Improving Output And Print Management In An SAP Environment
Aus Salespoint
Companies today face an extremely competitive landscape with obstacles that prevent or slow their growth. Wasted resources in the form of operational inefficiencies (and improper print management in particular) can further compound these natural obstacles to business growth. But there are ways to increase operational and hardware efficiencies to improve overall output and production.
For example, in companies operating in a SAP computing environment, one can improve the use of SAP server resources by offloading print services from the SAP application servers. Separating a print management system from application servers would allow a company to improve performance on the application servers, but more importantly, it would allow them to create a print architecture independent from the native SAP print spooling system.
Making such a move would eliminate dependencies on native SAPscript to manage enterprise document formatting. This means investing in an off-the-shelf, standard electronic forms package that can manage document formatting, thus eliminating the high cost of maintaining SAPscript programming and staff expertise. An independent, non-native, compatible print architecture will also increase the efficiency of the IT organization and increase the efficiency of output- and print-driven business processes such as materials management, shipping, and Just in Time manufacturing processes.
Balancing Improved Efficiency and the Need for End-User Ease-of-Use
One option for improving print management efficiency is to install client software on machines throughout the enterprise. However, this entails not only the installation of the software on every single workstation, but it also requires training everyone in the entire organization on how to use it. For smaller businesses, this may yet be a viable option. For large, geographically disparate companies, however, a software solution such as this merely shifts the problem from print management systems to the need to (re-)train thousands of employees. Instead, end-users are most likely to use a tool if it operates within the same framework as the conditions they are used to.
Additionally, if a company wants their workforce to be able to fax print jobs directly from their application instead of printing them and then faxing them, or if they want the option of "printing" a job to an email for delivery instead of to a physical printer, they would not be able to do this in a SAP environment with client software installed on individual workstations without implementing significant application changes in the SAPscript. This becomes even more costly, but they are costs that can be avoided if a company properly researches the print management systems available on the market.
Plus Technologies' OM Plus print management software is an example of a third-party, zero client print spooler manager with cross platform functionality . The base OM Plus module installs on the server itself, with a centralized Java GUI User Interface providing systems administrators or help desk staff with an overview of their entire print operations. The included HTML User Interface allows "power" end-users to have advanced control of print jobs; however, since it is web-based, it is still a zero client solution requiring no enterprise wide training. All other users who just need basic printer status updates can see that using the standard SAP GUI. No modifications are required to either SAP applications or operating environments. The users just print as they normally do within SAP.
