Please Wait a Moment
X

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

Partner News: Avalara’s 2020 sales tax changes webinar is now available

George Moroses 0 30019 Article rating: 5.0

Now that 2020 has arrived, it's time to make sure you’re prepared for all of the changes that 2019 brought in the world of sales tax.

Avalara’s 2020 Sales Tax Changes Webinar is now available to arm you with knowledge on the biggest changes that have taken effect, plus give you a preview of the changes we anticipate this year. 

In this webinar you’ll hear Scott Peterson, Avalara’s VP of U.S. Tax Policy, cover:

  • The current state of sales and use tax in the U.S.
  • Which states have enacted economic nexus, and what’s expected to change in 2020
  • New requirements for marketplace sellers (Amazon, Etsy, etc.)
  • A look at cross-border ecommerce and what international sellers must know about sales tax 

Avalara 2020 Sales Tax Changes Webinar>

Infor LN & Baan Consulting News: So we put our hands up, like the ceiling can’t hold us…

Kathy Barthelt 0 32134 Article rating: 5.0

Crossroads RMC partnered with Hunter Douglas Architectural Ceilings and Walls to upgrade their LN system from LN 10.2 to LN 10.6. This upgrade was undertaken primarily as a result of unsupported hardware/operating system versions at Hunter Douglas. Despite an extremely tight deadline, Crossroads and Hunter Douglas partnered to complete this upgrade from start to finish in under 4 months. Phase 2 is planned to kick off in late Q1 of 2020, which will focus on specific areas of the business for process improvement and the implementation of Avalara’s Avatax software.

Learn about Crossroads RMC's Consulting Services

Infor LN & Baan Tip of the Week: Customer Defined Fields

Kathy Barthelt 0 81609 Article rating: 4.3

Customer Defined Fields (CDFs) can be added to tables, screens, reports and BODs and validation and calculation logic can be defined around those fields.

Use the CDF concept to store additional data in the standard Infor LN tables. The CDF definitions are stored separately from the table definitions in the Data Dictionary. For the end user, the CDFs behave in the same way as the standard fields, if defaulting, validations, etc. are built using the CDF logic of the table extension point. The session extension point also has features for the CDFs.

CDFs are configured per package combination. This implies that when moving your companies from one package combination to another, the CDF definitions must be present in the target package combination. Otherwise you lose the data in the CDFs.

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

Kathy Barthelt 0 71786 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.

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

George Moroses 0 32437 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

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

George Moroses 0 32929 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.

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

George Moroses 0 36448 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.

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

George Moroses 0 43484 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.

First5152535456585960Last

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.

Previous Article Infor LN & Baan Tip of the Week: Limitations of Customer Defined Fields (CDFs)
Next Article Infor LN & Baan Tip: Broadcast message to users
Print
67343 Rate this article:
5.0
Kathy Barthelt

Kathy BartheltKathy Barthelt

Other posts by Kathy Barthelt

Contact author

x

Categories