Steeb GmbH, a subsidiary of SAP, introduced its newest self-developed product around mySAP.com. Called as//print, it offers a solution for integrated handling of sales and production processes in the graphic arts industry. The solution combines its industry-specific functions with the advantages of the leading standard business software world-wide: SAP R/3. The main function of this industry solution is the print configurator that considers printing-specific peculiarities of configuration and estimation.

The company says it is possible to define different product types in Steeb as//print. They claim it fits within job printing, labels, folding boxes, newspapers, magazines, sheet printing and web printing.

Numerous functions are already integrated in SAP R/3 . Examples include the handling of multilevel or plant comprehensive processes, the sale of storage goods, production processes of batch production or anonymous warehousing.

UnITconsulting is a logo partner of SAP and the reseller and partner for the Americas of Steeb, a wholly owned subsidiary of SAP in Germany. Uwe Goehring has been implementing SAP systems in Europe and the Americas since 1985. Most of the people employed by UnITconsulting have 10+ years of experience with SAP software.
 
Steeb was founded in Germany in 1972 and acquired by SAP in 1992. Steeb has been implementing and developing SAP products for the middle market in Germany since 1980.

Uwe, tell us how many print companies use this solution.

as//print was developed by Steeb over the course of the last eight years. Its predecessor (add_print) is in use in 4 commercial printers in Germany. as//print itself is available since February 2001 and went live at Winter AG in Munich, Germany this May. That is the first live customer for the product. Other than what’s perceived, as//print is not a brand new product, but the successor of add_print and, more importantly, based on proven SAP technology. It is not a stand alone product, but only runs completely integrated with mySAP version 4.6D.

How are you getting the word out about as//print?

We have initiated and started the P3 consortium (www.p3-consortium.com). There were three meetings held so far with good participation: a two day conference in Charleston last September, a meeting at ASUG in Miami Beach in May and a meeting in Chicago at Moore Business Forms this September.
 
Also we have presented the product at SAPPHIRE, SAP's North America Users Conference, ASUG, the American SAP Users Groups trade show and NEXPO, the newspaper conference in New Orleans 

The support for JDF and other common standards - what involvement do you have with these efforts and organizations?

as//print is fully JDF compatible and any new developments will adhere to the standard. UnITconsulting has been in contact with Heidelberg and is being updated on any new efforts and developments 
 
SAP, with its industry solution Media, offers compatibility with newest efforts regarding digital asset management, intellectual property rights management and advertising and circulation management.  

The power of mySAP.com and the integration into that solution appears to be very important. What will this product do for printers?

The advantage of a combination of SAP with as//print over other software products in the printing industry clearly lies in the fact that SAP's ERP system is far superior in terms of Financial Consolidation and Reporting, HR, its logistics functions and the aspects of maintenance, support and future developments. Having as//print on top of that brings on any functions specific to the printing industry and makes this product undoubtably the best choice for a printer any size. 

How was as//print developed and what are some of the features?

as//print was developed over the course of the last eight years. Steeb, because they are dealing with mid-sized companies, were involved with SAP implementations for printing companies and soon detected that the standard SAP had some shortcomings for that industry.

They then developed add_print and eventually as//print. Its main features are the capability of dealing with the fact that in printing - every job is different. This vast variety of products cannot be covered with creating material masters for every job and then never use them again. Even SAP's Variant Configurator cannot efficiently provide the functions necessary since it lacks flexibility and doesn't allow for changes easily.

Another problem is the fact that standard SAP requires the creation of the estimate in a document like a Sales Order or Quotation. Subsequently the resulting demand is pushed through MRP and eventually into production orders. Once a change at the time certain operations have been confirmed for production, the estimate will have to be reconfigured in the Sales Order and the process reinitiated from the start.
 
as//print uses what we call a Print Configurator that is a separate entity and the estimate is created and configured independent from any document. Only after the configuration / estimate is complete, the scheduler 'blows' the information out into the Sales Order, Quotation and Production Orders. Should a change occur, the scheduler goes back to the Print Configurator to apply the change and recalculates the price. Then the change can easily be applied to the document of choice.
 
as//print also provides functions for 'Ganging' and 'Co-Production', allowing for the creation of estimates for different run quantities and provides a pre-configured client with valuable pre-configured settings every printing company may find useful
 
Most importantly, since it is integrated with SAP it can tap on SAP's vast array on functions and make valuable use for it when it comes to cross-plant planning, forecasting and scheduling, financial consolidation and reporting, inventory management and procurement and HR to name just a few. 

Describe the demographics of your customer.

Any commercial printer, direct mail, fulfillment or magazine, book, newspaper printer of sizes US$50 Mill up to US$5Bill. Also packaging companies - three dimensional printing and paper companies that sometimes print on their products. 
 
Also anybody who has a very high variety of products and deals with heavy 'Make to Order' processing and approaches limitations with the variant configurator. 

Comment on how UnITconsulting differs in terms of expertise. 

UnITconsulting is the only reseller of as//print in North America. Our people are trained and educated in as//print and we all possess extensive experience in dealing with printing and packaging companies and their specific challenges with implementing SAP or other products like Radius and printCafe. We consider ourselves the IT experts in the industry, claiming to know business drivers and issues the industry is facing. Our customer base includes the Vertis Group, Moore Business Forms, Henry Wurst, webcom Canada, Cox Newspapers, Cox Target Media, K/P  Corporation, Georgia Pacific, and many more.