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: Vendor Evaluation

Kathy Barthelt 0 76654 Article rating: No rating

Want to ensure that you have the materials you need when you need them?

Want to gain insight into your ability to fulfill current and future orders timely? 

Consider implementing a method of evaluating your suppliers. A good understanding of your suppliers’ capabilities and past performance allows you to better plan and deliver orders on time to your customers. 

Some ERP systems have built in features to track supplier performance data. Reports can also be written to gather the information you need.  By whatever means you can achieve it, getting those results could be eye opening and very meaningful to your business.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Transactions

Anthony Etzel 0 47387 Article rating: No rating

If you opt to summarize transactions, do so after a period of testing so that you can be certain that all models and aliases are working to your satisfaction. When you summarize, consider ‘Summary with Detail’ because this retains the detail transactions in GLH.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Creating Product Variants

Kathy Barthelt 0 72522 Article rating: No rating

If you specify a configurable item on the sales order line, you can configure or link a product variant.

An item is configurable if the Configurable check box is selected in the Item - General (tcibd0101s000) session.

Manufactured items with theDefault Supply Sourceset to Assembly in the Item - General (tcibd0101s000) session and Generic items, are always configurable.

Purchased items with the Purchase Schedule in Use check box selected in the Item - General (tcibd0101s000) session, can be configurable.

Crossroads RMC, in partnership with Infor, takes Yupo to LX 8.3.4

Crossroads RMC 0 28158 Article rating: 5.0

Yupo Corporation, a leader in synthetic paper, with products that are 100% recyclable, waterproof and tree-free, went live on Infor LX 8.3.4 on April 3, 2017. Yupo partnered with Crossroads RMC for this important technology upgrade. Included in the implementation were the Finance, Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Plant Maintenance (EAM) modules.

Crossroads RMC Takes Polar to LX 8.3.4

Crossroads RMC 0 30635 Article rating: No rating

Polar Beverages, the largest independent soft drink bottler in the United States, went live on Infor LX 8.3.4 on January 16, 2017. Polar partnered with Crossroads RMC for this important technology initiative. Included in the implementation were the Finance Supply Chain and Manufacturing modules. Phase 2 will include Adirondack Beverages, a subsidiary of Polar. This project will begin in Q3 2017.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Handwritten Inventory Tickets

Anthony Etzel 0 46068 Article rating: No rating

Are you still using handwritten tickets for your inventory?  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.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Ledger Default Account

Kathy Barthelt 0 70056 Article rating: No rating

If you do not wish to define a detailed mapping to various ledger accounts for specific integration transactions, you can map the corresponding integration document type to a default account. All the transactions of the integration document type for which an account cannot be determined based on the mapping scheme details, are posted to the default account.

 

The mapping of an integration document type to a default account is direct, without the need for element groups and mapping elements. No distinction is made on any of the transaction details.

 

Default accounts can be used in two ways:

  • Instead of a detailed mapping to various ledger accounts. All the transactions are posted to the same account. For example, all warehouse receipts are posted to the Inventory ledger account, without any distinction.
  • In addition to a detailed mapping. If a transaction cannot be mapped based on the detailed mapping scheme, it is posted to the default account.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Email Distribution Lists

Anthony Etzel 0 46929 Article rating: No rating

Email Distribution Lists are new in Infor LX Version 8.

With this feature, users can create groups to which they may add internal or external email addresses, and in turn, use the name of the group when sending out the email.

The email distribution list eliminates the need for a program change if recipients need to be added to or deleted from the group. 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

First8788899092949596Last

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