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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: Vendor Maintenance Security Option for Company or Program

Anthony Etzel 0 39216 Article rating: No rating

The Vendor Maintenance Security option is in the Purchasing System Parameters program(PUR820D). The purpose of this program is to provide an additional security option for VendorMaster Maintenance. To access this program, the user selects the Parameters Generation option from the System Functions menu, SYS500. The user can modify the Vendor Maintenance Security parameter from PUR820D-04 in the Purchasing System Parameters program.This feature provides an additional security parameter for Vendor Master Maintenance.

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BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: 6 Powerful Steps to Win With Automation

Anthony Etzel 0 35469 Article rating: No rating

1. Eliminate paper shop packet and distribution of the paperwork to the shop floor.  

2. Eliminate manual (paper-based) recording activities and the need to key in the transactions.

3. Easy electronic scheduling by sequence and changing job priorities.

4. Evaluate differences using actual times compared to standards.

5. Improve data accuracy and eliminate the need to chase and fix errors.

6. Practice Real-Time data reporting to monitor efficiencies and identify problems as they occur.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: GRINYA Reconciliation – What Could Go Wrong?

Kathy Barthelt 0 78574 Article rating: No rating

One common GRINYA issue would be incorrectly entered Integration Setups.

Check the Baan or LN manual for recommended Integration setups. If such a mistake were to occur, it is important to know for what period of time the Integration was in error.

To ensure, it’s recommended that the Integrations Setup tables should be audited either through Baan/LN or Database Auditing. Corrections can be quickly calculated when an exact timeframe can be determined.

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

Anthony Etzel 0 29192 Article rating: No rating

With this enhancement, the Purchase Receipts screens are optionally shown with the quantity and weight fields populated with the open value on the purchase order.

Previously the user had tomanually enter the quantity received or, for a dynamic weight and measure items, the weightreceived for each line on the purchase order.

Now the screens are populated with the open valueand if the open value is the same as the value received, the user can simply accept the line.

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: 4 Reasons You Need Timely & Accurate Data

Kathy Barthelt 0 75274 Article rating: No rating

Seems obvious – you want real time data and you want it to be accurate. Do you have the systems in place to allow for this?

Here are 4 reasons you need a data collection system:

  1. See the differences between actuals and standards
  2. Determine the source of project overruns
  3. Prevent mis-shipments to customers
  4. Avoid unnecessary reordering of parts

An automated data collection system will analyze your current data, allowing you to efficiently optimize your manufacturing and the benefits will be huge and far reaching.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Blonder Tongue Looks for Success on LX With Crossroads MES

Anthony Etzel 0 30639 Article rating: No rating

Blonder Tongue, a global communications equipment supplier for TV broadcasters and cable system operators, has selected Crossroads RMC to upgrade their ERP from BPCS 6.0.04 to the latest version of Infor LX. As part of this project, they will implement FIN, MFG, SCM and Webtop on LX, and will incorporate process improvements company wide in phase 2. Crossroads MES will go live over 6.0.04 in Q4 2017 with a planned cutover to LX as part of the ERP go live in Q1 2018.

Blonder Tongue, a global communications equipment supplier for TV broadcasters and cable system operators, has selected Crossroads RMC to upgrade their ERP from BPCS 6.0.04 to the latest version of Infor LX. As part of this project, they will implement FIN, MFG, SCM and Webtop on LX, and will incorporate process improvements company wide in phase 2. Crossroads MES will go live over 6.0.04 in Q4 2017 with a planned cutover to LX as part of the ERP go live in Q1 2018.  

Blonder Tongue, a global communications equipment supplier for TV broadcasters and cable system operators, has selected Crossroads RMC to upgrade their ERP from BPCS 6.0.04 to the latest version of Infor LX. As part of this project, they will implement FIN, MFG, SCM and Webtop on LX, and will incorporate process improvements company wide in phase 2. Crossroads MES will go live over 6.0.04 in Q4 2017 with a planned cutover to LX as part of the ERP go live in Q1 2018.  
Blonder Tongue, a global communications equipment supplier for TV broadcasters and cable system operators, has selected Crossroads RMC to upgrade their ERP from BPCS 6.0.04 to the latest version of Infor LX. As part of this project, they will implement FIN, MFG, SCM and Webtop on LX, and will incorporate process improvements company wide in phase 2. Crossroads MES will go live over 6.0.04 in Q4 2017 with a planned cutover to LX as part of the ERP go live in Q1 2018.  
Blonder Tongue, a global communications equipment supplier for TV broadcasters and cable system operators, has selected Crossroads RMC to upgrade their ERP from BPCS 6.0.04 to the latest version of Infor LX. As part of this project, they will implement FIN, MFG, SCM and Webtop on LX, and will incorporate process improvements com

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Estimates Versus Actuals

Anthony Etzel 0 32905 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 80359 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!

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Anthony Etzel

How to Improve Customer Shipments With OTTO - A Case Study

Setting Industry Service Standards

Shenandoah Manufacturing, a $20 million producer of poultry-raising equipment (heaters and brooders), had been having difficulty for some time shipping orders to customers in a timely manner. They had successfully implemented a popular ERP system and had been using it for more than 3 years, yet the situation didn't improve. 

Customer Service Representatives were complaining about the frequent backorders and late orders. Employees were giving it their best effort, but were frustrated, and customers were threatening to take their business elsewhere.

The company considered installing an APS system as a possible solution, but found implementation would be difficult, expensive, and running the system might be a challenging task as a number of key business practices would have to be changed. A consultant familiar with OTTO suggested they look at that product as an alternative to APS. Several OTTO aspects cited by the consultant convinced them to consider a cursorily review. Specifically:

  • The non-intrusive nature of the product.
  • It's relative inexpensive initial investment.
  • The low overall total cost of ownership.
  • The integration with their ERP system.

The initial demonstration was impressive. OTTO was installed on Shenandoah's server within 45 minutes of arrival and, most impressively, it was fully functional with their real “live” data immediately. Needless to say, the demo was well received. Even more importantly Shenandoah was able to “test drive” the software to prove its applicability before making any dollar commitments.

According to Mark Shank, Information Systems Manager, some baseline measurements were made last year, and it was determined that approximately 50% of their customer orders had shipped on time. As they began using OTTO, on-time order performance rose to 90% for the month. And Shenandoah caught up on its entire backlog and started working ahead on February's orders. In February on-time shipment performance jumped to 92% and subsequently on-time performance has ranged somewhere between 98.3% and 99.5% — well above the 96% goal set by Management.

OTTO provides the means for keeping the whole production organization focused on the few things that have to happen as the ship date approaches to get each order shipped on time. Components that have the potential for delaying an order are identified so they can be managed. Shenandoah's staff, a precious and limited resource, now concentrates on analyzing information and managing the right things at the right time rather than digging out date. To quote one production control individual: “what use to take hours now takes seconds.”

According to Roy Hackett, Plant Manager: "Knowing the right things to pay attention to at the right time — information provided by OTTO — has allowed on-time shipping to be improved by 40 percentage points in less than one month and a lead time reduction from 3-4 weeks to 1-2 weeks on the most important products"

Guessing at what and how much of the work being processed is for real customer orders versus planned orders is eliminated which is especially important when capacity is short during the heavy portion of the business cycle. 

“By focusing on the right things at the right time, production expedites and interruptions are far fewer, production flow is much smoother and productivity is significantly improved.”

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Anthony Etzel

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