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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

Infor LX & BPCS: Waste in Manufacturing

George Moroses 0 31893 Article rating: 5.0

In manufacturing, waste is anything that doesn’t add value to or benefit the end customer. Reducing waste enables manufacturers to save money and increase productivity. Where is the waste happening in your processes?

How often is your department spending time and resources on the following tasks?...

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: Overhead Costs - CST120D1

George Moroses 0 30315 Article rating: 4.0

Use this program to enter period overhead expenses to distribute to various work centers. You can set up this overhead cost allocation on either a per-hour or a per-piece basis, depending on the overhead allocation type specified for each work center on the Work Center Maintenance screen, CAP100D2-01. The system spreads the amounts entered across all shop orders posted by Shop Floor Posting, SFC600, or Production Reporting, JIT600, when you run Overhead Cost Allocation, CST510. The system stores allocated overhead in the Labor Ticket file, FLT, and updates actual item cost when you run Shop Order Close and Post, CST900.

Access: Menu CST

Infor LX & BPCS: BIG DATA - Keeping Track of Key Metrics

George Moroses 0 35619 Article rating: 5.0

In order to communicate effectively as a team, everyone needs to speak the same language and operate off the same playbook. If decisions are made based on the data or the view of data that individuals are maintaining through their own spreadsheets or other data silos, then communication is negatively impacted.

Manufacturers need to review large amounts of data every day, making it difficult to keep track of key metrics within your department.

That’s where Crossroads RMC’s Analytics Dashboard solution comes in. Our Analytics Dashboard was developed to make tasks easier by putting all of the key information in one convenient location so you can view all of your crucial data in real-time. 

With powerful dashboards, you can...

Infor LX & BPCS Tip: Transaction History – Did you know?

George Moroses 0 33433 Article rating: 3.5

Did you know that the system stores a record of every inventory transaction and makes them available for inquiries and reports? Transaction history is available for immediate inquiry by item, or by item and location in the Material Status Inquiry program. The inventory transaction record holds data such as the quantity, date, reference number, cost/value, transaction type, scheduled date, and master reference number, lot numbers, and warehouse/location information.

Infor LN & Baan Tip: How to deal with data growth of your ERP system…

Kathy Barthelt 0 170871 Article rating: 5.0

Spending time on managing ERP data can deliver huge benefits, not just in reducing storage costs, but also in improving the experience of business users. Proactively managing application data also helps accelerate key business processes which has a positive impact on customers, suppliers, and partners. Use these solutions to reduce the data growth and disk storage used on your system:

• Use database compression. See...

Check-Ups are important… Including Infor LN & Baan ERP Check-Ups!

Kathy Barthelt 0 192329 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:...

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

Kathy Barthelt 0 27176 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....

Infor LN & Baan Tip: Rework of Serialized Items

Kathy Barthelt 0 154306 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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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for EXECUTIVES

FINANCE: Using Dimensions

You can independently define dimensions and use them to prepare analyses of ledger account transactions and balances. You can use up to 12

dimension types. You can define a name and an entire structure of dimension codes for each of these dimension types. There is no relationship between the dimension types.

For example, you can set up these dimensions:

  • Dimension Type 1 = Cost center
  • Dimension Type 2 = Item group
  • Dimension Type 3 = Business unit
  • Dimension Type 4 = Geographical area
  • Dimension Type 5 = Activities

You can separately define the dimension structure for each of these dimension types, in other words, you can set up a dimension structure for the cost centers, a structure for item groups, and so on.

You can define the number of dimension types that you use in the Group Company Parameters (tfgld0101s000) session. If you have several financial companies in a company group, the dimension types used apply to all the companies in the group.

You can name the dimension types and define linked objects in the Dimension Type Descriptions (tfgld0102m000) session. You can then define the dimension codes to be used in each company in the Dimensions (tfgld0510m000) session. You can also make multilevel dimension structures with totals and subtotals. You can build a dimension hierarchy of up to ten levels.

In the Dimensions (tfgld0510m000) session, you can define the dimensions for each dimension type, and link the dimensions to parent dimensions and child dimensions.

Dimensions are always used together with ledger accounts. For each ledger account, you can define which dimension type or types are linked to the ledger account in the Chart of Accounts (tfgld0508m000) session. For each dimension type, you must select whether the dimensions type is MandatoryOptional, or Not Used by the ledger account.

When you enter a transaction, you must first state the ledger account. Then you must enter a dimension for each Mandatory dimension type that is linked to the ledger account, and you can enter a dimension for each Optional dimension type.

For example, the sales revenues ledger account is linked to dimension type 2 (item group) and dimension type 4 (area). The dimension type 1 (cost center) and dimension type 3 (business unit) are not used for the ledger account. The freight costs ledger account is linked to only dimension type 1 (cost center). The other dimension types are not used for the ledger account.

For each dimension type, you can define one dimension with an empty dimension code. If the dimension type is Optional for a ledger account, LN posts transactions for which no dimension is specified to this dimension. In this way, differences between the ledger history and the dimension history can be avoided.

In the Cross Validation Rules (tfgld0151m000) session, you can define the ranges of allowed dimensions by ledger accounts. You cannot change the dimension range for a ledger account that occurs in an unfinalized batch.

You can create transactions for Financials from the integration with other LN packages. You can enter these transactions into ledger accounts and into dimensions. You can define the assignment to ledger accounts through the Mapping Scheme (tfgld4573m000) session.

You can use the dimensions to split the transactions on the customer and supplier control accounts by departments, persons responsible for the revenues, costs, properties, debts, and so on.

The dimensions also provide the basis for the cost allocation in the Cost Accounting module. In CAT, you can allocate the costs (and any revenues) within a dimension type from one dimension code to another and from one dimension type to another.

TECHNOLOGY: High Contrast Skin

The high contrast skin can be activated by users who experience low vision, color-blindness, or similar visual impairments.

If the high contrast skin is active, LN UI is colored so that all controls comply with the WCAG AA norms for accessibility.

Guideline 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)

The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. For level AA, these exceptions apply:

  • Large text: large-scale text and images of large-scale text have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1.
  • Incidental: the following text or images of text have no contrast requirement:
    • Text or images of text that are part of an inactive user interface component.
    • Text or images of text that are pure decoration.
    • Text or images of text that are not visible to anyone.
    • Text or images of text that are part of a picture that contains significant other visual content.
  • Logotypes: text that is part of a logo or brand name has no minimum contrast requirement.

OPERATIONS: Blocking Operations

Note: The Blocked Operations (tisfc0540m000) session displays the blocked operations.

Introduction

Sometimes a problem occurs that must be solved before an operation proceeds. Examples of such situations are:

  • The quality of an intermediate product must first be inspected.
  • A machine is in repair.
  • A supplier cannot deliver an essential component in time.
  • A customer is late with its payments.

In these situations the operation can get the operation status Blocked.

An operation can be blocked:

  • Manually.
  • Automatically by Quality.

Blocking reasons

Every blocked operation must have a blocking reason. The blocking reason of a blocked operation has two purposes:

  • To indicate why the operation is blocked.
  • To determine which actions you can no longer perform on the operation.

Types of blocking

The following actions can be blocked by means of a blocking reason:

  • Reporting a quantity completed.
  • Reporting a quantity rejected.
  • Reporting a quantity to be inspected.
  • Reporting an operation completed.

You normally carry out these actions in the Report Operations Completed (tisfc0130m000) session.

You can define blocking reasons in the Blocking Reasons (tisfc2100m000) session.

Manual blocking

Use the Report Operations Completed (tisfc0130m000) session to block an operation. When you block an operation, you must also enter a blocking reason. If Quality has already blocked the operation, you can only enter a blocking reason, which is more restrictive than the blocking reason of Quality.

Blocking by Quality Management

Quality uses the blocking reasons specified in the Quality Management Parameters (qmptc0100m000) session, to block operations. For details, see the Using QM for manufacturing operations topic.

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Kathy Barthelt

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