CIMS (Wavemark) RFID Inventory mgmt system

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R Phillips
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    We are exploring the use of a RFID inventory management system, Cardinal CIMS (formerly Wavemark), with Lawson for our Heart and Vascular areas. It will require four interfaces; Item Master (outbound), Requisition (inbound), PO (outbound), and On Hand (inbound for managing on hand quantity in inventory).

    Anyone have experience interfacing with CIMS/Wavemark or any other inventory system? Any advice or issues we should keep in mind?

    Thanks!
    Greg Moeller
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      We have experience interfacing the Item Master from Lawson. We use IC527 job to create the interface file. One thing we noticed early on was that we needed to make sure that we had our items converted to the lowest UOM possible. You're experience may vary, but something to be aware of.
      RQ500 for your inbound reqs, and IC500 for decrementing inventory should work well. Don't have experience with outbound PO's other than EDI.
      R Phillips
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        We were going down the same path, but my database team is telling me that we cannot use RQ500 since our version of Lawson will not take the CSV file. We are on Lawson 9.0.1 msp7, but they are saying it requires a patch which makes so many changes it might as well be an upgrade. Surely people were loading outside requisitions on v9 and earlier. There has to be a way or am I dreaming?

         

        Thanks!

        Greg Moeller
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          The file format may be different for your version... I know that it is do-able though as we were once on that same version, and I'm sure that we were using RQ500 at that time. Seems to me that the imput file was just 1,000 characters shorter?? (I can't seem to find my notes).
          R Phillips
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            That sounds correct, but now I am hearing we are going to have to have a custom interface written to accept the file and load it into Lawson. Surely, that is why RQ500 is there. Is there a time where RQ500 did not work? Everything I have read points to scheduling RQ500 to run to create Reqs. I am re-searching old threads. I did find one about RQ511 for bringing in HL7 format.
            sea2sky
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              I created the interfaces between Lawson and a different RFID system. The standard interfaces like RQ500 will work and are in your best interest: you have to be thinking about the cost and complexity of long term ownership. Custom interfaces are expensive and often cost-prohibitive.

              The key issue is an understanding of the architecture of the systems. It is unlikely that you are going to transact and track your inventory in Lawson at the GTIN level (as a general rule); whereas, an RFID system will probably want to work that way. Therefore, when you integrate your setup and your primary keys for entities like locations and basic transactions like receipts will have to translate appropriately. 

              I don't know the Cardinal system, but a quick insight can probably be achieved by walking through the REQ to check process for a simple transaction. The interaction between the two systems, particularly when the receipt happens will be revealing.