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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

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Estimates Versus Actuals

Anthony Etzel 0 32746 Article rating: No rating

So, how many of you have updated the estimated cost of material and labor in your ERP system recently? ……Hmmmm. That’s what I thought.

Do you have any idea how accurate those numbers are? Are you making business decisions based on estimates that are completely inaccurate?

Consider switching from estimates to actuals. Furthermore, consider implementing an automated data collection system to make this easy. By collecting production and labor data real time, you can gain real insight into your business and you gain the ability to look at the profitability of individual jobs, projects and employees.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Estimates Versus Actuals

Kathy Barthelt 0 79943 Article rating: 5.0

So, how many of you have updated the estimated cost of material and labor in your ERP system recently? ……Hmmmm. That’s what I thought.

Do you have any idea how accurate those numbers are? Are you making business decisions based on estimates that are completely inaccurate?

Consider switching from estimates to actuals. Furthermore, consider implementing an automated data collection system to make this easy. By collecting production and labor data real time, you can gain real insight into your business and you gain the ability to look at the profitability of individual jobs, projects and employees.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: 4 Benefits to Consider - Cross-Docking

Kathy Barthelt 0 78264 Article rating: No rating

Cross Docking is the practice of immediately processing completed goods to fulfill ‘demand’ requests with minimal handling. Cross Docking automatically combines and performs Baan / Infor LN steps to fill demand and shortages at the time items are available. Shortages are sorted and filled by the oldest demand date.

Benefits of Cross Docking include:

  • Direct and indirect labor savings resulting from operational efficiencies gains
  • Increased inventory accuracy, reliable on-hand inventory information and improved data entry
  • Increased productivity
  • Increased customer retention due to faster, more accurate fulfillment

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: The 3 Secrets to Improving Your MO (Manufacturing Optimization)

Anthony Etzel 0 31078 Article rating: No rating
  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. Publish your numbers, and explain to people how what they do affects the company as a whole and its success/failure. Once they see the numbers, employees quite often start to modify their behavior for the better.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

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

Anthony Etzel 0 35888 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 73134 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: Operational Inefficiencies

Kathy Barthelt 0 78132 Article rating: No rating
Two big sources of inefficiencies in manufacturing are paper and spreadsheets. Think of how long it takes you to get paper based data into the hands of those who can do something valuable with the data.
 
  • Is the information captured correctly?
  • Can everyone access the information?
  • Is this an accurate representation of what’s going on across all operations?

Make your shop floor paperless and put systems in place that talk to one another and automatically pull and push data to and from your ERP so that you can look in one place for all the information you need to run your business effectively.

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Shop Order Status Codes

Anthony Etzel 0 32415 Article rating: 3.0

Shop Order status codes have been improved to provide a more comprehensive view of the life cycle of a shop order.

In addition to the previously existing ‘Shop Order Status Code’, the Production Status Code has been added. This code is designed to indicate progress and completion levels of each shop order.  Valid codes are:

‘blank’ - no completed items

25 - a partial quantity has been reported

35 - the quantity reported is equal to or greater than the order quantity

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Introducing VJES (Visual Job Execution Software)

You would be hard-pressed to completely miss the stories in the news recently about quality issues in manufacturing. The crux of the issue has been a complete focus on production and a lack of focus on quality. Yes, it is a wonderful thing to get the goods out the door, but when you’re sacrificing quality, what good is it really?

There are specifications for production for a reason. Engineering exists for a reason. If products are not built according to exact design specifications, scrap is likely to go up, rework goes up, customer returns and/or service requests go up, and customer satisfaction and overall customer confidence in your product plummets.

Is all of that worth it to get the good out the door in the shortest amount of time possible?

Every manufacturer relies on a few core measurements to manage their operations. Measurements like efficiency, productivity, capacity, labor and equipment utilization are used by manufacturers across the globe to benchmark performance and assess the effectiveness of processes.

Quality needs to be part of that mix. Because measurements like efficiency and productivity don’t necessarily mean high quality, incorporating ways to ensure quality from the start can help to eliminate waste and rework.

Manufacturing quality is achieved through quality control using documented, repeatable, and measurable processes.

What if you could incorporate quality control in every operation, at every work center to not only ensure high-quality finished goods but also simultaneously train high-quality operators?

Introducing Crossroads’ ERP independent solution, VJES (Visual Job Execution Software). VJES is an electronic work instruction interface between engineering and the paperless manufacturing floor. VJES makes available only one version of the work instructions – the RIGHT one. By deploying up-to-date, visually rich work instructions, images, and videos, VJES gives production personnel the best opportunity to build it right the first time and provides a way to track worker productivity during the build at every step.

VJES Overview

VJES achieves RESULTS:

  • Turn new hire welders into specialized welders in 2 weeks
  • Improvement of quality score from 68/100 to 93/100 in 12 months
  • During the first month of use, employee training timeframe improved from 1 week, to 3 days.
  • First pass yield percentage at 100% for 8 months straight this year.
  • Able to incorporate a quality cell after productivity increased due to newfound bandwidth received when adopting VJES.


Request a demo or Contact us to learn more.

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Kathy Barthelt

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