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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

BPCS & LX Tip of the Week: Get Real!

Anthony Etzel 0 56549 Article rating: No rating

You’ve got an ERP system, so everything should be real-time and everyone should have access to information in real-time, right? RIGHT?!

Why not? Why are there spreadsheets, and separate Access databases off to the side?

Data loses value over time, so why not give everyone up to date, accurate information all the time? Take a look at those silos of information and see how you can eliminate them. Your business will benefit greatly as a result.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan & LN Tip of the Week: Simplify & Save Money – Evaluate Your Production Lines

Kathy Barthelt 0 75814 Article rating: No rating

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

  • How are you moving product through the facility?
  • Do you have work instructions / drawings available where needed?
  • Do you have frequently used inventory available at the line?
  • Where are the bottlenecks?
  • Are your processes simplified?

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 Some processes may be outdated and costing you time and money, while others are extremely efficient.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: Simplify & Save Money – Evaluate Your Production Lines

Anthony Etzel 0 54943 Article rating: No rating

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

  • How are you moving product through the facility?
  • Do you have work instructions / drawings available where needed?
  • Do you have frequently used inventory available at the line?
  • Where are the bottlenecks?
  • Are your processes simplified?

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 Some processes may be outdated and costing you time and money, while others are extremely efficient.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: Make Your ERP Work FOR You - Streamline Your Processes

Anthony Etzel 0 53740 Article rating: No rating

Such lofty goals you had when you implemented your ERP system. It was going to be like pressing the “Easy Button”…  then it wasn’t.

What happened? In some cases, decisions were made to implement the system “just like we used to run our old system”. Great idea? Not so much. Your business changes, and your business software needs to change as well.

Are you using the ERP system, but everything seems cumbersome and takes more time than its worth? 

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Have you looked at streamlining your processes?
  • Can you automate a step or two and eliminate some manual keying?
  • Can you add barcoding to avoid keying in some information altogether?
  • How about automating the printing of some reports?

Now is the time to sit down and really review the steps required to complete the task and think out of the box a bit. Soon you can develop your own streamlined process to get the job done quickly and efficiently.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Make Your ERP Work FOR You - Streamline Your Processes

Kathy Barthelt 0 79156 Article rating: No rating

Such lofty goals you had when you implemented your ERP system. It was going to be like pressing the “Easy Button”…  then it wasn’t.

What happened? In some cases, decisions were made to implement the system “just like we used to run our old system”. Great idea? Not so much. Your business changes, and your business software needs to change as well.

Are you using the ERP system, but everything seems cumbersome and takes more time than its worth? 

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Have you looked at streamlining your processes?
  • Can you automate a step or two and eliminate some manual keying?
  • Can you add barcoding to avoid keying in some information altogether?
  • How about automating the printing of some reports?

Now is the time to sit down and really review the steps required to complete the task and think out of the box a bit. Soon you can develop your own streamlined process to get the job done quickly and efficiently.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Infor LX Compatibility With IBM i 7.3

Anthony Etzel 0 53859 Article rating: 5.0

IBM® has released its latest operating system for the IBM i. IBM i 7.3™ has many new features and enhancements that you may want to take advantage of.

Infor is pleased to announce the following Infor LX products are supported on this new version, effective June 12.

Supported products and versions

The following Infor products have been evaluated for compatibility with IBM i 7.3 and are supported on that version of the platform:

  • Infor LX 8.3 (all release levels)
  • Brazil Pack for Infor LX 8.3
  • Argentina Pack for Infor LX 8.3
  • Infor BPCS 8.2 (all release levels)

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: LN Financials

Kathy Barthelt 0 74073 Article rating: No rating

Did you know that you can use user-definable dimensions to view financial information in detail from different angles?

With the parent-child structures, you can obtain financial information in the proper structure, regardless of the country or the financial system.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Tip of the Week: What is Sales Tax Nexus?

Kathy Barthelt 0 104605 Article rating: No rating

Sales tax nexus is the connection between a seller and a state that requires the seller to collect and remit tax on sales made in that state. If you have nexus in California and Texas, for example, you must collect and remit sales tax in California and Texas.

Many states are expanding their nexus rules. Business activities like trade show attendance, drop shipping, employing remote workers, advertising, and housing inventory in other states can establish nexus. The rules vary by state and it can be challenging to keep up with all the places your business needs to register, collect, and remit sales tax.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt
/ Categories: Infor LN & Baan Tips

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Product Configurator - Part 2

Baan Tips

Who gets involved?
  1. Most commonly Engineering is involved in writing the rules, creating the bills and routings.
  2. Sales or Customer Service determines the questions and the order they are asked in.
  3. Sales or Customer Service determines the rules for the pricing.
  4. Sales, or Customer Service, and Engineering work together in determining the part number, description and text.

What are the steps?

  1. You must start by defining the features and options (questions and answers) and the order in which these are asked. We work this out first using sticky notes and large easel paper. Normally during the process we find that we want to move these questions around. Setting them down on paper makes the process of getting the data into Baan much more efficient. We also then have a record of what decisions were made prior to entering the data. This is normally a joint effort of Engineering and Sales. This is required and must be the first step.
  2. Constraints for features and options. These are the rules for determining what questions are asked and which options are allowed. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator. This is required.
  3. Generic Bill of Material. All possible bill options are entered here and constraints are written to determine which options are selected based on the answers to the questions. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator. This is a required step.
  4. Generic Routing. Similar to the bill of material, but used for generation of the routing steps. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator. This is optional.
  5. Generic Item Data. This consists of creating custom item numbers, descriptions, text, material, size or standard fields in the custom item master. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator though Sales may have some involvement. This is optional.
  6. Generic Pricing. This is used to calculate the selling price based on the answers to the questions. This is normally a responsibility of Sales or whoever determines the pricing. This group is also trained on writing the constraints for this section only. This is optional.

What other modules will be affected?
  1. Quotes, sales orders and projects.
  2. PRP planning for the configured items.
  3. Managing changes to the configuration. Who, what and when?
  4. Variant statistics.
  5. MPS and generic items.
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Kathy Barthelt

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