Please Wait a Moment
X

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

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: What Could go Wrong With GRINYA?

Kathy Barthelt 0 166767 Article rating: No rating

One common GRINYA issue would be incorrectly entered Integration Setups.

Check the Baan/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.

It is recommended that the Integrations Setup tables be audited either through Baan or Database Auditing. Corrections can be quickly calculated when an exact timeframe can be determined.

Still have GRINYA questions you need answered?
Contact us. We’d be happy to help.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!
 

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Efficiency– The What & How

Anthony Etzel 0 50247 Article rating: No rating

Efficiency is something we all strive for in our personal lives and at work. How can manufacturers increase their efficiency? Take a hard look at the 4 key areas:

  1. Planning
  2. Bill of Material and Job Accuracy
  3. Inventory Planning
  4. Real Time Reporting / Processing 

Need help figuring out how to become more efficient in each of these areas? Contact us, we’d be happy to help.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Actual Versus Standard

Anthony Etzel 0 51276 Article rating: No rating

Job costing based on standards is great, but what if reality doesn’t match up to that?

What if jobs are really taking twice as long, and you don’t know that? What if jobs are taking ½ as long as you think, but you’re scheduling based on how much time they “should” take? Either way, you’re losing money and productivity. Getting a handle on start/stop times for jobs, and therefore the total amount of time actually spent allows you to take proper action and be more productive.

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Project Templates

Kathy Barthelt 0 184650 Article rating: No rating

Project templates are useful because you can specify all of the information that you would normally want to include when creating a new project such as project structure, budget and so on.

In Baan IV/V, project templates do not exist, but you can set up a project template by creating a regular project, and setting the status to simulated or free. This is done so that the project does not create plans. Under this scenario, you can easily copy one project to another.

In LN, when you create a new project, a template can be used as the starting point. This is similar to copying a normal project, but unlike normal projects, no costs or revenues can be posted on a template.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

 

Infor LX and Crossroads MES Selected by Blonder Tongue

Crossroads RMC 0 33023 Article rating: No rating

Blonder Tongue, a global communication equipment supplier for TV broadcasters, cable system operator, lodging video, Internet system, and institutional systems, has selected Crossroads RMC to assist them with a BPCS 6.0.04 upgrade to Infor LX. Crossroads RMC will be providing all applications and technical consulting for this project. Also included as part of the project will be the implementation of the Crossroads MES solution. Go live for both solutions is expected in January of 2018.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: LX 8.3.5 Facility Period Close

Anthony Etzel 0 44269 Article rating: 5.0

The Facility Period Close process was introduced in Infor LX 8.3.4 and has been enhanced in 8.3.5. This feature allows continuous or 24-hour worldwide operations in multiple facilities to submit Period End Close jobs for each facility as daily operations cease, or shifts end.

This enhancement provides a batch mode for the Facility Period Close (INV930) process and allows the Update IIM Inventory from IWI (INV931) process to be submitted from the INV930B program. The enhancement also provides a batch mode for the INV931 process.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Order Series Full – Switching to a Different Series

Kathy Barthelt 0 152708 Article rating: 5.0

In general, you can enter a different series in the order field if you have an available series.

To add a new series, find the appropriate group in the First Free Number session, and add a new series and first free number (usually 1).

In Baan IV, go to the Maintain First Free Numbers Session (under Common, Tables, Maintain Logistics Tables, Maintenance 1).
Groups are easily identified (e.g., Purchase Order, Sales Order, etc.).

In Baan V, go to the First Free Number Session (under Common Data, Tables, Logistics). There are number groups (e.g., 570 may be for Purchase Orders, 650 may be for Sales Orders, etc.).

In LN, go to the First Free Number Session (tcmcs0150m000 – it is in different places in the menu under different Feature Packs). There are number groups (e.g., 210 may be for Purchase Orders, 310 may be for Sales Orders, etc.).

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Revisit The Last Brilliant Idea

Anthony Etzel 0 47516 Article rating: No rating

Sometimes the best ideas have to be tabled due to competing priorities. That doesn’t mean that the idea was bad. Revisit previously suggested cost savings ideas, or ideas to make a manual process more efficient. Now could be the right time to do something great!

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

First8586878890929394Last

Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Improves control over PO costing changes during invoice entry by replacing passive warnings with an intentional override action.

  • In ACP500D3 (Invoice Entry PO Costing), users previously could unintentionally accept changes by pressing ENTER, even when quantity to cost or amount to cost values had changed.

  • A new “F14 to Override” warning message replaces the old message:
    “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”
    This ensures users acknowledge and confirm significant changes explicitly.

New System Parameter:

  • “Apply GRN Costing Tolerance for PO Costing” (optional):

    • Within tolerance: Displays the original message —
      “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”

    • Outside tolerance: Triggers the new override requirement —
      “F14 to Override”

Benefits:

  • Enhances oversight and reduces unintentional cost acceptance.

  • Enables better control of PO costs when invoice details differ from expectations.

Last

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.

Previous Article Infor LN & Baan Tip of the Week: Limitations of Customer Defined Fields (CDFs)
Next Article Infor LN & Baan Tip: Broadcast message to users
Print
66308 Rate this article:
5.0
Kathy Barthelt

Kathy BartheltKathy Barthelt

Other posts by Kathy Barthelt

Contact author

x

Categories