I am a relativly new system administrator who has been asked to help out with implementing Par Counting / Cycle Counting.

What I know is that we have Lawson 9.0.0.1 Environment with MSCM installed.

We have Dolphin handhelds that connect to the 'MSCM Server' (in reality we have everything loaded on one HP DL580 for Dev/Test), and can log in.

That is about all I know about.

When I click on any of the buttons on the handheld after logging in (Par Count, Cycle Count,...), I get a message that says, "There are no forms to count" (or something similar).

Can anyone please give me a general overview of *all* the pieces that are necessary for a successful 'Par Count'.

For that matter, what is a 'Par count'?

Thanks in advance.

> Log on to support.lawson.com
> Click on "Product" at upper left
> Click on "Documentation"
> Search for "par count"

The first manual that shows up is the "Par and Cycle Counting Guide" for Release 9.0. I think that that's the manual you want to read. :coffee:

> Click on a title to read the manual - they are all .PDF's
> After you have opened a manual, save it to disk for future reference!

So in a nutshell:
- I set up locations and items...
- Freeze inventory...
- Download current inventory to handheld...
- Add/Subtract, etc using handheld...
- Upload back to Lawson...
- Un-Freeze inventory...

Approx correct?

tgelfuso:

It sounds like the process you outlined is for the cycle count (mini inventories is how I like to think of them). The process for doing the par location counting would be slightly different. A "Par count" is when you have smaller suppply closets or shelves in several areas throughout the facility. I believe this may be something unique to healthcare but I could be wrong. Those individual supply closets or shelves are called "par locations". You may have one on each nursing unit, for example. Each par location has a defined list of items that are stored there. Each one of those items has a certain "par level" meaning how many of item X you should always have. For example the par level for medium gloves could be 3 boxes. So you should always have 3 boxes on the shelf at that par location.

Somebody goes from location to location (1x or 2x a day maybe) and counts each item and then, using the handheld device, enters the number of each item presently on the shelves. The MSCM software knows the par level for each item at each location so you just enter what is there. So let's say you see 1 box of gloves. Enter "1" for that item and when you sync to the server it would generate a list for the storeroom that says you need 2 more boxes of gloves for that location.

Sounds like maybe your setup may not be complete. But once it is, the stuff does work pretty well.

-GW

You only need to freeze your item count if you want to do the cycle counting. Par counting is different, it creates requisition for each items that went under the Par level when you transmit your count. This is similar counting using IC83, but you're using the handheld device. You need to check if there are Company or Locations added into your MSCM database, do a count or dump the MSCITEMLOC in your Lawson application server, if there are records, log in to your MSCM web application (http://yourserver.com:port/mscm) go to Location Management and make sure Company and Locations were added to MSCM. Then go to User management and make sure that you assigned Location access to your user id.

Arvin