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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

Collaborate IN-PERSON With Infor LN Users

LN North America User Group - Face-to-Face 2022 (lnnaug.org)

Kathy Barthelt 0 24931 Article rating: 5.0

Exciting News - LN North America User Group Annual Meeting is Face-to-Face in 2022! (lnnaug.org)

Crossroads RMC is proud to sponsor the LN North American User Group Annual Meeting on April 19 & 20, 2022 in Columbus, Ohio.

Are you ready to collaborate IN PERSON with other Infor LN (ERP LN) customers? Would you like a chance to speak to Infor team members in Product Development, Product Management, and Software Development?

Then this FREE event is for you! 2 Full Days of learning sessions, customer stories, discussion groups, and networking. Join us!

To Register →

Infor LN & Baan Tip: Project Status Options

Kathy Barthelt 0 56790 Article rating: 5.0

Ever wonder what the implications are of choosing one project status versus another?

Here is the explanation of project status possible values:

Free
You can carry out project engineering. This means that you can:

  • Define the project master schedule (PMS) by using the Project Control module.
  • Maintain the project structure.
  • Maintain the customized product structure by using customized bills of material and routing sheets.
  • Carry out project estimating.

Simulated
You simulate the rough capacity requirements planning...

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: How Items Are Selected for a Cycle Count

George Moroses 0 24769 Article rating: 5.0

The Cycle Counting Sub-System Within Inventory Management

The system uses the following information as the basis for cycle counting selection:

  • Cycle Counts/Year: The system calculates the time between cycle counts based on your entry in this Item Master file field for each item (optional).
  • Last Cycle Count Date: This date is in the Location Inventory file, ILI, if you use locations, or in the Warehouse Inventory file, IWI, if you don't.

The system adds the time between cycle counts (calculated as described above) to this date. If the result is less than or equal to today's date, the item is selected for cycle counting. If it is greater than today's date, the item is not selected, it is not due yet for cycle counting.

There is another special condition that causes an item to be selected for cycle counting. If the ILI/IWI record of the item has a Y in the Cycle Flag field, the item is selected automatically. This flag indicates that the item's on-hand balance has gone to a negative value sometime since the last cycle count. That applies even if the value is not negative at selection time. The programs that can set this field are INV500D, INV510, and BIL540.

You can also limit the items selected for counting by specifying limits of the item numbers or warehouses to be searched.

Mitigating Risk With Your Infor ERP

Infor LX | BPCS | Infor LN | Baan

Crossroads RMC 0 21724 Article rating: 5.0

MARCH… "in like a lion and out like a lamb"

Problems = Risk

Boy, it sure seems like we’ve seen our fair share of March “LIONS” over the past few years, wouldn’t you agree? Those lions have manifested mostly as external global problems outside of the control of any given person or manufacturing operation. As we know, problems = risk.

So, how do businesses respond to risk, specifically when it comes to their ERP system? We all deal with risks in our jobs every day. It is our response to the risk that makes all the difference. Creating short-term, midterm, and long-term response strategies ensure that a company can not only handle a fast-changing situation or emergency but also make the investments needed to seize opportunities and become more resilient.

To create these response strategies, manufacturers should examine:

  • How did we get here?
  • Where are we now?
  • Where are we headed?
  • What to do about it?

In order to really dig into each of these areas, our customers have successfully partnered with us to review a particular part of their business that they feel is at risk and sometimes have asked us to review everything…soup to nuts. This review is done through an ERP Utilization Review. In this review, we can dig into such things as...

Infor LN & Baan Tip: LN Order Management - Generating Purchase Receipts

Kathy Barthelt 0 55485 Article rating: 5.0

The purpose of the option to "Generate" is to insert purchase order lines automatically into the purchase receipt. As part of the automatic process, all receipt lines are also automatically confirmed. The option should be used when large orders are received.   

If necessary, received quantities that are not correct can be adjusted through session Correct Purchase Receipt (tdpur4106s100).

Alternative: From the purchase order lines menu the option...

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: What is System i Workspace AnyWhere?

George Moroses 0 26635 Article rating: 5.0

Infor System i Workspace AnyWhere is a user interface for launching Infor ERP and IBM i application tasks through a web browser. It provides an intuitive way for users to navigate through the System Manager Menu structure and to launch tasks that can display screens either using a graphical or an emulator look and feel.

Learn more> System i Workspace AnyWhere Product Guide

Manufacturing vs. Operations vs. Finance: Who WINS?

Infor LX | BPCS | Infor LN | Baan

Crossroads RMC 0 20689 Article rating: 5.0

Manufacturing Goals: develop high-quality products and services in response to the demands of the market, improve efficiency and maximize capacity utilization.

Operations Goals: utilize resources, labor, material, and equipment effectively in order to match supply and demand.

Finance Goals: analyze revenue growth opportunities, control costs, and maximize profitability.

So, who WINS?

3+ Reasons to Invest in Automated Tax Compliance with Crossroads RMC & Avalara

Crossroads RMC 0 23077 Article rating: 5.0

Without automation, your tax professionals are buried in endless tasks that should be offloaded. Every hour spent on tax management is an hour lost on other, more important, parts of your business. Then, of course, there is the audit risk, UGH!

Crossroads RMC and Avalara provide seamless integrations to Infor LN (ERP LN), Baan, Infor LX (ERP LX), and BPCS.

Want to learn how automating tax compliance can benefit your company? Click on each success story below to find out how a partnership between your organization, Avalara, and Crossroads RMC can be a HUGE WIN for your business!...

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

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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