Infuse Automated Corporate Output Management into Your Business Processes

E n t E r p r i s E i n f o r m at i o n m a n a g E m E n t | S A P i n S i d e r S P e c i A l r e P o r t Achieve Operational Efficiency, Sustainability, and Cost Savings Infuse Automated Corporate Output Management into Your Business Processes David Salamanek Managing Director and CEO SEAL Systems, Inc. i n some circles, sustainability is only a buzzword that inspires futile “green washing” from the marketing department. However, more companies are becoming must effectively manage the resources involved in pro- ducing these work packets and meet deadline restrictions on those resources’ availability. aware of the powerful benefits of sustainability and its cost-saving effects on business operations. SAP is helping Designing the Paperless Enterprise to lead the charge here, showing the valuable connec- Several modules — including plant maintenance (PM), tions between sustainable solutions and ROI where they production planning (PP), and materials management count most: in the business model. (MM) — provide the facility to attach documents, such While evaluating external business and marketing as work procedures and routing information. When these expenses is a good first step, companies can identify attachments are required, sometimes by federal regula- additional cost-saving opportunities by looking inward tion, generally one option is available: Print the order at daily, operational activities. For many industries, this and then resolve and print each attachment individually. includes plant operations, production facilities manage- It can be a tedious, error-prone process. ment, procurement, and a host of other business units. To help, SEAL Systems has developed out-of-the-box But people too often overlook a cost-saving opportu- solutions that automatically identify and collect attach- nity in the required reporting around these processes, ments, eliminating unnecessary steps and inaccurate which typically involves paper-based output. These information. Numerous features — such as stamps and paper-heavy processes — even those that use digital rep- watermarks for document control, direct-to-web or desk- resentations of key documents — can act as a valuable top publishing, sequenced and page-numbered output, starting point for enabling sustainability and savings. and administrative monitoring of the system — provide a comprehensive, automated solution (see Figure 1). Costly Effects of Paper-Based Processes By adding these automated collection and distribu- Consider the time and cost involved in producing a stan- tion tools to their document-based processes, companies dard packet of orders for a production facility or mainte- can create reliable, sustainable solutions that eliminate nance department. For example, a planner may produce common document management mistakes while reduc- several work orders in a day and then have to transfer ing costs. With additional plug-in software for SAP Figure 1 q SAP orders and attachments are these orders to the shop or plant. Any errors in manually systems, many of the manual or partially automated delivered directly to collecting and distributing these packets can have cata- procedures used in common business practices can the web via SEAL strophic and costly results. To identify any source prob- quickly be brought online in a fully automated system. Systems’ solutions lems in their planning and execution phases, companies In addition, paperless systems make it easier to disperse critical business information to key decision makers — they’re much more efficient than the typical process of emailing reports. Learn More SEAL Systems’ solutions can close operational loops, plug reporting gaps, and add valuable enhancements to components in your ERP and product lifecycle manage- ment systems. To learn more about enhancing opera- tional efficiency, visit www.sealsystems.com or contact david.salamanek@sealsystems.com. n Reproduced from the Jul n Aug n Sep 2010 issue of SAPinsider with permission from its publisher, WIS Publishing | sapinsider.wispubs.com