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Digital Transformation & Your ERP

70% of global executives said the pandemic will accelerate their digital transformation pace

Crossroads RMC 0 20178 Article rating: 5.0

Transformation: (definition)  A thorough and dramatic change.

We all dream about it….how can we transform ourselves into something better…something more desirable? Maybe it is our appearance that we want to improve, maybe it is our physical strength and stamina, or maybe it is our mental toughness.

Have we thought about transformation when it comes to our businesses? More specifically, our ERP systems that are the lifeblood of our businesses?

When it comes to this type of transformation, we’re talking about a digital transformation. This means taking...

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What are your production orders telling you?

Infor LX | BPCS | Infor LN | Baan

Crossroads RMC 0 17624 Article rating: 5.0

MEASURE WHAT YOU WANT TO IMPROVE!

Six simple words, but put together they convey a powerful concept that can transform manufacturing companies. It’s a basic concept that’s hard to argue with: Collect data, see where the data leads you, and make changes that have a positive impact on the data. Repeat often.

If your company is manufacturing a product, you’re...

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Infor LX & BPCS Tip: MPS Planned vs. MRP Planned

George Moroses 0 21520 Article rating: 5.0

What items should be MPS planned, and what items should be MRP planned?
Master Scheduled Items are those items that are finished goods, or service items, that receive their requirements either specifically from Independent demand, or both Dependent and Independent demand.

  • Independent Demand is demand that cannot be calculated from higher-level demand in the product structure, and therefore must be either a forecast or an actual customer order (Finished Goods or Service parts sold to customers).
  • Dependent demand is derived from higher-level demand in the product structure. Dependent demand includes components, raw materials, and sub-assemblies. (these are not normally Master Scheduled Items).
  • Service Parts may have both independent demand from forecast and/or customer orders, as well as dependent demand from higher-level demand if that item is also used in other sub-assemblies or products.
  • Cumulative Lead Time is a concept used in Master Production Scheduling (MPS) that combines the “fixed” lead time, and the “variable” lead time needed to produce the product. It is the longest path through a given Bill-of-material. Based on the MPS setup options, Infor LX (ERP LX) will calculate the cumulative lead time (also called “the Critical Path”) for you (use the “indented BOM” display in BOM300 and find the item with the longest lead time “L/T”). Note: You may have to use Action 21, Line Detail, to see the “L/T” lead time for each item.
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Infor LN & Baan Finance Tip: MPS Planned vs. MRP Planned

Kathy Barthelt 0 59002 Article rating: 5.0

What items should be MPS planned, and what items should be MRP planned…

Master Scheduled Items are those items that are finished goods, or service items, that receive their requirements either specifically from Independent demand, or both Dependent and Independent demand.

  • Independent Demand is...
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Crossroads RMC Welcomes Robert Brown! Crossroads RMC Welcomes Robert Brown!

Crossroads RMC Welcomes Robert Brown!

Crossroads RMC 0 17705 Article rating: 5.0

Crossroads RMC Welcomes Robert Brown, as a Sr. Business Consultant!
Bob brings 30+ years of shop floor and project management skills to Crossroad RMC. He is a self-starter that has progressively mastered the Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Finance modules within Infor LX. Bob will get started with EDI/ECM set up for new trading partners and within the Supply Chain ranks. Bob is a great addition to the Crossroads RMC team, and we look forward to his leadership expertise on implementations and upgrades in the near future.

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You can benefit from a business process review only if... You can benefit from a business process review only if...

You can benefit from a business process review only if...

Infor LX | BPCS | Infor LN | Baan

Crossroads RMC 0 20281 Article rating: 5.0

Did you implement your ERP system 5 years ago… or maybe 20 years ago? At the time, it was like a brand new car… sleek, fast, top-of-the-line, and fuel-efficient. And although it may have needed a few minor “adjustments”, overall you were very pleased. Fast forward to today. Does it still have that new car smell? Does it run as efficiently as it used to? Do you know how to fix a problem when it occurs?

While ERP systems are certainly designed to last, over time, your business changes, your customers’ needs change, employees change and you are left with a system that may run “fine”, but you certainly don’t feel the same way about it as you did when it was brand new.

So the good news is that you CAN restore that “new car smell” with a utilization review, or business process review.

What is a Utilization or Business Process Review and Why Do I Need One?
Simply put, a business process review is an...

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Dashboards vs. Reports – What do they offer and which do I need? Dashboards vs. Reports – What do they offer and which do I need?

Dashboards vs. Reports – What do they offer and which do I need?

Crossroads RMC 0 26035 Article rating: 5.0

Companies are collecting oceans of data, and struggle with transforming it into usable information. Most businesses focus on two methods of sharing data - the report and the dashboard. While these two terms mean many things to many people, it is important to understand what these terms mean and how the report and dashboard have similar features but they are not the same thing.  

What is a Report?

A report is meant to be used to gather detailed intelligence on the operations within an organization, thus a report can be either very broadly covering a wide scope of related information, or narrowly focusing on details of a single item, purpose, or event. All of this information, while presented in a report, is meant to be a snapshot in time.

Quite often, a report is built within the ERP system itself and often is constrained by the graphical and user limitations within the ERP. More often than not, large amounts of data are exported to Excel where added features allow for better manipulation of the data to a format that is digestible by users. Regardless, the data is only valid for that moment and time.

What is a Dashboard?

A dashboard is a graphical interface that provides at-a-glance views revolving around answering a central question. For example, an executive may ask you for up-to-the-minute details on "how the business is doing?". The answer to that question is as complex as the organizational structure of the company, but it is probably very simply measured with approximately 10 metrics. Those 10 metrics can likely be analyzed in chart form, and can and should be combined into one chart when the numbers are relatable or are on a similar scale. All these things should be considered when building a dashboard.

Dashboards, similar to the one in your vehicle, display critical data. Imagine driving down the road and having to push a bunch of buttons to find out how much fuel you have left, or having to pull over and pop the hood to check the oil pressure. It would be dangerous and a waste of your precious time. Your car's control panel or dashboard displays the most crucial information in an easy-to-use, graphical way.

How do Dashboards and Reports differ?

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Improves control over PO costing changes during invoice entry by replacing passive warnings with an intentional override action.

  • In ACP500D3 (Invoice Entry PO Costing), users previously could unintentionally accept changes by pressing ENTER, even when quantity to cost or amount to cost values had changed.

  • A new “F14 to Override” warning message replaces the old message:
    “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”
    This ensures users acknowledge and confirm significant changes explicitly.

New System Parameter:

  • “Apply GRN Costing Tolerance for PO Costing” (optional):

    • Within tolerance: Displays the original message —
      “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”

    • Outside tolerance: Triggers the new override requirement —
      “F14 to Override”

Benefits:

  • Enhances oversight and reduces unintentional cost acceptance.

  • Enables better control of PO costs when invoice details differ from expectations.

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Last

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt
/ Categories: Infor LN & Baan Tips, Manufacturing

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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Kathy Barthelt

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