2. SAP Process Printing (PM, PO, PUR, BOM) with Attachments
In today’s competitive markets, all companies are striving to automate as many of the
business processes as possible. New technology is being introduced at such a rapid rate
that companies hardly have time to implement one technology before the next one is
introduced and they are being pulled or pushed towards it. The pundits shout that the
company must deploy this new technology or be left for the sharks as other smarter and
faster moving companies embrace the newest thing. Sometimes what companies fail to
see, because of pressures to compete, are some simple things that they can do to save
money, reduce manpower, become more efficient and effective.
This paper addresses one of those areas and can be stated simply, “are you sure that you
are getting the right documents to the right people each and every time”? This is a simple
question but think of the risks of not doing this.
SAP Process Printing – examples
Let us look at some examples. Using standard SAP you just generated a Production
Order that requires a number of CAD drawings to be sent with the order. Someone has to
go and manually print the CAD drawings. Ever think about what happens if the wrong
drawing is sent with a Production Order. How about an outdated drawing, a drawing that
may be out of production, or maybe a drawing that has not yet been released and is
actually “work in progress”? Want to manufacture thousands of wrong parts?
The same problems exist for Plant Maintenance Work Orders. How many times do you
need to attach other documents to a Work Order? Maybe a checklist? Maybe additional
instructions and drawings that are not part of the standard SAP generated output. What is
the cost to the business if the maintenance worker, for examples, calibrates a machine
incorrectly or uses the wrong tool and damages a part only because someone did not
provide him the right instructions? We even propose a simpler example; a maintenance
foreman grabs a number of shop orders (printed packets of paper) to work on and he
accidentally drops them on the shop floor. Can he easily put the many work orders back
together in the correct sequence?
Another method highly used today is the automatic generation and fax submission of
Purchase Orders. The attachments need to be printed and then faxed separately making
the process cumbersome and prone to errors.
Or what if someone has an important RFQ to send out that contains many supporting
documents including drawings, pictures, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and the
like. They print the RFQ and then print all of the supporting documents separately,
collate all the documents by hand, package the RFQ, and put in the mail, although they
would have preferred to do this all electronically.
There are common threads that run through all of the examples especially the impact of
mistakes costing a company time and money which should make most companies cringe.
Page 2 of 8 11/15/2005
3. SAP Process Printing (PM, PO, PUR, BOM) with Attachments
SAP Process Printing – the incomplete solution
Why does this problem exist? Basically SAP does not provide a solution for process
printing with document attachments. The Print buttons for all process transactions do a
nice job of printing the related SAP forms but printing any attached documents is left as a
user exercise. And what an exercise! Some companies have gallantly taken on the
challenge and enlisted a cadre of ABAP programmers, given them a stack of notes
published by SAP, and then left them to their own devices to design and implement a
method for producing process printing solution. Okay, exactly what kinds of challenges
do these courageous technicians face?
SAP Process Printing – the requirements
Let us start by defining a set of requirements for two areas that are equally important:
document storage and printing.
Document Requirement:
It is required to have the correct documents included in a work order packet.
Printing Requirements:
The print function within the R/3 transactions should allow the user to print SAP papers
and attached documents:
• In the correct sequence
• Bundled together
• To any printer in the network or selected output media including email, portal,
archive, CD, etc.
• As one print job
• Dynamically stamped and labelled for security and document control
Regardless of:
• The format of the documents
• Where the documents are stored
If we meet these requirements for printing and documents, we can eliminate many of the
potential problems faced today and insure that we are getting the right documents to the
right people each and every time.
Page 3 of 8 11/15/2005
4. SAP Process Printing (PM, PO, PUR, BOM) with Attachments
Documents
First we will address “having the right document”. How can we be sure that we are
sending the right documents with an order?
To have the right document, the document must be saved in a secure and controlled
environment, easily accessible to SAP processes. One important component that
companies have that they may not know they have is the R/3 document management
solution (DMS). You have R/3 and R/3 has a document management system. You can
link documents in R/3 DMS to business objects in R/3.
There are 3 crucial points to understand about the R/3 document management solution
which differ from using other document management solutions like Documentum,
FileNet or Humming Bird.
First, metadata (doc name, path, version, date, creator, etc.) is stored in the document
registry – not outside of the R3 system. You can use this metadata to your advantage as
additional stamps, labels or watermarks when printing this document to increase security
and identification. This is not possible if document indexes were stored outside the DMS.
More important, you can manage the life cycle of the document. You can create it, update
it, prepare it for print, issue it, supersede it, etc. You can store multiple versions of the
document to keep records of changes. Versioning can be handled manually or workflows
within SAP can be created that will automatically take a document through a versioning
and approval process. You also can control who has access to the documents and what
rights they have. In this way unauthorized access to the document is not possible.
Just because you are using R/3 DMS does not mean that documents must be stored in the
DMS. They can be stored in another repository including a file server. They are linked
to the R/3 DMS. DMS in effect becomes the index between R/3 and the document
repository for storing your attachments.
In summary, to insure you have the right document all of the time, a company should
consider using the SAP DMS as the catalog storage. Documents can also be attached to
processes by using the SAP Generic Object Service, but you do not necessarily get all of
the above mentioned benefits.
Page 4 of 8 11/15/2005
5. SAP Process Printing (PM, PO, PUR, BOM) with Attachments
Printing
Now let’s focus on the Printing Requirements as defined above. If we take a look at how
companies today are addressing these requirements, we find a number of diverse
solutions being used.
Some companies are performing the process manually which is the worse case scenario
due to the fact this is the easiest scenario to introduce errors and ends in the largest time
cost.
Other companies have stored their documents into the SAP DMS or another DMS
solution and print out the links to the required documents listed on the SAP papers, then
have someone checkout and print these attachments to be added to the SAP papers.
A few companies print out all of the documents using modified SAPSPOOL programs
which require all attached documents to be pre-converted to PCL and stored in the DMS.
This approach is better than other options, but still leads to many problems;
• Inefficient merging SAPSCRIPT and PCL
• Normally works only on a targeted printer
• Can’t manage paper sizes without reprogramming
• Plus much more
Almost all solutions require programming effort, plus additional manual effort.
Just a note about generating prints for attachments. To do so requires the user to have
access to the appropriate application. If a variety of application files are required, many
applications need to be available to a user who must then launch each application, read
the file, and produce the print.
Now what is the right way to do it? The easiest way to look at it is to walk backwards
through the process.
The last step is delivery of the Purchase Order, Work Order, RFQ, Sales Order, or
Production Order.
The delivery goal is that the order has to be automatically created by the order process in
an electronically deliverable format without any concerns about what the actual delivery
mechanism is.
The order itself needs to be a complete set of documents (SAP forms and attachments) in
the sequence defined by the order process. To easily identify the order, it would be
advantageous to have a cover page with the order number, and information on who,
when, and where the order was issued, a document index identifying each document in
the order, page numbering for each page in the order (just in case that Maintenance
Foreman drops the orders), and a trailer page to signify the end of the order.
Page 5 of 8 11/15/2005
6. SAP Process Printing (PM, PO, PUR, BOM) with Attachments
If the order is printed, it has to be printed as single set and not as individual documents as
normally happens. Printed individually will cost a company time, effort, and is error
prone since someone still needs to sort through the pages from a printer(s) and find the
documents that are part of the order.
The documents in the order must be easily identified that they are the correct documents
and belong to the order. All pages should be stamped and labeled to contain the order
number as well as any security or control information based on the document (for
example, a CAD drawing should have its current status stamped and highlighted). It
should be clear and easily visible to the person reading or viewing the order.
The process should automatically convert each and every type of document into a
printable form.
And probably the most important requirement is that the user need not learn anything
new. The user should be able to go into a SAP process transaction, enter an order
number, select the attachments to be printed and click on the Print button.
SAP Process Printing – the complete solution
What we would like to now describe to you is an available out-of-the box solution that
meets the above requirements for PM work orders, Purchase Orders, RFQs, Production
Orders, Sales Orders, and BOMS.
With a single click from your SAP Plant Maintenance, Purchase Order, RFQ, Production
Order transactions SAP forms (SAPSCRIPT/SAPGOF) are collected, attached
documents are added and sent as a single print job to the SEAL Systems Output Manager
where for each job;
• Additional documents are retrieved from any storage source
• Converted from the original application format (SAPSCRIPT/SAPGOF, Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, CAD)
• SAPSCRIPT is converted into viewable format with bar code information
• All pages stamped and labeled with DMS metadata
• Is wrapped with a cover and trailer page
• Is page numbered for sequence
Once the packet is combined into one source file, the whole set is delivered to;
• A desktop or high speed printer
• A fax machine
• An email or web page
• Archived if required
Page 6 of 8 11/15/2005
7. SAP Process Printing (PM, PO, PUR, BOM) with Attachments
Benefits
All this brings you to a complete solution with the following advantages to reduce risk
and avoid errors:
• Tight integration of the documents within the business process
• Use of watermarks and stamps result in documents linked to the business context
• Time/Date stamps and distribution details ensure auditable document control
• Page numbering to keep everything in the correct order
Avoid Redundancy and Increase Document Control:
• Store the documents only once – no need for multiple formats or PCL files
Save Time:
• No manual conversions
• Sequenced, collated output – all from within SAP – each and every time!
Summary
The key business case for any company implementing SEAL Systems’ Process printing
solution is not how long or how complicated it is to create different types of orders, but to
ask the simple question “can any company not afford to have the right documents to the
right people every time?”
Page 7 of 8 11/15/2005
8. SAP Process Printing (PM, PO, PUR, BOM) with Attachments
Cost Savings
There are two ways at looking at Cost Savings for implementing the above solution: the
first depends on a company’s current practices for producing orders, and the second one
is analogous to purchasing an insurance policy.
Examples for the first include cost savings in reducing the man power and time it takes in
producing orders. For example, if during peak times, a company is generating over 120
orders per hour. Looking up documents for just 10% of them would add another 2 hours
to the preparation time (that is just 10 minutes to look up, print documents collect
documents, merge with the order). If peak times are during the working day (8 Hours),
this results in a 16 man hour savings for each working day. It should be straight forward
for a company to perform a similar calculation for its situation.
The second savings benefit is less tangible because it is simply an insurance policy that
insures that no mistakes will be made during the order generation and delivery process.
No company plans for or budgets for mistakes but they happen and sometimes with
catastrophic results. Many examples can be sited. The investment in a solution like this
reduces risk and addresses the question, “are you sure that you are getting the right
documents to the right people each and every time”?
SEAL Systems
SEAL Systems is a leading supplier of certified SAP document printing and distribution
solutions. Its SAP solutions are currently deployed by over 300 companies. Major
offices are located in Germany, North America, and France, with additional partners in
Europe, Africa and Asia providing worldwide coverage, support and integration of our
solutions. To learn more about SEAL Systems, visit us at www.sealsystems.com or write
to us at info@sealsystems.com.
Page 8 of 8 11/15/2005
