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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

Infor LN & Baan Tip of the Week: Standalone Sessions in LN 10.7

Kathy Barthelt 0 161305 Article rating: 5.0

The standalone LN UI allows enhanced URL-parameter configuration. A single session can be started directly. Based on the URL, users can choose if the menu must be available and if the displayed set of records must be restricted.

This can be useful for self-service kiosks or simple full-screen clients.

Crossroads RMC Forms Strategic Partnership with CTN Global

Crossroads RMC 0 38466 Article rating: 5.0

Crossroads RMC is proud to announce a new partnership with CTN Global. CTN Global is a leading provider of ERP implementation services in Latin America and Infor’s 2019 Cloud Partner of the Year.

This partnership extends Crossroads RMC customer service and support to our Infor LN and Infor LX customers in Latin America. CTN Global has over 20 years of experience in the ERP space, and over 100 clients globally. CTN Global is headquartered in Columbia with other locations in the Iberian Peninsula and Venezuela.

Why should you look at OTTO? Let’s see what an OTTO customer has to say:

Anthony Etzel 0 33532 Article rating: 5.0

"When first introduced to OTTO, for on-time ordering, you could not prove to me that there was a better system out there than what we already had. Boy what a big wakeup call! Being in a very option intensive business and the economy in a very flat or negative state, OTTO is the BEST tool to quickly respond to a customer’s needs TODAY. When Millions of dollars are at stake each month, we have to be better prepared to meet the task at hand with fewer people. OTTO is really doing this for us!  What normally took us hours or days to identify several indented bill of material shortages now only takes a few moments with the OTTO program. What this really means is that, we do not have to wait for MRP to run each week to plan and reschedule orders. This can be done today!  What I’m really saying is that, we can advise Purchasing and Scheduling TODAY without waiting for TOMORROW.  We are now able to ship DOLLARS this month and satisfy our CUSTOMERS. Without OTTO in some cases, the Customer would have to wait until next month and potential revenue dollars lost for the month."  Gary Hawk, Planning Manager - construction equipment

Infor LX / BPCS Tip of the Week: Control Date Lead Times in LX

George Moroses 0 56626 Article rating: 5.0
  • Control Date Lead Times – LX provides five separate Control Date Lead Time fields so you can specify additional lead time values for Shop Orders, Purchase Orders and Planned and Firm Planned orders. Each Control Lead Time Date represents additional time (days) required at each step in the process that needs more time (Quarantine, Stabilize), that is to say, when a component is due, and when it can be used. (working with an aerospace  precision bearing manufacturer, I had to account for the QA requirement that no measurements could be taken until the parts had been “soaked” (stored) in an atmospheric controlled environment (72 degrees, and controlled humidity) for 24 hours. This requirement added one full day of lead time between each machining operation) The MPS/MRP Generation program, as well as programs that Shop Order Material Allocation records use the five control date lead times to adjust component required dates to function in the same way as the BOM Offset Lead Time.
     
  • All programs that create MRP Planned Orders, MRP Firm Planned Orders, Shop Orders, and Purchase Orders call the Control Date Calculation program (MRP515B) to establish all five control dates. A Control Lead Time Date is used to adjust the component Required Dates data in the Material Requirements file (KMR), based on planned orders for a parent, and the FMA Required Dates data, based on shop order release dates for a parent.

Flexfab Goes Live with Crossroads Data Collection in China

Kathy Barthelt 0 34389 Article rating: 5.0

Flexfab Horizons International, Inc, a global leader in the manufacturing of high performance silicone and other advanced polymer products, goes live with Crossroads RMC’s Data Collection Solution, Web Collect, formerly RMC3, in their China facility. This represents the 3rd data collection go live for the Crossroads data collection solution within Flexfab with the US and UK going live in 2018. All installations focused on improvements in warehouse management in Infor LN 10.6. Applications implemented included Receiving, Inspections/Approvals, Putaway, Stock Transfers and Stock Inquiry.

Crossroads RMC is proud to partner with an American manufacturer of diagnostic healthcare

Integrated freight management solution for Infor LN 10.5.2 Cloud implementation

Kathy Barthelt 0 40027 Article rating: 5.0

An American manufacturer of diagnostic healthcare has selected the RMCship solution from Crossroads RMC to streamline their shipping process on Infor LN 10.5.2 in the cloud. They went live with one site running RMCship in June of 2019 and 3 more sites to follow by end of year. They will use RMCship to increase accuracy by eliminating manual steps and streamlining their operations.

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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

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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