Hirschmann Automotive

• Sector Automotive
• Task Central admi­nis­tra­tion of the SAP system via the head office
• Top chall­enge Problem-free prin­ting as well as high avai­la­bi­lity at all produc­tion loca­tions of ship­ping, produc­tion and purcha­sing papers
• Top benefit Trans­pa­rency of prin­ting processes, reduction

The task

For simple tasks, employees at the foreign loca­tions should be assi­gned limited rights to manage prin­ters locally, such as for redi­rec­ting print jobs to other target prin­ters at short notice. Prin­ting from the SAP system was to be done directly to the prin­ters without having to run through addi­tional print servers in order to increase the trans­pa­rency of the print paths and thereby elimi­nate possible sources of error.

With these measures, Hirsch­mann Auto­mo­tive wanted to reduce down­time for trou­ble­shoo­ting, insta­bi­li­ties and the admi­nis­tra­tive effort by 50%. The goal was a simple, stable solu­tion that would func­tion reliably and be fail-safe.

The solution

The UniS­pool and Prin­Taurus solu­tions already in use could be easily adapted to future requi­re­ments as part of this restruc­tu­ring. UniS­pool – a print manage­ment system for hete­ro­ge­neous networks with its own spooler – already proved its suita­bi­lity for use in previous years and was opti­mally expanded with the Prin­Taurus manage­ment inter­face for SAP prin­ting. Prin­ting via WAN connec­tions to the foreign loca­tions was origi­nally the trigger for using AKI’s soft­ware: abso­lute stabi­lity, relia­bi­lity and perfor­mance distin­gu­ished the solution.

In just a few minutes, the prin­ting envi­ron­ment of the loca­tions in the univer­sity pool is mapped centrally from Rank­weil – a time advan­tage of about 70% for the IT depart­ment. The printer models used are limited to stan­dard models from only two manu­fac­tu­rers, which drasti­cally simpli­fies admi­nis­tra­tion and reduces the costs for printer main­ten­ance by about 2/3. The prin­ters meet the requi­re­ments for Post­Script and network capability.

All docu­ments for HR, finance, purcha­sing, ship­ping and produc­tion papers are printed from the central SAP system via the output manage­ment system UniS­pool directly to the target prin­ters at the loca­tions, world­wide, without addi­tional prin­ting paths. This led to more trans­pa­rency in the tracea­bi­lity of docu­ments and reduced unneces­sary sources of error.

In addi­tion, the device status of the target prin­ters is visible in UniS­pool at all times, which prevents problems during prin­ting. Exact logging from UniS­pool about the prin­ting processes enables precise verification.

The benefits

Gain trans­pa­rency, stabi­lity and high reliability

• Reduc­tion of error sources through direct prin­ting from SAP to the target printers
• Trans­pa­rency and tracea­bi­lity through logging of the prin­ting processes
• Time savings of 70% through uniform and stan­dar­dised prin­ting envi­ron­ment of all locations
• Cost reduc­tion of 2/3 by limi­ting the number of prin­ters to stan­dard models used throug­hout the company
• Stabi­lity when prin­ting over WAN connections