

According to Roy Hackett, Plant Manager: "Knowing the right things to pay attention to at the right time"

Earlier this year, Ridewell Corporation inked a deal with Infor to move their BPCS 4.05 CD system to Infor LX. As part of that deal, Crossroads RMC’s MES software was selected to provide shop floor automation. 

For the ERP upgrade, Infor reached out to Crossroads RMC to provide support for both Finance and Data Conversion due to our positive track record with 4.05 CD to LX migrations. Crossroads RMC has extensive migration experience and developed a methodology for converting legacy 4.05 CD GL into CEA. 

The process Crossroads RMC developed makes it cleaner, more manageable, and easy to embrace from the client perspective. Infor also engaged Crossroads RMC to provide technical support to manage the data conversion, utilizing the Infor utilities and converting Ridewell’s 4.05 CD data to standard LX.

Attributes are the fields you define in your System i file.

You can begin by building your attribute list in Integrator by synchronizing the object with the host. This process reads the file definition from the System i and builds your list of attributes. The synchronize process will automatically run and read the definitions for the first occurrence of this file name within the library list. You can repeat this process manually multiple times if you change the file definition on the host by using the ‘Synchronize with Host’ option. However, the synchronization process will not recognize changed field names.

Non on key field attributes: The integrator requires a unique key for each object. If the host file already has a key, the synchronization process will automatically identify fields as part of the key as well as add a sequence number to multiple key parts. If the file does not have a unique key, you must either create a keyed logical file or identify the key manually. Key fields are the default sort order for all list views for an object.

If you’re not able to see everything that happens on your shop floor in real-time, you’re at a HUGE competitive disadvantage! Your competitors are running MES. 

Crossroads MES software provides:

• A user-friendly interface and an easy exchange of information between the shop floor users and your ERP database. 
• Planners the ability to schedule work to a specific machine or work area. In addition, it allows for work to be re-sequenced and split for better flexibility in scheduling shop floor activities.
• Factory workers with the ability to receive the work schedule electronically as well as interacting with it by reporting transactional activity.
• The ability to electronically display Drawing, Process Instructions, and Quality Instructions so you can eliminate, or minimize, the need for some of the paper on the shop floor.
• The ability to pass shop floor transactional activity to dashboard displays as well as the ERP system. 

Click here to learn more about Crossroads MES 

or Contact Anthony Etzel today to learn more.