Re: Offline Shipping enhancement

Ray,

The "Offline Shipping Enhancement" is a free, EXTREMELY useful download from Infor/XA (used to be SH14019, I assume it still is?). We were one of the 1st to implement it (in fact, we put it in while it was still be developed). What did it do for us?

1. Eliminated the need for us to use the COM "Pick/Pack/Ship" process (which we all know is the epitome of efficiency). Instead, the items were logged as they were picked and shipped and invoiced at the end of day in a batch mode, integrating with free shipping software from UPS and FedEx (see #3 below).

2. Allowed us to resequence the COM picking list document (we called it a "shipper") to be in actual stock location sequence, increasing picking efficiency sufficiently to allow us to reduce picker headcount by 33%, while the parts picked increased by 30% during the same period.

3. Allowed us to very easily integrate UPS WorldShip and FedEx Ground's system systems to add freight charges and tracking numbers via their automatic ODBC interface.

4. Allowed us to create a very easy to use picking logging program that the parts pickers used to record what they picked. This had several additional benefits for us:
4a) We eliminate the need for clerical people to process the pick/pack/ship in COM. That actually reduced our required clerical data entry people from 4 to 1. Quite a savings!
4b) Since we used Item Balance allocation (code 1) to allocate the inventory, when the part was physically picked and recorded, we changed that record's allocation code to "discrete allocation" and created the SLALLO record to show that the item was actually picked for the specific order. That gave the sales people in Customer Service the ability to know that the item was already picked and would be shipped that day.

All that being said, implementation took some programming - all the Offline Shipping Enhancement provided us was the databases to populate to process the shipments in batch mode (you could do it interactively if you desired, and we did that for backorder processing in selected situations), and the programs to process the files.

I gave a presentation on this at one of the MAPICS Conferences - I still have it and could forward it to you if you want - let me know.

Dale "Cork" Gindlesperger, CPIM
Senior Business Analyst


-----Original Message-----
From: mapics-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mapics-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ray
Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 4:17 PM
To: mapics-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [MAPICS-L] MAPICS-L Digest, Vol 7, Issue 218

Can someone give me a little detail on what is described as the "offline
shipping enhancement" for R6?

I have implemented off line shipping for clients in the past but it's the
distant past. The current client does not have any of the off line shipping
files.

How do they get "enhanced"?

Thanks, everyone.

Ray Yancey




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