1. Waters
Success with Document
Distribution and Publishing
In 1958, an enterprising young scientist named the desktop user,” says Mr. Pease. Instead,
Jim Waters, with an eye for innovative the conversion from the native file format to
technology, founded Waters in the basement of PDF happens automatically in the background
a Framingham, Massachusetts, police station. as soon as the document in question is
In the half century since its beginnings as a processed to “release” status. The PDF is then
“research boutique,” Waters has grown into a stored automatically.
$1.4 billion international corporation, with over
4,500 employees at sites throughout the United Seal Systems’ Document Output Management
States, Europe, and Asia. (DOM) system, which handles both small and
large printers, is also used on a daily basis at
Renowned for developing and producing Waters. This system collects various DMS
reliable, highly specialized analytical objects, and stamps each component for
instrumentation, Waters products are used in a identification. In the case of Waters, many of
wide range of industries: food safety, forensic their processes involve including a mandatory
toxicology, pharmaceutical corporate stamp. With DOM
discovery and development, from Seal Systems, a user at
and even neonatal genetic Waters is able to print a
screening. document, secure in the
knowledge that it will
Under its guiding mission to automatically receive the
provide “break-through pertinent stamp.
technologies and solutions” to
their clients, Waters builds As their relationship with Seal
and tests more than 20,000 Systems grew, Waters came
individual products every to utilize more and more of
year. These highly their solutions. So, when the
specialized separation Milford, Massachusetts, facility
science instruments can not was looking for a way to
only analyze a liquid down to optimize the assembly,
a level greater than parts per identification, and distribution
billion, but some of Waters’ equipment can of critical production drawings, it was only
actually identify individual molecules in a natural that Seal Systems be called in for
sample. consultation. “It began as a ‘grassroots
suggestion,’ if you will,” reports Mr. Pease.
The company first went online with the SAP
Conversion Server in 1998. “It was a big Up until that time, a full-time employee had to
bonus to us from the start,” recalls Shawn be dedicated to assembling these packages.
Pease, a Senior Business Analyst at the The process was inefficient, to say the least,
Milford, Massachusetts, facility. The SAP and took days, if not weeks, to assemble a
Converter was especially useful when a single package. After searching SAP for the
document went through a change in status. necessary material, the employee would then
“[The SAP Conversion server] allowed us not search the material line by line in order to
to put the burden of creation of digital paper on determine which documents (and which
© 2007 SEAL Systems Inc. 1

2. version of each respective drawing) were also serve as the foundation for future work
meant to accompany the package. Next, a processes.
printout had to be assembled manually. Then, After the initialization of the DPF, the formerly
a PDF copy of the entire package had to be Herculean effort required for each project was
saved on a local hard disk. Only then could the reduced to mere moments. Now, the
drawings be sent off to its new destination. employee punches a number into a field in
SAP, and the DPF automatically produces the
Considering the sophistication of Waters entire package. What once took two weeks
instruments, it is little surprise that these now takes less than half an hour. “And that’s
packages were complex: a typical effort with reviewing all the output,” Mr. Pease notes,
required 400 separate print jobs. In fact, the “making sure he’s got all the right numbers”
employee responsible for these gargantuan before submitting the project.
assemblies reported that the very last manual
assembly he performed, just prior to going live “Additionally, I do get people stopping into my
with SEAL Systems Digital Process Factory office occasionally to say that they like [DPF],”
(DPF), consisted of 435 print jobs. This Mr. Pease adds. He credits much of DPF’s
means he had to go into SAP, conduct his popularity with its user-friendly operation. “It's
transaction by transaction search, print, not all that common around here for regular
convert and publish files 435 times! “It would daily SAP users to spontaneously say they
be two weeks into the project before he could appreciate a new feature of a system,” he
deliver his effort to the supplier,” recalls Mr. admits.
Pease.
The results are clear: Digital Process Factory
slashed the assembly time required for
complicated packages from several weeks to
mere minutes. Not only that, but DPF’s ability
to streamline the process of converting and
identifying documents yielded a greater level of
accuracy, saving even more time, which was
formerly devoted to correcting outdated or
Fortunately, Seal Systems had a solution to the mislabeled transactions. Without having to
problem: the Digital Process Factory (DPF). contend with the waste of their pre-DPF
DPF utilizes process modules, known as process, Waters can now concentrate their
working units, which can be combined to form dedication to “the science of what’s possible.”
user-friendly process chains. These chains
can be used for everything from the conversion
and publication of PDF files (including the
conversion of different formats to or from PDF)
to the distribution of information through a wide
variety of media. DPF can also bookmark or
watermark particular files for added security
and ease of identification. To learn more about Waters and their products please
visit www.waters.com.
As an added bonus, the user can view the
working units graphically, making the
construction and supervision of the processes
more readily accessible, and, therefore, less SEAL Systems Inc.
prone to error. Should an error occur, 338 High Street
however, DPF automatically generates a Maryville, TN 37804
(865) 380-0005
report, detailing any errors which occurred www.sealsystems.com
within the process. These working units can
© 2007 SEAL Systems Inc. 2