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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

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Gain Efficiency & Save Money – Evaluate Your Production Lines

Kathy Barthelt 0 61853 Article rating: No rating

When is the last time you took a hard look at your production lines?

  • How are we moving product through our facility?
  • Do we have work instructions / drawings available where needed?
  • Do we have frequently used inventory available at the line?
  • Where are the bottlenecks?
  • Are processes automated, where possible?

Taking a hard look at your processes and procedures may reveal some interesting results. 

Don’t assume that everyone is doing things the same way. Some may be superstars, and others may need some mentoring. Some processes may be outdated and costing you time and money, while others are extremely efficient. One area of the business may benefit from how others operate. Take the time to review and analyze your findings. Your company may benefit greatly as a result.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Cost of Goods Sold

Anthony Etzel 0 40605 Article rating: No rating

A major change in LX Release 8.3.5 is the ability to post Cost of Goods Sold Inventory transactions by Cost Bucket. 

This will enable reporting of Cost of Goods Sold on the P&L by Material, Labor and Overhead. 

Up to this point, companies that wished to report at this level had to develop a modification to analyze these transactions and re-book them. This new feature eliminates that need. 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Tip of the Week: What is Your M.O.?

Kathy Barthelt 0 67337 Article rating: No rating

I’m not talking “Modus Operandi,” which is a fancy way to say: “what’s your plan to get stuff done”.  I’m talking about Manufacturing Optimization. 

It is all about efficiency, and by that I mean doing more with less. Less labor, less time, less materials, while still delivering a high quality product on time.

The Three Secrets to Improving your MO

1. Identify the key metrics
You need benchmark data so you know what realistic goals are, then track them and publish your performance along with a brief comment from time to time on how things are trending and how you compare with others, particularly your primary competitors. The best thing about this is that it is a system that develops a life of its own.

2. Measure it
Automatically, people start to think about improving things. Then the fun part, stuff begins to improve by itself. Once in place, the system just hums along and the benefits appear, because it has motivated people to think about it, and figure out what they can do to make it better.

3. Communicate it
So if you publish gross profit numbers, explain to people how what they do affects the numbers. Employees tend to start to modify their behavior as a result, and look more critically at whether a given purchase is even necessary.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

April 25th 2018 -LUNCH & LEARN WEBINAR FOR Baan & LN

NAZDAQ's B2Win Suite: Giving You Maximum Control Over Your ERP Output

Kathy Barthelt 0 39005 Article rating: 5.0


Lunch & Learn Webinar for Baan & LN! 

- Giving You Maximum Control Over Your ERP Output -

NAZDAQ's B2Win Suite is the output management platform that every company needs in conjunction with its ERP system. This innovative product helps companies improve internal reporting and outbound communications.


Register today to learn how each core application is integrated into your system’s infrastructure to expand functionality, automation and improve business efficiency.

Here are a few features: 

  • Can be hosted on-premise or in cloud
  • Works with all Baan / Infor® LN versions and Mingle
  • Comes ready to work with various enterprise systems (ERP, CRM, SCM, etc.)
  • Connects with various multiple enterprise systems simultaneously (CRM, ERP, etc.)
  • Transform your ERP into different formats
  • Design completely custom formatting

 

Join us for 45 minutes: 


Watch Recorded Webinar

Crenlo and Crossroads RMC Go International

Crossroads RMC 0 18039 Article rating: No rating

Crenlo, A leading manufacturer of cab and enclosure products to protect people and electronics, has partnered with Crossroads RMC to deliver a shop floor (MES lite) solution to their facilities in the US and Brazil. Crenlo was looking for a way to ensure that each production run was complete and accurate, and their overall production efficiencies were measurable. Crossroads RMC developed a complete solution to deliver detailed proprietary work instructions to each workstation, configure production lines to fit the work to be completed, perform downtime tracking with alerts and provide web based pivot reports to view entire assemblies, compare actual to expected, view inspection failures and analyze trends week to week, month to month and year to year. This solution will be fully integrated with Crenlo’s Baan IV ERP system.

Nice-Pak Products Drives Purchasing Power With Crossroads

Crossroads RMC 0 36728 Article rating: No rating

Nice-Pak Products, a leading manufacturer in the wet wipes industry, has selected Crossroads RMC to evaluate the purchasing processes within their facilities in Indiana. During this evaluation, Crossroads RMC will determine the best path for streamlining purchasing operations and develop a standardized approach that can be shared within other locations of Nice-Pak utilizing Infor LX.

International Wire Selects Crossroads RMC For Their High Performance Conductor Division

Crossroads RMC 0 31823 Article rating: No rating

International Wire Group, Inc. headquartered in Camden, New York is the largest bare copper wire and copper wire products manufacturer in the United States. Crossroads has been selected to evaluate the manufacturing processes within the High Performance Conductor Division of International Wire, with locations in South Carolina and Georgia. During this evaluation, Crossroads will determine the best path for streamlining the shop floor which will include data collection and labor reporting. International currently utilizes Infor LX and will be evaluating Crossroads’ MES solution as part of this project.

BPCS/LX TIP OF THE WEEK: INVENTORY TRANSFERS

Anthony Etzel 0 35756 Article rating: No rating

Misplaced inventory… this happens all the time, but it CAN be avoided.

As part of an employee’s initial training, they should be taught the importance of proper inventory handling. This training should occur even if inventory handling is not their job! Employees need to know how the actions (or lack thereof) of one individual affects the rest of the company and the system used to run your business. Proper inventory management is the responsibility of ALL employees. 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Item Facility Master has a new attribute to define the override inspection days lead time CICP.ICINSD.

  • When an item facility has a defined override inspection days lead time, that value will be used instead of the system parameter inspection days lead time.

MRP exception report, MRP200B
Purchase planning report, PUR285B
Purchase order / Requisition maintenance, PUR500D3
Purchase order consolidation / release, PUR640B1
Vendor splits, PUR653B

This enhancement improved the subfile utilized in MRP320D Master Schedule Detail Inquiry -SCR001 by expanding the subfile with data rather than clearing the subfile as user pages. This change provides full support for the WebTop 4.8 Grid decorator.

This enhancement updated the approach used to populate the subfile to allow a deployed Webtop Grid to function correctly. There is no visible or user-impacted change to the way the program functions.

This enhancement provides improved functionality and full support of a Webtop grid applied to the subfile.

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Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for EXECUTIVES

FINANCE
Ledger Account Blocked Error
When attempting to post to a ledger account, users may occasionally encounter an error indicating that the ledger account is blocked. To resolve this issue, navigate to the Chart of Accounts session (tfgld0508m000) and select the Miscellaneous tab. Once there, review the Blocking field. The available settings are:

  1. Free
  2. Blocked for manual input (integration transactions and other automatic transactions can be posted with this setting)
  3. Blocked for all purposes.

OPERATIONS
Absorbing Cost Items into Projects
To absorb the cost of cost items into specific projects, you'll need to handle them as customized items. However, cost items cannot directly be defined as customized items. Customized items must be physical, either manufactured or purchased.

That said, it's still possible to absorb cost items into a project, although indirectly. Here's how:

  1. Set Up Ledger Account: First, create a new ledger account in session tfgld0508m000 and set the type to "PCS" (project) in the operations management integrations. This account will be used for matching and approving purchase orders for cost items.

  2. Create and Activate Projects: Ensure that the necessary projects are created and set to active status.

  3. Purchasing Cost Items:

    • If needed, create the cost items.
    • Create a purchase order for the cost items without referencing a project number.
  4. Matching PO to Costs:

    • When matching the purchase orders in session tfacp2107m000, select "Add Costs" from the specific menu on the toolbar (you'll need to be in the matching details to access this).
    • This will open session tfacp1133s000, where you will enter the previously specified ledger account number.
    • Once done, the "PCS Transactions" option on the toolbar becomes available. Selecting this brings up session tipcs3140m000 (General Actual Project Costs).
       
  5. Disbursing Costs to Projects: In session tipcs3140m000, the PO costs for the cost items can be disbursed to any open and active project.

Since these are cost items, they won't go into stock. The key is ensuring that the cost disbursement ("Add Costs") is correctly linked to the appropriate project, giving users visibility of the cost items as general project costs.


TECHNOLOGY
Adding a Timestamp to LN Standard Tables
Table Timestamp Definitions (ttadv4136m000)

Use this session to define timestamps for Infor LN tables. A timestamp is an additional column that stores the date and time of the last change for each record.

Timestamps are utilized by features like the extraction logic of CPM Enterprise Analytics. They enable CPM to perform incremental data extractions. For example, CPM can use the timestamps to extract records that were changed during the last week in a weekly extraction process.

To Create Timestamps:

  1. Enter the Tables: In this session, specify the tables for which you want to define timestamps.

  2. Convert and Reconfigure: Run the Convert to Runtime Data Dictionary (ttadv5215m000) session to convert the table definitions to the runtime data dictionary and reconfigure the tables.

  3. Restart Session: Log off and log back on to apply the changes.

IMPORTANT!
To avoid issues with locked tables, ensure that all users have logged off before starting the reconfiguration.

For more information, refer to the online help of the Convert to Runtime Data Dictionary (ttadv5215m000) session.

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Kathy Barthelt

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