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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: Letter of Credit

Kathy Barthelt 0 80145 Article rating: No rating

In LN 10.6 you can now link Sales Order (lines), Purchase Order (lines) and Contract (lines) to a Letter of Credit and process the same in accordance with the conditions stated in the linked Letter of Credit.

In addition, LN can be setup in a way that enables employees, with sufficient authorization, to approve the different types of Letters of Credit and change its status.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: IDF - Enterprise Items Application

Anthony Etzel 0 50515 Article rating: No rating

The Enterprise Item application in the Infor Development Framework for Infor LX supports display of all information relevant to an item. This includes numerous aspects of Inventory, including facility, warehouse, location, lot, and container data.

With the Enterprise Items application, you can customize the data displayed to include more or less data than is currently displayed using the standard Infor LX programs. You can access this information through a single point of entry, so there is no need to switch from one program to another to see all the data you require. This ability to customize will help streamline your decisions by allowing you to display information that is specific to your needs.

The various Enterprise Item application cards provide listings, maintenance type information, and current information that you could previously only access by running multiple standard Infor LX programs, such as Material Status Inquiry (INV300), Bill of Material Inquiry (BOM300), and Routing Inquiry (SFC100).

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

May 23, 2018 - Lunch & Learn Webinar for BPCS & LX! - It’s Time to Understand Time

Anthony Etzel 0 19995 Article rating: No rating

 


Lunch & Learn Webinar for BPCS & LX! 
-  It’s Time to Understand Time -

Machine Time  |  Down Time  |  Crew Time  |  Direct Time  |  Indirect Time

So many ways to break down time!
Have you taken the time to understand what these
breakdowns mean and how they impact your business?

Watch the recorded webinar and learn about a fast and efficient
way to capture time from the factory floor.
 

             Click Here to Watch Video (34:41) 

 

 

 

 

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Get Real!

Kathy Barthelt 0 79472 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!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Purchase Order Receive All Processing LX/8.3.5

Anthony Etzel 0 50384 Article rating: No rating

This enhancement to the Purchase Receipts screens; optionally shown with the quantity and weight fields populated with the open value on the purchase order. Previously the user had to manually enter the quantity received or, for a dynamic weight and measure items, the weight received for each line on the purchase order. Now the screens are populated with the open value and if the open value is the same as the value received, the user can simply accept the line.

The Receive All field on the PUR550D1-01 screen determines whether the receipt lines are populated with the open value. A system parameter controls the Receive All default value but the default value can be overridden. If the user specifies 1=Yes in the Receive All field then the PUR550D2-02 screen displays the open quantity or weight for each line. The user can accept the open value for each line. 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Anthony Etzel – Featured Speaker at The New England Midrange Users Group Meeting (NEMUG) on May 16, 2018

Anthony Etzel 0 32098 Article rating: No rating

Anthony Etzel, a Solution Executive with Crossroads RMC, will speak at the NEMUG meeting in North Attleboro, MA on May 16th 2018. He will present the History of Shop Floor Control and also talk about current shop floor management technology including Crossroads MES and Analytics Dashboards.


https://www.nemug.com/

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

Anthony Etzel 0 47093 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!

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

Kathy Barthelt 0 79429 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!

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

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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