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Is your Baan or Infor LN system STILL not integrated with UPS and FedEx?

Kathy Barthelt 0 24984 Article rating: 2.5

It's hard to find a manufacturing article, or talk to a manufacturer for that matter without hearing about the importance of efficiency. In fact, 92% of manufacturers reported that their most significant business imperative is improving efficiency, according to a major new report published by The Manufacturer and IBM. Improving efficiency cuts costs, improves throughput, and ultimately improves competitiveness.

One way to improve efficiency is to eliminate the redundant process of manually keying data from Baan and Infor LN to your third-party logistics systems such as UPS or FedEx. Third-party systems need to know what you want shipped, how it is being shipped, the weight, quantity, etc. Once the shipment is ready, the tracking number, freight cost, and other information need to be entered into Baan and Infor LN in order to process your sales orders and ultimately invoice your customer. This process is time-consuming, error-prone, and causes delays in shipping and invoicing.

Why waste time and energy when the entire process can be automated on-premise or cloud with RMCship?

RMCship provides a complete one-way or two-way communication channel between Baan IV, Baan V, and Infor LN to UPS Worldship & FedEx Ship Manager.

TO UPS & FedEx -
RMCship....

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Infor LN & Baan Tip: Rework of Serialized Items

Kathy Barthelt 0 109525 Article rating: 5.0

There are two options for rework of serialized items. One is to define the serial numbers upfront by defining the as-built serial header before releasing the rework order. The second option is to not define serials in the as-built header and instead, the serials are defined through issuing the material to the rework order. Manually entering the serial number after release of the rework order is not supported.

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Check-Ups are important… Including Infor LX & BPCS ERP Check-Ups!

George Moroses 0 27511 Article rating: 5.0

What would you say to someone if they never went to a doctor for a check-up, or never took their car in for regular maintenance, like an oil change?

You might say that they were asking for problems, right? The point of those check-ups is to catch a problem early, or better yet before it occurs. Going for check-ups gives you the peace of mind that things are running well and if an issue is identified early enough you can reduce overall risk. Regular check-ups can help reduce out-of-pocket expenses over time.

What about Finance, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Company-wide Check-Ups for your Infor ERP system? What will happen if you NEVER hit pause?

Here are some questions by department to consider.

Finance:...

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Infor LX & BPCS Tip: Return Material Authorization (RMAs)

George Moroses 0 29579 Article rating: 5.0

The Return Material Authorization process, RMA, controls and monitors the return of goods. Infor LX generates an RMA which mirrors the terms and conditions of the return. You can copy the RMA from a processed invoice or create it independently of an existing order. If you copy an invoice to create an RMA, Infor LX copies only regular lines, not special lines. You can manually add special...

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Infor LX & BPCS Tip: Drop Shipments

George Moroses 0 28367 Article rating: 5.0

Infor LX provides a tightly integrated drop shipment processing capability. The product supports the creation, tracking, and management of customer drop shipment orders via the Order Management, Purchasing, and Billing applications.

The order processing professional initiates drop shipments during customer order creation. You can designate any order line for drop shipment if it meets user-defined drop ship controls. If you designate a line as a drop ship line, the system automatically creates a drop ship request in purchase order processing.

When a buyer responds to a drop ship request...

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Top 10 Things You Might Not Know About Crossroads RMC

Crossroads RMC 0 27230 Article rating: 5.0
  1. Crossroads RMC has been in business since 1984 & has been an  partner since 1991. 
     
  2. Crossroads RMC offers functional & technical training on all versions of Infor LX, BPCS, Infor LN, and Baan and will completely tailor the training to your specific needs. 
     
  3. Many of our consultants are 🎵 musically inclined, so you might have the added benefit of some entertainment while your ERP problems are being solved!
     
  4. Our consultants have expert level functional & technical knowledge of every version of Infor LN & Baan from Triton 2.X through LN 10.7., and Infor LX & BPCS from BPCS 3.0 to LX 8.4!  💡
     
  5. Crossroads RMC is a value-added reseller of data collection equipment (mobile computers, printers, RFID equipment, and more).
     
  6. Our headquarters are just outside of Chicago, but for some silly reason, our East Coast staff thinks they have the best pizza.🍕
     
  7. Our integration specialists have developed close to 50 different integrations to Infor LN, Baan, Infor LX & BPCS.
     
  8. Crossroads RMC offers 24 X 7 support to all of our customers. 💪
     
  9. Our technical consultants have developed many Infor ERP software add-on solutions like MES, Data Collection, an Analytics Dashboard, FedEx / UPS integration, and more that are used by thousands of Infor users every day.
     
  10. We’ve been publishing Infor LN, Infor LX, BPCS, and Baan tips & tricks since February 2010, and most are still available on our website, with new ones being added every other week!

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Infor LX & BPCS Tip: PowerLink

George Moroses 0 49819 Article rating: 5.0

PowerLink is a Windows-based client for end-users within the Infor Development Framework (IDF). PowerLink allows exports/imports from/to the ERP database, but how much do you really know about it? Here is some helpful information about PowerLink.​

Why does PowerLink sometimes fail to export all records?...

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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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