This organization first came to LRS with a modernization initiative. The solution they had in place for managing SAP printing was not being developed further and had become outdated. As a result the maintenance had been ended at the initiative of the customer.

In depth reviews of the existing setup revealed that each printer had at least two definitions (to solve tray issues). The work involved was labor intensive and made the print infrastructure more complex. It also became clear that they were having Unicode issues.

The complexity of the multitude of printer definitions and problems with printing Unicode were easily solved by LRS. With the added benefit that IT would not need to spend a huge amount of time to define printers. With LRS® software they can automatically roll out the printer definitions to all connected SAP® Systems.

The Proof of Concept that followed concentrated on SAP related printing including BC-XOM communication, the autodefine SAP feature and OTF2PCL transforms including Unicode support and barcode features. These were valuable features since the customer was struggling to create barcodes and Unicode output on printers that were not specially equipped for those jobs.

After the proof of concept was concluded it was clear that LRS checked all of the boxes, both for the current requirements and future ones. Finding and implementing an agile solution that would also meet future requirements was the main driver for this project. The cost to the customer ended up being similar to that of the previous solution, with the cost savings in man hours for administering the print environment for SAP.

A second opportunity presented itself after the customer had successfully been managing SAP printing for a number of years. This time for workplace printing. They were faced with a need to centralize IT from all of their locations including their remote production facilities.

In the first meeting about this second project the customer revealed that they had administrative resources in all of their production facilities to maintain the workplace print infrastructure. They very much liked the idea of having the exact same setup for regular office printing as they had for SAP. And once again they would see high cost savings related to maintaining the print environment. Though the choice for LRS was a given, it took time for it to become a reality. But finally when the customer selected a new MPS provider, they did an instant rollout where all of the new devices were managed by LRS.

This project involved an IT outsourcer that controlled the servers. Neither the ITO or the customer’s own IT department had full knowledge on the print fleet. The setup of the printers was done by (local) IT staff and this setup was unknown to the ITO. After implementing LRS, the ITO administers the VPSX® server and deals with helpdesk tickets. But unlike before, the customer has access to the server as well. That way there is full visibility and control from one single point.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Centralized SAP print capture and direct delivery to the end user print device without the need for distributed print servers. The new SAP Print Management system spools SAP print data directly to print devices via the centralized VPSX print spool and associated VPSX print queue.
• Centralized management of print queues (add, modify, delete, re-direct).
• Centralized end to end visibility and management of all print processes.
• Resolved problems with the availability of printer queues as well as missing Unicode support and input-tray selection issues.
• Eliminated the need for distributed print servers which resulted in €100.000 cost savings annually. Further cost savings were realized for reduced admin and less helpdesk calls by offering the highest performance and service stability.

KEY DELIVERABLES

• Centralized SAP print delivery and print queue management.
• VPSX Enterprise and VPSX/OutputManager eliminated the need for 12 print servers.
• Centralized management for Workplace printing with support for VDI.
• IT agility with future-proof solutions that can support any new requirement (such as scan-workflows, mobile print, scan and/or printing via the cloud) the customer may have, including a hardware vendor agnostic solution for secure pull printing.
• Unicode support and barcode features.

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Learn how LRS solutions can add value to your print services offering. Visit LRSOutputManagement.com to learn more.