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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: 4 Benefits to Consider - Cross-Docking

Kathy Barthelt 0 78633 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 31250 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 36092 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 73688 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 78463 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 32596 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!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Notes Maintenance Enhancements

Anthony Etzel 0 33200 Article rating: No rating

The Notes Maintenance feature enhancement is made up note programs that are accessible from a central location. The Note Text Maintenance (SYS555), Note Type Maintenance (SYS553) and Multi Language Notes Maintenance (SYS556) programs are all available as menu options. 

The Notes Maintenance feature provides a way to create, revise, delete, and copy note text that are categorized by note types. The print options in Notes Maintenance permit a user to define documents for which the note is intended. This includes base LX documents and custom documents. In addition, the notes program provides a way to define notes by assigning document types.

LX Notes allows the user to go to one location and customize print options, specify user documents, manage multi language notes and manage user-based note security through the defined Security Template program.

 

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Are you still using handwritten tickets for your inventory?

Kathy Barthelt 0 80126 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!

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Year-End Processing Checklist for Period and Fiscal Year Closure

The conclusion of the fiscal year is inevitably a hectic period, making it crucial not to overlook essential tasks within your ERP system to ensure a seamless year-end close and set the stage for a successful start to the upcoming year. Below are critical items to include in your comprehensive checklist:

Year-End Close Process:

  1. Remove discontinued items.
  2. Eliminate sold purchase receipts.
  3. Clear lot attributes for sold lots.
  4. Update standard cost based on the current cost field (for environments without Manufacturing only).

Prepare for Year-End Close:

  1. Conduct a comprehensive physical inventory and update quantities before the actual year-end or establish a robust cycle-counting program.
  2. Review and post any applicable sales and purchase invoices/returns.
  3. Prepare users for a year-end push to complete all year-to-date inventory adjustments, receipts, and invoicing.
  4. Determine procedures for handling new year transactions without immediate posting.
  5. Establish new standard costs for the upcoming year (Manufacturing).
  6. Discuss cutoff dates for removing Archived BOMs and Closed/Canceled Mfg Orders (Manufacturing).

Finance Specific Items:

  1. Set up financial periods for 2024 (fiscal, reporting, and tax, as applicable).
  2. Open January period in 2024.
  3. Finalize any outstanding transactions from the current year (2023).
  4. Perform a soft-close for any open periods in 2023.

General Baan/LN Tips:

  1. Issue any pending old sales invoices.
  2. Resolve outstanding financial integration errors.
  3. Establish new integration mapping for 2024 as needed.
  4. Test the mapping in a controlled environment before the new year.
  5. Review and update jobs to ensure they will process in 2024.
  6. Determine, for cash-flow purposes, which purchase invoices won’t be paid until 2024.
  7. Verify that calendars are set up for the new year with holidays correctly indicated.
  8. Check jobs to ensure that any with hard-coded dates will point at the new year.

For additional insights and tips on year-end processing, refer to the relevant documents in the Infor Knowledge Base.

 KB 

 Content 

 1879191  

 Document including step by step procedure, possible error/warning messages, and more (Infor LN) 

 1147023 

 Step by step procedure description (Infor LN)

 1116239 

 Step by step procedure description (Infor LN)

 1117334

 Step by step procedure description (Infor LN; Portuguese)

 1171300 

 Step by step procedure description (Baan IV) 

If you require assistance or have any questions, feel free to reach out to us, and we'll gladly guide you through the necessary steps to ensure a thorough and accurate completion of your year-end processes. Contact us at 1.800.762.2077 or via email at solutions@crossroadsrmc.com. Your success is our priority, and we're here to help.

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Kathy Barthelt

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