7 Indicators It’s Time for a New ERP System at Your Industrial Business

Investing in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is the best thing you could do for your business to stay productive. However, simply implementing one and never reevaluating it from time to time could hurt your business more than helping it. That’s because with ever growing advancements in business technology, sometimes older systems get outdated. Hugo Britt at thomasnet.com shares seven ways to tell that your ERP system is outdated.

  1. It Isn’t Cloud-based
  2. It Isn’t Mobile
  3. It Lacks Features That Are Now Industry Standard
  4. Vendor Support Has Been Discontinued
  5. It Can’t Integrate New Technologies
  6. It’s Creating Manual Work
  7. It Can’t Keep up with Regulatory Changes

An outdated ERP will incur plenty of loss for a company over time. Consider reevaluating your current system and determine if you need to update to a newer, better-integrated system.

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Changing to a new ERP and using Punch Out?

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Many ERP systems allow for a much longer location ID than Lawson does.

Many Punch Out vendors have limitations on the size of the location ID.  Make sure to validate with any Punch Out vendors you may have before you come up with a new location naming convention. Otherwise you may have to revisit this item later.

Infor and Snowflake Partner to Build Automated Data Warehouses with Birst Full-Stack Analytics & BI Platform

Infor’s latest partnership with cloud data platform Snowflake will help enterprises build automated data warehouses using the Birst full-stack analytics and BI platform. Birst is a single, integrated, end-to-end platform for building automated data warehouses natively on Snowflake, which eliminates the need for separate ELT/ETL (extract, load & transform, and extract, transform & load), data modeling, data preparation and analytics tools. Per the press release,  joint customers can use Birst’s self-service data preparation capabilities to blend end-user-created data with enterprise data in Snowflake, providing true self-service for business users and analysts. Birst and Snowflake both run natively in AWS (Amazon Web Services), which speeds data processing and querying, while obviating the need to export data out of Snowflake.

 

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Stagecoach Digitalises Asset Management with Infor EAM

Infor recently announced that Stagecoach, the largest bus and coach operator in the UK, has selected Infor CloudSuite EAM (enterprise asset management). Deployed and supported by Infor partner Sapphire Systems, the cloud based system will help digitalize asset management at the bus company. Stagecoach has a large and widespread asset portfolio to which they were faced with a need t o modernize their current system by fully digitalizing their asset management practices. Stagecoach choice Infor CloudSuite EAM to support fleet availability, facilitate comprehensive warranty management and expedite vehicle recovery. Per the press release, Infor was selected based on its technology platform, scalability and fit with Stagecoach’s wider digital transformation goals. The software’s user friendliness and speed of performance were also key to the decision.

 

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Prevent wasted data when using ERP technology

Karlee Renkoski shares an article on bakingbusiness.com regarding the way we use data from our enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology. While ERP systems can gather an abundance of customer data, a good amount of companies have underutilized the effectiveness of of the data gathered, according to a 2016 study. The wasted information can be from a number of reasons such as not knowing they had access to such data, or selecting an ERP system and/or vendor (who assisted with implementation) with little or no knowledge of the chosen system. The way to fix this problem comes down to paying more attention in the ERP selection process, implementation and training. Lastly, understanding and analyzing the given data in the best way to help your business grow.

 

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From Data to AI: How these 4 tech trends are reshaping healthcare

The healthcare industry is continuing to digitally transform the sector. Isaac Kohen at medcitynews.com shares an article about the trends in the tech industry that are reshaping healthcare and making a significant impact.

Bigger, Better Data – With the help of wearables and mobile devices, patient awareness and real time aid is readily available for patients and physicians. The article states, “When coupled with other data collection initiatives, healthcare providers have more and more precise data than ever before, and this will transform both the way patients and doctors communicate and the ways that providers can collect patient data.”

Data Privacy, Finally – With the incredible amount of data gathered, privacy is a top priority. Per the article, “Healthcare data breaches are increasingly common, and they are, by far, the most expensive of any industry. Privacy is poised to be a major theme in the year ahead.”

Accountability for Insider Threats – With the progress toward securing data a goal for healthcare providers, the accountability for insider threats will also be a topic. Per the article, “From accidental data sharing to intentional heists, healthcare providers are recognizing that the biggest threat to securing the mountains of data they collect isn’t defending against an outside, existential force. In the year ahead, healthcare providers will be accountable for insider threats.”

AI & Machine Learning Infiltrate Healthcare – The articles states that “AI and machine learning will make a significant impact in several ways, including:

  • Chatbots will provide medical advice.
  • Smartphones will deliver additional data for computational analysis.
  • Integrated data silos will open up new analytical possibilities.”

 

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Troubleshoot blddbdict errors

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If you are performing a blddbdict as part of database changes, or as part of a product line copy, and you receive the errors “Dictionary Not Built – Fix Errors And Rebuild”, perform the following commands in LID:

setsfl

setnotused <productline>

 

After that, your blddbdict command should be successful.

blddbdict <productline>

Cotonificio Albini Digitizes Asset Management with Infor

Infor announced that Cotonificio Albini, famous Italian brand and the largest European manufacturer of shirt fabrics, has chosen Infor CloudSuite EAM (enterprise asset management) to help digitize the corporate asset management. Implemented by Italian partner Know-How, this will allow them to improve its management of the maintenance processes of the group’s assets and operating personnel. Formed in 1876, Cotonificio Albini manages a large portfolio of assets at its factories in Italy, Egypt and the Czech Republic. With no prvious IT system in place for controlling asset management, the selection of Infor CloudSuite EAM provides a global and unified platform with common graphics to control maintenance costs, purchasing and component replenishment. Cotonificio Albini will implement a series of modules relating to the request of the work order following the reporting of a fault, work order planning for maintenance workers, the procurement and consumption processes of spare materials and activities related to inventory, up to intra-warehouse transfers and specific user-warehouse authorizations. Per the press release, the rollout of the solution involves three phases, with the initial go-live during the first quarter of 2020 at three plants in the province of Bergamo, two in Albino and one in Gandino, which will be followed by the Brebbia plant (VA) and Tessitura di Mottola (TA) and finally the foreign branches in Egypt and the Czech Republic.

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SodaStream Puts Sparkle into Asset Management with Infor and GIV Solutions

Infor recently announced that SodaStream, Israel-based manufacturer of consumer carbonation products, has deployed Infor CloudSuite EAM. Delivered and supported by GIV Solutions, this deployment will facilitate more proactive asset management at the manufacturer, facilitating innovation, minimizing costs and maximizing performance. SodaStream was acquired by PepsiCo Food Corp in 2018, expanding the company’s reach in 45 countries, with more than 80,000 retail stores and about 35 million consumers. With the help of Infor CloudSuite EAM, SodaStream would be able to maximize the availability of production equipment and machinery and to enhance service and response times for maintenance while reducing costs. Per the press release, the EAM system is deeply integrated into the SodaStream ERP system and the control systems of the production floor, meaning that the lifecycle of all assets can be managed fully. SodaStream is expecting to benefit from best-in-class asset management capabilities that will underpin more consistent maintenance policies across all sites and support three languages. Kevin Price, Infor technical product evangelist & product strategist for EAM, says of the deployment, “Through its deployment of Infor CloudSuite EAM, the company will be well positioned to capitalize on improvements in visibility, control and decision-making to expand market share and drive performance and profitability.”

 

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IP Designer Series – Lawson Query Node

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The Lawson query node can be used to query Lawson data using the DME format.  In the properties of the node, click “Build” to build your query.  Select the product line from which you are trying to get the data.  Select the module and the table name where the data resides.  Choose the fields that you want to see.  You will also have an opportunity to choose related fields from other tables (i.e. a description from a parent table).  You can also use an index and provide keys for your query, using either hard-coded values or an IPA variable.  On the Criteria tab, you can select other fields besides key index fields to narrow your results.  You can use the Test tab if you don’t have any variables in your query.