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Crossroads RMC is proud to introduce our new Production Order Variance Reports package for Infor LN

Kathy Barthelt 0 71474 Article rating: 5.0

The package includes numerous reports and sessions to view the variances in a way that Finance can identify problems based on the Finance Integration Transactions in the General Ledger.

There are a few main sessions with many detailed sessions linked to them. The reports can be run from the main Print Production Order Variance Reports or in the individual detailed session.

Sessions included in the report package:

1. Print Finalized Trans – Variance Reports.

a. Financial Trans. by L/Acct – Prod. Order Variances - Recap

b. Financial Trans. by L/Acct – Prod. Order Variances – Details

2. Update Production Order Variances (updates special variance table).

3. Production Order Variance Overview – Main view

a. Production Order Variance Details

b. Price Variance Details – Material Variances

c. Price Variance Details – Operation Variances

d. Efficiency Variance Details – Material Variances

e. Efficiency Variance Details – Operation Variances

f. Efficiency Variance Details – Reject Variances

g. ACO Variance Details – Reject Variances

h. Accept Production Order Variances

i. Un-accept Production Order Variances

j. Finally Accept Production Order Variances

4. Print Production Order Variance Reports:

a. Production Order Variance – Overview

b. Production Order Price Variance – Material Revaluation

c. Production Order Price Variance – Operation Revaluation

d. Production Order Efficiency Variance – Material

e. Production Order Efficiency Variance – Operation

f. Production Order Efficiency Variance – Rejects

g. Production Order ACO Variance – Rejects-Additional Costs

5. Delete Production Order Variances (used to redo a month)

Contact Kathy Barthelt to learn more.

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Have you missed deadlines or lost a valuable customer due to orders not being shipped on-time? Have you missed deadlines or lost a valuable customer due to orders not being shipped on-time?

Have you missed deadlines or lost a valuable customer due to orders not being shipped on-time?

George Moroses 0 32221 Article rating: 5.0

OTTO helps you consider all of the factors that affect your ability to deliver on-time.
Make plans happen with OTTO.

Request your free 30 day trial today and add value to your current ERP, without altering, changing, or revising the source data. 800.762.2077

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ION News: Crossroads RMC uses the ION process to deliver data to/from LX 8.3.5

George Moroses 0 32782 Article rating: 5.0

Crossroads RMC is currently working with a customer in the food and beverage industry to develop 18 inbound and outbound customized BOD messages using the ION process to deliver data to/from LX 8.3.5.

All of the messages will be using the standard OAGIS (Open Applications Group Integration Specification) BOD Message. The OAGIS is a widely accepted standard within the industry which specifies a standard way of passing data in and out of applications using an XML format. 

Some of the BOD Messages that we will be processing are:

  • Item Master
  • Purchase Order
  • Receipts
  • Accounts Payable Invoices
  • Vendor information
  • Notifications messages

This project kicks off in February 2020 with milestone deliveries throughout the year.

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How Do I Determine If MES Is Right For My Business?

George Moroses 0 36294 Article rating: 5.0

There are certain key questions that must be answered to determine whether or not an MES system would benefit your organization: 

  • How do you analyze OEE?
  • Is there an opportunity to reduce WIP inventory, indirect labor, downtime, waste or scrap?
  • What is the cost and impact of producing and distributing shop paper including drawings and work instructions?
  • Would you like to go paperless on your shop floor?
  • How are your continuous improvement initiatives tied to your ERP?
  • Is Management requesting real time production status reporting via dashboards or drilldown reports?
  • What different “islands of automation” exist on your shop floor?

The answers to each of these questions could have a significant impact on the profitability of your business. Want to quantify your results? Contact George Moroses today to schedule your FREE MES ROI Analysis.

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Consulting News: How comprehensive is the Crossroads RMC ERP business audit & how does it work?

George Moroses 0 43233 Article rating: 5.0

Our Infor LX Practice just finished a Supply Chain and Manufacturing audit for one of our customers. During that engagement, several areas of the business were identified that could benefit from additional training and consulting support. 

Areas of significance were:

  • Purchasing
  • Customer Service
  • Billing
  • Inventory
  • Costing
  • Bills of Materials and Routings
  • Material Requirements Planning
  • Shop Floor Control

Several manual procedures and “tribal knowledge” systems were discovered. The evaluation was done by two consultants who spent time with key users during two onsite visits. The next step in the process will involve working with the client to prioritize the list of items identified and develop a strategic plan focused on growth and efficiency.

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Infor LX & BPCS Tip of the Week: Order processing enhancement – LX 8.4

George Moroses 0 62870 Article rating: 5.0

Restrict Over-shipments to Customers

  • System parameter option controls when over shipments are allowed

Options to:

  • Continue current process with warning message
  • Give error message
  • Automatically correct to quantity available for shipment
     
  • Option to revise the order quantity so that pricing, promotions, credit checking load planning and other processes reflect the actual quantity
  • Allows better control of exceptions for over shipments
  • Ensures that pricing, promotions are correctly based on actual order quantity
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About 65% of the world’s population are visual learners. This extends into the ERP software realm, too.

Infor LN & Baan

Kathy Barthelt 0 81011 Article rating: 5.0

Graphical representation makes complex concepts—like the intricacies of an ERP system—more universal, relatable and easy to understand.

ERP dashboards gather and visualize critical metrics from across the organization, offering insight into the performance, outlook and interconnectivity of business processes.

By setting up ERP dashboards that illustrate key metrics and compellingly communicate operational performance, key stakeholders will have a clear picture of the health of the business—and make better, more informed business decisions as a result.

The Crossroads Analytics Dashboard has preconfigured views for all of the following:

 Infor LN & Baan
  • Accounts Payable
  • Accounts Receivable
  • Journal
  • Booked Sales
  • Invoiced Sales
  • Production
  • Receipts
  • Purchase Orders
  • Inventory

To learn more visit our Analytic Dashboard webpage.

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Data Collection: Are you able to perform a full cycle count of your inventory in one day?

Kathy Barthelt 0 41143 Article rating: 5.0

Cycle Counting Benefits:

  • Overall increased inventory accuracy
  • Increased accuracy of count
  • Ability to review and approve count before direct update of Baan / Infor LN tables
  • Elimination of unnecessary re-orders of items with current inventory
  • Greater ability to satisfy customer orders due to greater visibility to accurate inventory levels
  • Direct labor cost savings – less staff required for count
  • Increased productivity during count

Some of our customers counts used to take weeks. They can now complete a count of their entire inventory in one day. One of our LN customers just told us that they recently wrapped up a cycle count using our software and said it was the first time ever that they completed a count without one complaint or mistake!

Contact us today to learn more - 800.762.2077

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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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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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