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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

December Lunch & Learn Webinar for BPCS & LX!

ERP Data Analysis Made Easy!

Anthony Etzel 0 25345 Article rating: 5.0

Want answers to questions like…

  • Which lines of business are performing best, and what products are being sold?
  • Who are my top-performing sales reps, and what products are they selling?
  • What trends can I see based on my customers’ purchases?
  • What warehouse orders are planned over the next 6 months and do I have enough inventory on hand?

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Get all of this and more with easy drag and drop capability all without touching your ERP system or creating custom reports!


1:00 p.m. ET | 10:00 a.m. PT

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Learn How to Create Views for:

  • Accounts Payable
  • Accounts Receivable
  • Labor
  • Material Costs
  • Production
  • Sales Orders
    And more!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Role-Based Security

Anthony Etzel 0 36073 Article rating: No rating

Role-Based Security introduces role type profiles and allows combining the use of role profiles with the traditional LX user type security profile functionality. The new role type profile can be defined to allow or deny access to All Products, Attention Key, Programs, and Transaction Effects.

Facility, Warehouse, and Company securities are still defined solely by the user profile settings and are not affected by the assignment of a role. Where applicable, the role authority is displayed alongside the user authority on the security profile maintenance screens making it easy to see where there are differences in authority between the user and the assigned roles.

When users are assigned to roles, security access in LX becomes a combination of authorities granted or denied by the role plus any user exceptions. User exceptions override authorities set by the roles. A user can also be assigned to more than one role.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Strategies to Issue Materials – LN

Kathy Barthelt 0 75238 Article rating: No rating

LN offers you various levels of control for the issue of materials. You can specify a different method for each material.

Available methods to control the quantity of the issue:

  • Direct user control over the quantities to issue
  • Quantities determined by the allocations

Available methods to control the time of the issue. LN issues the material:

  • After a user gives a command
  • At the allocation date
  • Immediately when the production order is released

Special methods:

  • Backflushing
  • Floor stock

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Flexfab Selects Crossroads RMC for Company Wide Implementation of Data Collection for Infor LN

Crossroads RMC 0 32154 Article rating: 5.0

Flexfab Horizons International, Inc, a global leader in the manufacture of high performance silicone and other advanced polimer products, has selected Crossroads RMC’s Data Collection Solution, RMC3, for their company wide solution for data collection. The initial implementation will take place in Q4 2017 at their location in Nottinghamshire, UK and will focus on improvements in warehouse management. Applications to be implemented include Receiving, Inspections/Approvals, Putaway, Stock Transfers and Stock Inquiry. Flexfab is already a long time user of RMClabel for all of their barcoding needs. This product is made to work seamlessly with all of Crossroads RMC's data collection applications, so the incorporation of this solution will also be part of this project. Implementation for Flexfab US will occur in early 2018.

BPCS/LX TIP OF THE WEEK: ARE YOU STILL USING HANDWRITTEN TICKETS FOR YOUR INVENTORY?

Anthony Etzel 0 33223 Article rating: No rating

This method of inventory tracking is slow, and prone to human error.

Putting a simple barcode system in place speeds up the process of tracking inventory movements, reduces the likelihood of mistakes, and creates a recorded history of the who/what/where that can provide valuable insight to those who make critical business decisions for your business.

Not sure where to start? Contact us and we’d be happy to help you take the first step.

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Are You Still Using Handwritten Tickets for Your Inventory?

Kathy Barthelt 0 50284 Article rating: No rating

This method of inventory tracking is slow, and prone to human error.

Putting a simple barcode system in place speeds up the process of tracking inventory movements, reduces the likelihood of mistakes, and creates a recorded history of the who/what/where that can provide valuable insight to those who make critical business decisions for your business.

Not sure where to start? Contact us and we’d be happy to help you take the first step.

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Why Would You Buy a BMW, But Use a Scooter?

Anthony Etzel 0 32867 Article rating: No rating

Congratulations! You bought that shiny, new car! It has all the features you can possibly want and goes a million miles an hour. It can take you anywhere your heart desires…….but you rely on a manual scooter to get you around. You know, the kind you had when you were a kid…BEFORE you could drive…before you could afford the BMW. Make sense? Uh... no.

You’d never do this, right? So, why are you doing this with the ERP system that runs your business? Why are you relying on spreadsheets and separate little Access databases to record and store the information that is the most critical to your business when you have an ERP system that is meant for this? Why continue to plod along at a snail's pace when you have the tools to take your business to the next level?

Your ERP system is your BMW. Use it. See what it can do for you. Think you’ve used it to its potential? Unlikely. We’ve helped customers breathe new life into their EXISTING ERP version all by unlocking functionality for them that was already there and ready to use! We’ve also helped by offering add-ons to the ERP that can make your productivity skyrocket.

Ask us how. We’ve got an extra set of keys to the BMW in case you lost yours.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Why Would You Buy a BMW, But Use a Scooter?

Kathy Barthelt 0 74041 Article rating: No rating

Congratulations! You bought that shiny, new car! It has all the features you can possibly want and goes a million miles an hour. It can take you anywhere your heart desires…….but you rely on a manual scooter to get you around. You know, the kind you had when you were a kid…BEFORE you could drive…before you could afford the BMW. Make sense? Uh... no.

You’d never do this, right? So, why are you doing this with the ERP system that runs your business? Why are you relying on spreadsheets and separate little Access databases to record and store the information that is the most critical to your business when you have an ERP system that is meant for this? Why continue to plod along at a snail's pace when you have the tools to take your business to the next level?

Your ERP system is your BMW. Use it. See what it can do for you. Think you’ve used it to its potential? Unlikely. We’ve helped customers breathe new life into their EXISTING ERP version all by unlocking functionality for them that was already there and ready to use! We’ve also helped by offering add-ons to the ERP that can make your productivity skyrocket.

Ask us how. We’ve got an extra set of keys to the BMW in case you lost yours.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

David Dickson

If ERP is plumbing for the Enterprise - How do we unplug it and keep it from making a huge mess?

I have been working with ERP in various roles for over 30 years, directly involved in over a hundred implementations, while my company has been involved with over 300 more. Of course, in many ways the systems we use today are completely different from what we used in the ‘80s – back then it was green screens, simple transaction entry forms, and cumbersome updates (at best) to link what one department did with all the other areas that needed access to that information. Then there were those planning programs that took all the information along with various parameters the users needed to set and told us what to do.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

What has surely changed is how we use these systems. Back when I started we used them because we could process more transactions more accurately and faster with a computer, than with the otherwise necessary roomful of clerks. Those clerks, schedulers, and various other clerical employees were the first generation of jobs computers rendered obsolete. Strangely, I do not remember anyone bemoaning those lost jobs. I will let others speculate on the reasons for that.

Individual companies could and did debate the decision about how much they automated. Yes, in retrospect, it is pretty clear that choosing not to automate was to accept a long, slow death for the business, but it is not that long ago when there were still lots of manufacturing managers and business owners who did not use, or like, computers.

Competition Changes Everything

Today a business system is just another piece of necessary infrastructures like an office, a phone, a lawyer, a bank account, and an accountant. The system remains the transaction processing backbone for the organization, but the way in which we use the information that flows from those transactions has changed drastically in this interconnected world. Back in the heady days when ERP was new, the focus was all internal, inside the four walls. Today that seems quaint – the Internet connects all systems and much of the unique incremental benefits (or competitive advantage, if you prefer) come from two deceptively simple concepts – how you connect with the rest of the world from your business systems, and how you monitor your business’s performance in real-time and adapt to what you learn.

I still remember a kickoff meeting twenty years ago for what was then a pretty large ERP implementation at an automotive supplier. Two comments struck me – the first was public. “I like to think of our business as a boat, and we have been steering it by looking out the back. This project will at least let us see out the sides.” The other was in a private meeting when we were discussing change management, and how they would deal with the resistance that would surely come. This same manager said simply, “I guess we will have to fire someone for it, and then the rest will get religion.”

Not terribly ambitious goals, but I give him credit for honesty.

Things have certainly changed a lot in terms of our expectations for the systems, and our approach to implementation, but despite these systems have become an integral and necessary part of the infrastructure of every business, they remain infuriatingly complex and the benefits we expect are often difficult to achieve.

Illusive Benefits = Bad Form

That should not be the case. My goal is to be your guide and share my insights and other good ideas, found across the web, as to how to make business system selection easier and how to get the most benefit from those systems. Because in spite of all the marketing folderol, it seems pretty clear that your friendly software vendor and expert implementation consultants are not going to do that for you. Not because they are stupid or evil people, of course, quite the contrary. They just cannot and will not make the decisions for us that need to be made.

Systems should work for us. Choosing and implementing a system should not be a high-risk proposition for a business, or the individuals doing the work.

The common elements made simple, efficient, and effortless with returns.

My entire career has been dedicated to those goals.

What do you consider yourself to be?

  • internal expert?
  • someone beginning the search and implementation process?
  • an executive looking for a competitive advantage?
  • an industry insider?
  • or someone who finds this amusing for some reason?

All of the above? There is a better way to choose and use software and as someone who could fit into any and all of the categories listed (yes, I really do find business software entertaining in some weird way), I have some ideas I’d love to share with you, so feel free to ask questions.

About the author:

David Dickson is an itinerant generalist; his path to partner and CFO of Crossroads RMC has had its twists and turns. His first twist occurred when an employer needed a business system and picked him because he had three semesters of computer programming in engineering school -- an “expert” born. Somewhere along the line he helped to build and sell a company, which he bought back a couple of years later. Add in another acquisition, a merger, and about 30 years in manufacturing systems in various roles, and you might get a sense from where his real expertise might arise.

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Tips: LN | Baan

Companies can decide to involve a subcontractor and subcontract part of their activities. The subcontractor carries out the work and returns the products to your company.

In Infor LN, subcontracting is considered as purchasing labor from a third party. Therefore, if a manufacturer wants to subcontract work, he must generate a purchase order to start the subcontracting process. These are the types of subcontracting:

  • Subcontracting with material flow
    • Operation subcontracting: For operation subcontracting, a part of the production process (one or more operations) is subcontracted.
    • Item subcontracting: For item subcontracting, an item's entire production process is subcontracted. Therefore, it is always used with material flow support.
  • Subcontracting without material flow: The simplest form of subcontracting is to generate a subcontracting purchase order to record the operations outsourced to a subcontractor. The subcontracting purchase order only represents the administrative handling of the subcontracting process. When the subcontracted item is received back from the subcontractor, you must close the subcontracting purchase order, which initiates the production process.
  • Unplanned subcontracting: Unplanned subcontracting is applicable when you subcontract after generating a production order. For unplanned subcontracting, a purchase order is generated from the production order and the material supply lines are populated by Shop Floor Control.
  • Service subcontracting: For service subcontracting, work on an item to be maintained or repaired is subcontracted. This work entails the entire repair process, or only a part of it. Service subcontracting can be used with or without material flow support.

To start the subcontracting process, a purchase order is required.

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