Infor BPCS provides process and discrete manufacturers in the chemical, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, automotive, consumer packaged goods, and some other industries with end-to-end, fully integrated support for the core business processes. Your mixed-mode operations of manufacturing presents you with a more constantly changing mix of unpredictable and predictable challenges. Whether you are focused on the large-volume repetitive products, make to order products or just something in between, you require an ERP solution that effectively eliminates all uncertainties that you face in your main business processes.
Infor BPCS Overview
This great solution helps users improve their bottom line through;
- Improved cost margins and controls
- Increased levels of customer service that greatly enhance repeat business.
- Consistent delivery of good high-quality products thus reducing return rates, write offs and rework
- The ability to quickly adjust to change across the entire supply chain without risking delivery and quality performance.
- Regulatory compliance in certain areas such as CFR Part 11, FDA Article 21.
- Efficient operation of global operations or a single facility.
With this solution, you obtain an integrated software and hardware platform specifically designed for the mixed-mode manufacturers. With this solution, you obtain capabilities for key business processes, including; planning, product data management, accounting, procurement, sales, logistics and process, discrete and lean manufacturing.
Infor has also developed a certain program known as Infor Flex for the System i customers. With Infor i Flex you get a fast, cost-effective and clear path for adopting latest system i enterprise resource planning capabilities.
With this solution, you greatly benefit from:
- New functions and features
- Reduced-fee, fast implementation methodologies
- Incentive pricing for the additional modules, users, or complementary solutions
- More value for your maintenance investment
With this solution, you obtain a good package of financing, services and software to bring your enterprise resource planning capabilities in line with the future and current requirements.
As a mixed-mode or discrete manufacturer, the pressure on margins is really huge. With more demanding customers and rising costs, you need to efficiently deliver the same good high-quality products and services at the same or even lower price. A good way to deal with these challenges is systematically doing more with less. This then means improving customer service, finding more efficient means and ways to meet legal and regulatory requirements, leveraging new channels, managing shorter lifecycles of products and streamlining complex distribution and production operations.
Infor has developed Infor ERP LX to help the Infor BPCS users to effectively handle their complex business challenges now and also in the future. Infor has developed Infor LX amazing new capabilities that greatly improve customer service and planning, enhance overall productivity, streamline the complex manufacturing processes and help control costs. Featuring embedded workflow exit points and easy navigation this solution ensures the accuracy, consistency as well as the timely availability of important information.
Infor LX delivers various tangible business benefits which can significantly enhance operations of mixed-mode and discrete manufacturers currently using the Infor BPCS solution. The benefits include;
- Reduced compliance cost
- Reduced ERP ownership cost through effective infrastructure and system consolidation.
- Improved product traceability as well as reduced risk of recall
- Increased efficiency by eliminating manual processes
- Improved capacity utilization and cash flow while meeting the customer service agreements.
- Reduced finished products inventory
- Increased inventory accuracy.
Infor BPCS enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration
Provided and also maintained by varsity, this solution’s interface seamlessly exchanges order and shipment data between this solution’s enterprise resource planning and varsity’s ShipPack and ShipSoft.
Seamless shipping and order management
By tightly integrating ShipSoft and ShipPack with BPCS, this solution interface greatly enables order processing from the order entry to delivery. Order and shipment information is shared throughout the organization enabling;
- Accurate shipping costs for analysis and invoicing
- Instant visibility to simplified requests and shipment status for the proof of delivery
- Rate shopping, proper selection of shipping quotations and options of rates of shopping at order entry.
Adaptable technology
This solution’s interface uses very flexible points of exit and a clearly externally described P-List or parameter list to the elements of map data from BPCS into ShipPack or ShipSoft and to return results back to this solution. The key BPCS files that are used for this interface are LSHL01, ECHL01 and ECLLIPPL14. Varsity pulls the needed shipment data like the ship-to address, pick number and quantity directly from BPCS database. The shipping details including freight charges, package ID, tracking number and weight are then passed back, which can be effectively used to update the files in BPCS. Effectively designed for flexibility, the method of exchanging data can be easily tailored to efficiently support virtually any process of supply chain.
This solution’s interface can be used anytime to initiate the order processing process in ShipSoft. This interface allows the ‘invisible’’ order processing without requiring additional screens or user inputs. Also available is the visible mode where the ShipSoft screens are effectively populated with the BPCS data and the shipments are managed from ShipSoft. The BPCS and Varsity systems reside on system i platform thus resulting in superior throughput, reliability and speed.
Open standards-based architecture
This solution uses technologies based on open standards such as SQL, XML, .NET and also the internet to process and exchange data between the trading partners and the solution’s systems. Developed on .NET platform using powerful C# language, it has very extensive capabilities to offer customized solution that is perfectly designed for your EDI business process. Some of the advantages of using the open standard based on architecture are;
1. Internet communication
By using very secure internet connections so as to establish the exchange of documents between your system and the EDI customers, Mega XML greatly empowers you with amazing extended functionality as well as communication capabilities.
2. Portability
Open standards offer portability between various ERP and EDI versions
3. Data integrity
Outbound and inbound EDIFACT and EDI data are perfectly converted into XML and then validated against the XML schemas; thus, there is no chance of dangerous data getting inside your solution’s system.
Extensive Data Validation
This solution and Mega XML is ready to assist suppliers and buyers comply with their business partners’ EDI requirements. This solution and Mega XML performs effective extensive validation of all the contents of transactions.
Infor BPCS/Mega XML supports the smooth handling of XML, EDI and EDIFACT transactions with various data transportation channels through which the transactions can be easily exchanged such as – AS2, FTP, VAN, web services, SOAP, HTTP and more.