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Infor LX Tips, Infor LN Tips, BPCS Tips, Baan Tips, Infor M3 Tips & Infor ERP News

Crossroads Connections

Infor ERP Tips & News from the Experts

Infor LX | Infor LN | BPCS | Baan | Infor M3

Tip of the Week: 8 Ways to Improve Production Efficiency in Your Manufacturing Plant

Crossroads RMC 0 71084 Article rating: 5.0

No matter how large or small your manufacturing plant is, efficiency and productivity relative to your capital investment are the keys to maintaining your competitive edge. Wasting time and money is not something anyone wants to do, but manufacturers need to be especially mindful of both and actively work to address any issues that lead to productivity or financial loss.

Source: https://www.onupkeep.com/blog/improve-production-efficiency/

Infor LN & Baan Tip of the Week: Dynamic Assembly Control BOM (LN 10.7)

Kathy Barthelt 0 100056 Article rating: 5.0

In previous releases of LN, the Assembly Control Bill of Material (BOM) offered limited flexibility. For each end item configuration, users were required to create unique Engineering Modules, which are used to determine the assembly parts that are consumed in a specific Line Station during a specific operation.

If LN is integrated with Design Studio, previously called Infor CPQ, BOM structures can be maintained in Design Studio for Assembly Control. These structures can include non-configurable parts that are directly linked to configurable items. When communicating these structures to LN using the Assembly Control, Product Variant Structure (tiapl3510m000) session, the structures were rejected because non-configurable parts were not supported by the session logic.

In this release, BOM structures that include non-configurable parts can now be accepted in LN. Consequently, if LN is integrated with Design Studio, it is no longer required to use the Engineering Module. Using the Engineering Module has become optional.

Infor LX & BPCS Tip of the Week: Multi-Level Backflush (LX 8.4)

George Moroses 0 49447 Article rating: 5.0

Clients who want to process more than one customer order line, one item, or one shop order are now able to continue processing without having to leave the Multi-Level Backflush screen. After entering data for a specific category, users are now able to use the F18=Accept & Continue function key that allows users to start and complete an action and remain on the MultiLevel Backflush screen, LMP600D1, to perform the next action. Previously, users were sent back out to the SYS500-06 screen after processing using single customer order line, shop order, or item.

This enhancement includes these programs or areas:

  • Lean Production Back-flush Selection Panel, LMP600D  
  • Lean Production Back-flush Selection Panel, LMP600FM
  • Lean Production Back-flush Selection Panel, LMP600HT

Welcome to Our New Website - Please Take a Look Around!

Crossroads RMC 0 42655 Article rating: 5.0

We proudly announce the launch of Crossroads RMC’s brand new website!

We have been fortunate to serve customers for over 30 years and over that time, we have developed software solutions and consulting expertise to become your Go-To Experts for Infor LN / Baan, and Infor LX / BPCS and M3. 

Our website design focuses on our products and services simply and succinctly, while accentuating the reasons why working with Crossroads RMC has been the right choice for so many manufacturers and distributors worldwide. 

So come on in and take a look around! We hope you enjoy the new site and explore all of the information it has to offer.

If you think our new website is COOL, please leave a comment!If you think our new website is COOL, please leave a comment! 

Keep up-to-date with our latest announcements, industry news, and Infor ERP tips here on Crossroads Connections, Subscribe to our bi-monthly Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, LinkedInTwitter and YouTube.

Infor will no longer support LX or BPCS on IBM i 7.2 after April 30, 2021

George Moroses 0 49742 Article rating: 5.0

On September 10, 2019, IBM® announced the end of support of IBM i 7.2 effective April 30, 2021. In line with IBM’s support policy, Infor will no longer support LX, BPCS, SSAEAM, PRMS, BOSS and related products on IBM i 7.2 after April 30, 2021.

All releases, patches, and solutions are expected to be delivered and compiled for IBM i 7.3 effective May 1, 2021. These deliverables should install and function on version 7 release 3 (IBM i 7.3) and above. This will require that your operating system be at a minimum release level of IBM i 7.3.

This policy extends to other Infor LX related technologies including WebTop, System i Workspace (SIW), and Infor Development Framework (IDF).

If you have not done so already, we recommend you start planning and completing your upgrade to IBM i 7.3 or above prior to April 30, 2021. After this date, if you register a support call with Infor Support, and your application still runs on IBM i 7.2, you may be requested to upgrade to a supported version of the IBM i operating system.

In addition, we invite you to log on to Infor Concierge to view and download important information regarding Infor LX, BPCS, and Infor SSAEAM. General KB Articles have been created to proactively provide you with information regarding this Announcement (1397381) and the Infor BPCS/LX Product Lifecycle Policy (1947086).

Infor LX & BPCS Tip of the Week: Journal Upload – EGLi

George Moroses 0 52111 Article rating: 5.0

EGLi users who maintain journal entries in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet can use this utility to upload journal entries to EGLi. The Journal Upload installation program adds an Add-Ins tab to Microsoft Excel. This tab includes options to connect to the server where EGLi is installed and to open a spreadsheet template to use for manual journal entry. When the spreadsheet is complete, the Add-Ins tab is used to upload the spreadsheet.

To install Journal Upload:

  1.  The Power-Link Installation page has links to the Client installation programs and a link to download and install the Journal Upload utility. To access this page, use this link with your own values for system and NetLinkport: http://system:NetLinkport/Installs/ClientInstall/Install.html  where system is the server where IDF is installed and NetLinkport is the Net-Link port, typically 36001
     
  2. On the Power-Link Installation page, click the link provided to download and install EGLi Journal Upload.
     
  3. Follow the screen prompts to complete the installation on your PC.
     
  4. To verify the installation, open an Excel spreadsheet. Confirm that the Add-Ins tab is on the spreadsheet. 


See the Infor Enterprise General Ledger for System i Journal Upload Installation and Infor LX Configuration Guide.

Infor LN & Baan Tip: Open Transactions Check – LN 10.7

Kathy Barthelt 0 56437 Article rating: 5.0

When closing a project, users were informed about open transactions blocking the closure process. To proactively check on open transactions, the Show Open Transactions option has been introduced in the Project Status (tppdm6107s000) session. With this option, issues can be resolved before changing the status.

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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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