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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

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

George Moroses 0 29920 Article rating: No rating

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: Methodology for Infor LX & BPCS Upgrades

Anthony Etzel 0 39818 Article rating: 5.0

Throughout the years, Crossroads RMC has participated in several 4.0.05CD upgrades to LX, from which we had the opportunity to refine our methodology for CEA (Configurable Enterprise Accounting) implementations/upgrades. As a result, we have fine tuned our overall upgrade approach and have been very successful in implementing this approach with our clients.

CEA replaces the green screen GLD module and allows for considerable flexibility in the design of the COA (Chart of Accounts).

Our approach incorporates any changes that are needed in the COA and facilitates the transfer or replacement of Profit Centers and Account Codes from BPCS to LX, building on the existing GL. Among the issues we manage is the conversion of historical GL balances.

We maximize the use of LX and CEA while minimizing the manual effort that gets you there.

Contact Frank Petrasio to discuss how we can help you:

  • Preserve what works in BPCS
  • Optimize what works in LX

with a maximum of respect for your time and budget. Learn more about Crossroads RMC Consulting>

Infor LX & BPCS Tip of the Week: Additional Selection Criteria for Cycle Count Purge Enhancement – 8.4

Anthony Etzel 0 56821 Article rating: 5.0

The final step in Cycle Count processing is to maintain the (ICY) Cycle Count file. This history file increases in size with each posting session. It is up to users to purge the historical data that you no longer need. Previously, INV015 Cycle Count Purge by date only allowed users to purge the cycle count file by date. Now, additional selection criteria have been added that allows users improved ways to control records they may want to purge.

Infor LN & Baan Data Collection News: Crossroads RMC Cycle Counting Application

Kathy Barthelt 0 34600 Article rating: 5.0

How often are you counting your inventory? Are you sure your counts are accurate?  Are inaccurate counts affecting your ability to satisfy customer orders?

Crossroads RMC Cycle Counting Application gives you:

· Overall increased inventory accuracy

· Ability to review and approve count before direct update of Baan/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 – with some of our customers, counts used to take weeks. They can now complete a count of all their inventory in one day.

Learn more: Crossroads RMC Data Collection - Web Collect 

Consulting News: ERP Implementation or Upgrade... Are You Prepared?

Crossroads RMC 0 38481 Article rating: 5.0

There are several factors that need to be considered when undertaking a major project like an ERP implementation or upgrade. Before you look to others outside of your organization to provide the expertise needed, you need to first look internally to ensure that the right players are in place to lead the project and also ensure business continuity during the project.

  • Executive Sponsorship - Does Senior Management have a clear and well understood commitment to project success?
  • Strong Project Manager?
  • Core Team Functional Representation - Are the Team Members knowledgeable participants and able to keep the project moving forward?
  • User Community Support?
  • Motivation - Are the Team Members willing and able to provide the time needed for a large-scale implementation?

Do You need help figuring out if your organization is properly positioned for an implementation or upgrade? Contact us. We can help.

Infor LN & Baan Tip of the Week: Job Shop Bill of Material – 10.7

Kathy Barthelt 0 77687 Article rating: 5.0

The job shop bill of material is defined by site. It is used as the source for the estimated materials in the job shop production order.

The new job shop bill of material differs from the old bill of material. These changes are applicable for the new job shop bill of material:

  • It has a header and a status.
  • It is always revision controlled.
  • It can be designated for planning and for costing.
  • The effective dates have been moved from the material lines to the header.
  • The BOM quantity has been moved from item production data to the header.
  • The use up has been moved from alternatives to the material line.
  • The warehouse is defined on the material line (mandatory).
  • The routing operation is defined on the material line (optional).

The job shop bill of material can be generated through the production bill of material.

IDF News: default order class for the warehouse customer

George Moroses 0 29433 Article rating: 5.0

In IDF Customers, the default order class for the warehouse customer should be a user-defined order class (base order class = 004). Do not use base order class 002 or 005, to allow for automatic invoicing of warehouse orders (if a separate manual Ship Confirm event is required per the order class, auto invoicing cannot occur from Pick Confirm).

Can you afford not to invest in MES?

Anthony Etzel 0 32704 Article rating: 5.0

Given the environment today with growing global competition in terms of innovation, cost and time to market (given by short product cycles) as well as with increasing regulatory demands, the answer to the question “Can you afford not to invest in MES?” is turning into a clear “NO”. 

Click here to read the full Critical Manufacturing article.

Crossroads MES is Infor’s global solution for manufacturing execution and is perfectly suited to fill the gap between your manufacturing initiatives and your ERP system.

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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.

Last

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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