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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: Estimates Versus Actuals

Kathy Barthelt 0 81237 Article rating: 5.0

So, how many of you have updated the estimated cost of material and labor in your ERP system recently? ……Hmmmm. That’s what I thought.

Do you have any idea how accurate those numbers are? Are you making business decisions based on estimates that are completely inaccurate?

Consider switching from estimates to actuals. Furthermore, consider implementing an automated data collection system to make this easy. By collecting production and labor data real time, you can gain real insight into your business and you gain the ability to look at the profitability of individual jobs, projects and employees.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: 4 Benefits to Consider - Cross-Docking

Kathy Barthelt 0 79489 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 31922 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 36849 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 74658 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 79610 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 33456 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 33999 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.

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Tips: LN | Baan

Infor LN & Baan Period End & Fiscal Year End Processing Checklist

Year-end is always a busy time and it is easy to forget things that must be done in your ERP system to close out the year properly and also set you up for a good start to the following year. Here are some things that you should make sure to add to your to-do checklist:

The year-end close process provides an opportunity to:

_____ Remove discontinued items.

_____ Remove sold purchase receipts.

_____ Remove lot attributes for sold lots.

_____ Update standard cost based on current cost field (for environments without Manufacturing only).

Prepare for Year-End Close

_____ Conduct full physical inventory and update quantities before actual year-end or establish a strong cycle-counting program.

_____ Check for any applicable sales and purchase invoices/returns and post.

_____ Prepare users for a year-end push to complete all year-to-date inventory adjustments, receipts, and invoicing.

_____ Determine how to handle new year transactions without posting.

_____ Determine what new standard costs should be entered for the upcoming year. (Manufacturing)

_____ Discuss cutoff dates for removing Archived BOMS and Closed/Canceled Mfg Orders. (Manufacturing)

Finance Specific Items:

_____ Set up the financial periods for 2022 (fiscal, reporting, and tax, as applicable).

_____ Open period January in 2022.

_____ Finalize any outstanding transactions from the current year (2021).

_____ Soft-close any open periods in 2021.

General Baan/LN Tips:

_____ Issue any old sales invoices.

_____ Fix any outstanding financial integration errors.

_____ Set up new integration mapping for 2022 as needed.

_____ Test the mapping in a test environment prior to the new year.

_____ Review & update jobs as needed to ensure they will process in 2022.

_____ Determine for cash-flow purposes, what purchase invoices won’t be paid until 2022.

_____ Make sure that calendars are set up for the new year with holidays properly indicated.

_____ Check jobs to make sure any that are hard-coded with dates will point at the new year.


Want even more tips for year-end processing? See the following 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) 

Need help? Contact us and we’ll be happy to walk you through what needs to be done to ensure that everything is done correctly and completely. 1.800.762.2077 or solutions@crossroadsrmc.com

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Kathy Barthelt

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