Infor ERP Tips and Infor ERP News for Infor LX, BPCS, Infor ERP LX, Infor LN, Infor ERP LN, Baan, Infor M3, and Movex

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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 Data Collection News: Crossroads RMC Cycle Counting Application

Kathy Barthelt 0 37181 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 40686 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 81770 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 31366 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 34627 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.

Crossroads RMC proudly announces the LX 8.3.5 go live for Trinity Industries.

Anthony Etzel 0 41905 Article rating: 5.0

Trinity Industries is live on LX 8.3.5! This project was truly a team effort working in partnership with HCL America. Crossroads RMC's involvement included John Kasper (Finance), David Campbell and Nick Olson (Operations), Jacob Hale (Supply Chain Management), and Tony Curtis (LX Administration). 

Trinity began providing industrial products and services to customers more than 85 years ago. They started as a small butane-tank manufacturer and evolved over time into a premier diversified industrial company with market-leading businesses serving the energy, chemical, agriculture, transportation, and construction sectors.

Infor LX & BPCS Tip of the Week: Pre-Assigned Lot Numbers – LX

Anthony Etzel 0 62277 Article rating: 5.0

In addition to assigning lot numbers in Shop Order Entry/Maintenance (SFC500) after the shop orders have been released, users can now pre-assign lot numbers during the Multi-level Shop Order Release process (SFC530) and the Multi-Level Backflush process (LMP600) for sub-assemblies that are lot controlled items. The user has the choice of using the parent lot ID, the next sequential generated lot ID, or not pre-assigning lot IDs. Multiple items per lot must be installed to use the parent lot number option.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

It’s NOT All About the Money, Money, Money… Motivating Employees in the New Year!

Have you ever thought about what really motivates your employees?

It’s not about the almighty dollar, you know. Ok, ok…..money doesn’t hurt, but money alone doesn’t keep most people in their jobs. You actually need to motivate your employees to keep them showing up, mentally, and physically. Employees that don’t feel motivated are probably underperforming, and that means you’re losing money.

Ask yourself these questions about your employees:

  • Are they happy…..YES….HAPPY! Do they enjoy coming to work every day?
  • Do they feel challenged, or do they feel demeaned?
  • Are they sinking, or are they swimming?
  • Do they have the right tools in their arsenal to battle the giants?
  • Where’s the reward?

Happiness - I’ve worked with manufacturers for almost 20 years now, and I’ve seen employees who are fulfilled and very happy in their jobs, and employees who count the seconds until they leave each day. Happiness is a choice, but certainly, you as an employer can have a big impact on how happy your employees are. Happiness can be found when employees feel that what they do has a purpose. Do they understand that the part that they are making is used in the production of sophisticated medical equipment that saves lives? Or protects families from getting hurt in a car accident? Having the end customer in mind gives purpose to their work. Having a purpose can make people happy.  

Challenge – Are your employees given any incentive for process improvement? You are not blessed with the perfect mind. All brilliant ideas do not come from you. The lowest man/woman on the totem pole may have the next best idea for your business. Encourage them to bring those ideas forward. Do they have a path for growth that is clearly defined? If you’re never looking for more from your employees, they probably won’t give it to you.

Sink or Swim - When an employee makes a mistake, do you reprimand or punish them? Instead, how about teaching them? Explain to them how things could be done differently next time and provide some guidance and reassurance that they can and will do better.  A pat on the back when they do it right the second time doesn’t hurt either.

Tools – Have you thought about what you need to provide for your employees to make them successful? Do they need training? Or maybe retraining? Would they benefit from being paired with a mentor? How about their physical tools? Is the machinery and software up to snuff? Are they being held back by outdated software and manual processes?

Reward – So, yes, you need to pay your employees fairly, but there are more rewards to be had. Increased responsibility is a great one (make sure you give them the title that goes with it). Designate an employee of the month and announce their great work to everyone in the company. Give employees an opportunity to attend a conference or a workshop which will benefit them and the company. Send a hard-working employee a handwritten note letting them know that you noticed their efforts.  Reward the little things and boost morale.

Sorry, I know this is a lot, but employee motivation is YOUR problem, or shall I say… your opportunity to make them happy and more productive. 

Here are 5 ways you can motivate your employees to give their best every day:

1. Train Your Employees

2. Give Your Employees the Right Tools

3. Automate Processes

4. Give Your Employees Real-Time Feedback

5. Provide Incentives to Do More

For more ideas, read this article from the Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2016/01/to-motivate-employees-do-3-things-well.
 

Can you do it? Of course, you can! You don’t have to do it all by yourself, however. Companies like Crossroads RMC can assist. We provide training services that can be completely tailored to your business. We also provide software solutions to help automate many of your manual processes, and dashboard solutions to provide real-time feedback on performance.

If you choose to do this, the benefits to your company will be amazing. You will have a happy, loyal, and prepared workforce, ready to come to work each day to make the company wildly successful. Something to think about as we start a new year.

I’m looking forward to working with you to make the new year great!
 

About the author:
 



Kathy Barthelt is the vice president of  Crossroads RMC, which helps optimize manufacturing systems. She cares deeply about bringing the human side into manufacturing. One can often find her writing and speaking about stress and shop floor workers, job skill, or employee motivation and production improvement. You can find even more insights from her past blog posts.

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