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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: Understanding What Goes On – Out on the Factory Floor

Anthony Etzel 0 33062 Article rating: No rating

Ok… so you want to know the status of a specific shop order that was released two days ago.

What do you do?

It’s a sure bet that you have a manager, supervisor, or planner who can walk the floor and find the order at whatever work center it happens to be at. He/she can then answer “what operations have been completed and how many were completed?” All this requires leg work, and of course, a fair amount of time.

Now, if you have setup your BPCS master files properly, and you report transaction activity, you should be able to get those shop order statuses much faster using the SFC300 Shop Order Inquiry Screen.

At your fingertips you can see:

  • Release date & due date
  • How many hours remain in total and at each operation
  • The quantity required, what was finished and the remaining quantity
  • What components (materials) have been issued

Pretty basic information, right? Are you getting what you need to know? If not, then you may want to reexamine how your BPCS files are setup and what transactions along with their frequency are captured.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

December Lunch & Learn Webinar for BPCS & LX!

ERP Data Analysis Made Easy!

Anthony Etzel 0 26018 Article rating: 5.0

Want answers to questions like…

  • Which lines of business are performing best, and what products are being sold?
  • Who are my top-performing sales reps, and what products are they selling?
  • What trends can I see based on my customers’ purchases?
  • What warehouse orders are planned over the next 6 months and do I have enough inventory on hand?

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Get all of this and more with easy drag and drop capability all without touching your ERP system or creating custom reports!


1:00 p.m. ET | 10:00 a.m. PT

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Learn How to Create Views for:

  • Accounts Payable
  • Accounts Receivable
  • Labor
  • Material Costs
  • Production
  • Sales Orders
    And more!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Role-Based Security

Anthony Etzel 0 37291 Article rating: No rating

Role-Based Security introduces role type profiles and allows combining the use of role profiles with the traditional LX user type security profile functionality. The new role type profile can be defined to allow or deny access to All Products, Attention Key, Programs, and Transaction Effects.

Facility, Warehouse, and Company securities are still defined solely by the user profile settings and are not affected by the assignment of a role. Where applicable, the role authority is displayed alongside the user authority on the security profile maintenance screens making it easy to see where there are differences in authority between the user and the assigned roles.

When users are assigned to roles, security access in LX becomes a combination of authorities granted or denied by the role plus any user exceptions. User exceptions override authorities set by the roles. A user can also be assigned to more than one role.

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Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Strategies to Issue Materials – LN

Kathy Barthelt 0 77271 Article rating: No rating

LN offers you various levels of control for the issue of materials. You can specify a different method for each material.

Available methods to control the quantity of the issue:

  • Direct user control over the quantities to issue
  • Quantities determined by the allocations

Available methods to control the time of the issue. LN issues the material:

  • After a user gives a command
  • At the allocation date
  • Immediately when the production order is released

Special methods:

  • Backflushing
  • Floor stock

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Flexfab Selects Crossroads RMC for Company Wide Implementation of Data Collection for Infor LN

Crossroads RMC 0 33375 Article rating: 5.0

Flexfab Horizons International, Inc, a global leader in the manufacture of high performance silicone and other advanced polimer products, has selected Crossroads RMC’s Data Collection Solution, RMC3, for their company wide solution for data collection. The initial implementation will take place in Q4 2017 at their location in Nottinghamshire, UK and will focus on improvements in warehouse management. Applications to be implemented include Receiving, Inspections/Approvals, Putaway, Stock Transfers and Stock Inquiry. Flexfab is already a long time user of RMClabel for all of their barcoding needs. This product is made to work seamlessly with all of Crossroads RMC's data collection applications, so the incorporation of this solution will also be part of this project. Implementation for Flexfab US will occur in early 2018.

BPCS/LX TIP OF THE WEEK: ARE YOU STILL USING HANDWRITTEN TICKETS FOR YOUR INVENTORY?

Anthony Etzel 0 34452 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!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Are You Still Using Handwritten Tickets for Your Inventory?

Kathy Barthelt 0 52283 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!

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Why Would You Buy a BMW, But Use a Scooter?

Anthony Etzel 0 34284 Article rating: No rating

Congratulations! You bought that shiny, new car! It has all the features you can possibly want and goes a million miles an hour. It can take you anywhere your heart desires…….but you rely on a manual scooter to get you around. You know, the kind you had when you were a kid…BEFORE you could drive…before you could afford the BMW. Make sense? Uh... no.

You’d never do this, right? So, why are you doing this with the ERP system that runs your business? Why are you relying on spreadsheets and separate little Access databases to record and store the information that is the most critical to your business when you have an ERP system that is meant for this? Why continue to plod along at a snail's pace when you have the tools to take your business to the next level?

Your ERP system is your BMW. Use it. See what it can do for you. Think you’ve used it to its potential? Unlikely. We’ve helped customers breathe new life into their EXISTING ERP version all by unlocking functionality for them that was already there and ready to use! We’ve also helped by offering add-ons to the ERP that can make your productivity skyrocket.

Ask us how. We’ve got an extra set of keys to the BMW in case you lost yours.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Tips & Tricks for EXECUTIVES

FINANCE: Using Dimensions

You can independently define dimensions and use them to prepare analyses of ledger account transactions and balances. You can use up to 12

dimension types. You can define a name and an entire structure of dimension codes for each of these dimension types. There is no relationship between the dimension types.

For example, you can set up these dimensions:

  • Dimension Type 1 = Cost center
  • Dimension Type 2 = Item group
  • Dimension Type 3 = Business unit
  • Dimension Type 4 = Geographical area
  • Dimension Type 5 = Activities

You can separately define the dimension structure for each of these dimension types, in other words, you can set up a dimension structure for the cost centers, a structure for item groups, and so on.

You can define the number of dimension types that you use in the Group Company Parameters (tfgld0101s000) session. If you have several financial companies in a company group, the dimension types used apply to all the companies in the group.

You can name the dimension types and define linked objects in the Dimension Type Descriptions (tfgld0102m000) session. You can then define the dimension codes to be used in each company in the Dimensions (tfgld0510m000) session. You can also make multilevel dimension structures with totals and subtotals. You can build a dimension hierarchy of up to ten levels.

In the Dimensions (tfgld0510m000) session, you can define the dimensions for each dimension type, and link the dimensions to parent dimensions and child dimensions.

Dimensions are always used together with ledger accounts. For each ledger account, you can define which dimension type or types are linked to the ledger account in the Chart of Accounts (tfgld0508m000) session. For each dimension type, you must select whether the dimensions type is MandatoryOptional, or Not Used by the ledger account.

When you enter a transaction, you must first state the ledger account. Then you must enter a dimension for each Mandatory dimension type that is linked to the ledger account, and you can enter a dimension for each Optional dimension type.

For example, the sales revenues ledger account is linked to dimension type 2 (item group) and dimension type 4 (area). The dimension type 1 (cost center) and dimension type 3 (business unit) are not used for the ledger account. The freight costs ledger account is linked to only dimension type 1 (cost center). The other dimension types are not used for the ledger account.

For each dimension type, you can define one dimension with an empty dimension code. If the dimension type is Optional for a ledger account, LN posts transactions for which no dimension is specified to this dimension. In this way, differences between the ledger history and the dimension history can be avoided.

In the Cross Validation Rules (tfgld0151m000) session, you can define the ranges of allowed dimensions by ledger accounts. You cannot change the dimension range for a ledger account that occurs in an unfinalized batch.

You can create transactions for Financials from the integration with other LN packages. You can enter these transactions into ledger accounts and into dimensions. You can define the assignment to ledger accounts through the Mapping Scheme (tfgld4573m000) session.

You can use the dimensions to split the transactions on the customer and supplier control accounts by departments, persons responsible for the revenues, costs, properties, debts, and so on.

The dimensions also provide the basis for the cost allocation in the Cost Accounting module. In CAT, you can allocate the costs (and any revenues) within a dimension type from one dimension code to another and from one dimension type to another.

TECHNOLOGY: High Contrast Skin

The high contrast skin can be activated by users who experience low vision, color-blindness, or similar visual impairments.

If the high contrast skin is active, LN UI is colored so that all controls comply with the WCAG AA norms for accessibility.

Guideline 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)

The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. For level AA, these exceptions apply:

  • Large text: large-scale text and images of large-scale text have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1.
  • Incidental: the following text or images of text have no contrast requirement:
    • Text or images of text that are part of an inactive user interface component.
    • Text or images of text that are pure decoration.
    • Text or images of text that are not visible to anyone.
    • Text or images of text that are part of a picture that contains significant other visual content.
  • Logotypes: text that is part of a logo or brand name has no minimum contrast requirement.

OPERATIONS: Blocking Operations

Note: The Blocked Operations (tisfc0540m000) session displays the blocked operations.

Introduction

Sometimes a problem occurs that must be solved before an operation proceeds. Examples of such situations are:

  • The quality of an intermediate product must first be inspected.
  • A machine is in repair.
  • A supplier cannot deliver an essential component in time.
  • A customer is late with its payments.

In these situations the operation can get the operation status Blocked.

An operation can be blocked:

  • Manually.
  • Automatically by Quality.

Blocking reasons

Every blocked operation must have a blocking reason. The blocking reason of a blocked operation has two purposes:

  • To indicate why the operation is blocked.
  • To determine which actions you can no longer perform on the operation.

Types of blocking

The following actions can be blocked by means of a blocking reason:

  • Reporting a quantity completed.
  • Reporting a quantity rejected.
  • Reporting a quantity to be inspected.
  • Reporting an operation completed.

You normally carry out these actions in the Report Operations Completed (tisfc0130m000) session.

You can define blocking reasons in the Blocking Reasons (tisfc2100m000) session.

Manual blocking

Use the Report Operations Completed (tisfc0130m000) session to block an operation. When you block an operation, you must also enter a blocking reason. If Quality has already blocked the operation, you can only enter a blocking reason, which is more restrictive than the blocking reason of Quality.

Blocking by Quality Management

Quality uses the blocking reasons specified in the Quality Management Parameters (qmptc0100m000) session, to block operations. For details, see the Using QM for manufacturing operations topic.

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Kathy Barthelt

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