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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

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Clusters in LN

Kathy Barthelt 0 69436 Article rating: No rating

A cluster is a group of one or more warehouses in a particular geographical area. You can plan an item by cluster (geographical area).

To enable this, you can set up multiple plan items for one item. You always define one plan item without a cluster indication and multiple plan items with a cluster indication. A plan item with a cluster is called a clustered plan item, and a plan item without cluster is called the non-clustered plan item.

The plan items in the clusters can be supplied not only by distribution, but also through purchase and production. In this way, you can, for example, plan local purchasing in a cluster (geographical area). You can also plan supply from multiple sources.

 

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BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: When More = Less

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Do you have bottlenecks in your process due to product changeovers or breakdowns?
Maybe the answer is adding redundancy in the department where you are experiencing the problem. A duplicate machine setup can allow for double the capacity during high production periods. It can also eliminate the need to swap out tools or other materials due to different production runs. When breakdowns occur, equipment can be swapped out to keep production moving while repairs are being made.

Planning for this keeps production levels high.

 

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: When More = Less

Kathy Barthelt 0 69750 Article rating: No rating

Do you have bottlenecks in your process due to product changeovers or breakdowns?

Maybe the answer is adding redundancy in the department where you are experiencing the problem. A duplicate machine setup can allow for double the capacity during high production periods. It can also eliminate the need to swap out tools or other materials due to different production runs. When breakdowns occur, equipment can be swapped out to keep production moving while repairs are being made.

Planning for this keeps production levels high.

 

 

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Crossroads RMC Presents: How-To Webinar - Modernize Your IBM® i Screens

Crossroads RMC & Rocket Software

Anthony Etzel 0 31350 Article rating: 5.0

Crossroads RMC Presents
How-To Webinar 
Modernize Your IBM® i Screens
With Crossroads RMC & Rocket Software
 

If you missed the webinar March 28, 2017, you can watch it now.

Learn how you can modernize your IBM i green screens with a GUI software product that installs on the IBM i. This software is easy to use and does not require a server to drive it.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Web Services

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Web Services can be very helpful for LX users to obtain updated information directly from the source, for example:

  • LX users can use a web service to request a stock check on an item for which they are going to issue a purchase order. Users can get item availability and updated pricing before placing the order.
  • LX users can also use a web service to get real time shipping charges from UPS, Fed Ex, etc. Once the user selects the appropriate freight charge, it can be added to the customer order while the order is being placed over the phone.

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Use of Calendars in LN

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Enterprise Modeling Management module in Common: define the calendar of companies (company calendar) and enterprise units.

In the People module, you can link calendars to teams of employees. The Hours and Expenses module in the People package uses this information to get the default number of hours from the calendar lines.

In Common, you can link calendars to business partners and addresses; Procurement and Sales use this information when planning goods transfers.

Manufacturing: link calendars to work centers. The work centers' working times determine the available production capacity.

 

Warehousing: link calendars to warehouses.

Service: use calendars to specify when a cluster is available for servicing.

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Save the Date: LX Communities WebEx- Shop Floor Application hosted by Crossroads RMC - March 14, 2017 - 10:00 AM CST

Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - 10:00 a.m. Central

Anthony Etzel 0 28831 Article rating: 5.0

Register Today!

Infor LX Communities Virtual WebEx on Shop Floor Applications
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
10:00 am | Central Standard Time | 1 hr

Attend this conference to discuss: 

  • Problems and concerns with the Shop Floor Application
  • Routing file and Work Center file reviews showing how specific settings can determine the expected outcome for shop floor information
  • Is downtime a big concern? How is downtime captured today? Is downtime considered when setting up capacity parameters?

Crossroads will have a team of seasoned consultants on the call.  This team has been working with the BPCS/LX ERP since the mid 1990’s.

Crossroads RMC has been an Infor partner for 10 years and offers a complete and comprehensive set of software solutions to support manufacturing optimization for companies running on the IBM i platform. Our solutions focus on delivering real-time visibility and control over your entire operation. With over 30 years of experience, Crossroads RMC has become a trusted advisor and technology partner for manufacturers across the globe. 

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Use of Calendars in LN

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  • In the Enterprise Modeling Management module in Common, you can define the calendar of companies (company calendar) and enterprise units.
  • In the People module, you can link calendars to teams of employees. The Hours and Expenses module in the People package uses this information to get the default number of hours from the calendar lines.
  • In Common, you can link calendars to business partners and addresses; Procurement and Sales use this information when planning goods transfers.
  • In Manufacturing, you can link calendars to work centers. The work centers' working times determine the available production capacity.
  • In Warehousing, you can link calendars to warehouses.
  • In Service, you use calendars to specify when a cluster is available for servicing.

 Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

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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.

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