The Do Not Call List: Is it the tipping point for variable data and personalization applications?

Originally appeared in: OnDemand Journal
By Chuck Gehman
July 12, 2003

It’s clear that just about everyone, with the obvious exception of telemarketers, is ecstatic about the new National Do Not Call List. Estimates are that more than 60 million people will sign up. Within those numbers are the most sought-after demographics targeted by marketing professionals today.

Graphic Communications World, in their July 7th, 2003 issue, declared the list a “boon” for print. According to GCW, telemarketers made 104 million calls daily, and capturing $80.3 Billion from companies hawking their products in this way. That money has to go somewhere-- certainly, printing industry trade associations and analysts (not to mention printing company owners, as well as publishers) are among those that are extremely happy about this development, and almost universally assume that it will benefit print. This is most likely very true, but it is important to consider just how it will provide these benefits.

The fact is, print advertising and direct mail already targets those same families and individuals who have now added their phone numbers to the Do Not Call list. It’s hard to image that increasing the volume of advertising in the same channels will compensate for the loss of telemarketing. And that money probably won’t go to TV or other media, either, for the same reason. The Do Not Call List eliminates an important weapon in the direct marketer’s arsenal: direct, personalized communication. Telemarketing has been an effective tool because, armed with specific information about you, marketers have been able to directly target you with offers that you are more likely to buy.

Author Paul McFedries, on his “The Word Spy” web site (www.wordspy.com) defines a “tipping point” in epidemiology as “the concept that small changes will have little or no effect on a system until a critical mass is reached. Then a further small change tips the system and a large effect is observed”. The Do Not Call list could well be the catalyst that helps demand for variable and personalized print applications, which have been growing over the last couple of years, to reach such critical mass.

Except for some notable successes by forward-looking marketers, variable-data applications and database-driven print campaigns have been a solution looking for a problem. This isn’t to say that “statement stuffers” from companies like American Express haven’t been highly successful—they have. The difference is, we’re likely to see a whole new range of applications of these technologies as companies look to replace the campaigns they formerly waged over the phone.

Are printers going to be the ones who bring about this revolution? Quite frankly, probably not. Not because printers who have purchased variable printing technologies don’t have “a vision”, but because the need is driven from outside printing.

This is an opportunity for creative marketers in corporations and ad agencies to apply personalization in ways that haven’t yet been conceived. It’s up to printers and technology vendors to educate these people on what is technically possible, and to help them implement their ideas.

Do printers have a great opportunity to capitalize on this situation? Absolutely. Because printers are ideally positioned to provide solutions to the technical problems that marketers now have, created by the Do Not Call List. This is truly something new and unique that printers can bring to the table for their corporate and ad agency clients. It’s the kind of application that will differentiate printers from their competition, and that can be highly profitable. To me, that sounds like just what the industry needs.

Streamline Before You Automate: Laying the Foundation for Computer Integrated Manufacturing

By Tim Daisy and Chuck Gehman, Printcafe Software, Inc.
Originally appeared in High Volume Printing magazine

April 2003

Although Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) has been around for over thirty years, it is only within the past two years that CIM has been seriously considered as a method for improvement within the printing industry (although newspapers, as an example, have been employing some CIM technologies much longer). One important reason why it has taken so long to gain a foothold in the industry is that commercial print is a custom manufacturing process. We face unique challenges as we attempt to automate processes around products that are different every time. It’s only very recently that it is becoming economically and technically feasible to reap the benefits of CIM in printing.

The phrase “Computer Integrated Manufacturing” was first coined in 1973, in a book by the same name authored by Joseph Harrington. The success of CIM hinges in part on streamlined production and business processes. Automating inefficient processes simply solidifies them and makes them more difficult to improve and change. This is one reason why a business needs to undergo a program of process improvement before realizing the increased profitability associated with CIM.

The reason for the newfound popularity of CIM in print is the evolution of the printing industry from a craft process to a manufacturing process, driven by the downward pressure on prices and profitability. The industry is learning that profitability can only be maintained if the craft is kept upstream of the production process. In other words, let’s leave the art to the artists. This shift opens up the production and business processes to a host of tools, both process and software, for improving profitability.

Identify the Waste

Waste is so often thought of as material waste – paper, plates, and ink. However other industries as diverse as the furniture industry to the semiconductor industry have discovered that most waste can be identified and reduced by focusing on time. Identifying wasted time in a process also identifies wasted materials. The first step in any process improvement program is identifying and reducing wasted time in all business and production processes and a highly effective tool for doing this was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1980’s call AΔT (A-delta-T).

AΔT is the difference (Δ) between actual cycle time and the theoretical best cycle time. The delta represents the opportunity for improvement and is the basis for all process improvements moving forward. The tool is simple to use and is employed by those who perform the process being analyzed. AΔT can be used for all processes both business (invoicing, estimating, end-of-month close) and production (prepress, fulfillment, production.)

The first step is to map the process, roughly estimate the time necessary for each step in the process and identify to customer-centric deliverable for the process. The customer may be the end customer or an internal customer.

The total time of the process is the actual.

Next, identify the tasks that do not directly contribute to providing the deliverable and mark these tasks as deltas.

The actual time less the deltas represents the theoretical best for the process and is the goal for future process improvement methods.

All of the deltas represent opportunity for improvement and should be eliminated, or at least be reduced to the minimum cycle time that the current process will support, before further automation can be put in place.

You can find out more about A-delta-T by visiting the Center for Quality of Management in Cambridge, MA, at their web site: http://cqmextra.cqm.org/cqmjournal.nsf/reprints/rp10500.

Attack the Waste

Much of the waste in any process involves waiting. Waiting time is an indicator of deficiencies in a process – information not being where it needs to be when it needs to be, inflexible staffing, an unsynchronized production process, running large batches for functional efficiency, etc. Additional waste can be found in re-running portions of a job, re-entry of data, and overrunning a production run. Let’s look at some basic examples.

We all know that often a press can output finished product faster than the bindery can accept the work. That’s a good example of “waste” in our own internal manufacturing process. Other examples can be found outside our manufacturing facilities. Simple, traditional industry business practices, like having salespeople deliver proofs to customers, and then waiting to have them approved, are ripe for process improvement. While it may seem like this is a good way to stay in front of the customer, it is actually a huge time waster for both the salesperson and the customer.

If you have 100 important accounts and 3 salespeople, it’s easy to see that they won’t be able to visit each of them even once a month; let alone often enough to make sure you don’t miss any jobs. So, in this example, the salesperson needs to leverage IT for process improvement by using tools like email, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and databases, and we need to use CIM and the Internet to automate the proofing and approval cycle.

Business negotiations can also be time wasters. The RFQ/Quote process should not involve paper forms today. If you are using paper forms, they will have to be keyed into a computer system at one point or another (whether into a print management system, or into a simple spreadsheet): this is time better spent on higher value activities. While it can be difficult to get customers to use a system to enter specifications, and in fact, they may not actually possess enough knowledge of print to generate a usable job spec, we can use new technologies to “collaborate” with the customer on specification entry, for example, using a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant, or handheld computer like a Palm Pilot.)

Fulfillment applications and re-ordering are also great examples of inefficient internal/external processes that can be streamlined. Processing these orders by hand using forms, or even by phone, is costly and wastes time. Having Internet systems integrated into your production management environment allows print-on-demand applications, variable print, inventory picks, and traditional offset re-orders to be merged into a streamlined process.

Mistake-Proof the Process

Re-runs and over runs drive wasted time as well as material waste. The root of this waste is generally in product quality procedures. A root cause analysis of re-runs and overruns can identify process inadequacies that many times can be solved with simple mistake-proofing procedures and quality software.

Software is available that enables you to quality check customer files coming in, and your own manufacturing input (i.e., imposed digital signatures ready for plating) so that no problem will ever make it onto the plate, let alone onto the press. However, in order to be effective, prepress manufacturing processes must be designed and implemented before the software and automation are even considered. We often refer to these manufacturing processes as “workflow” in our industry. So in many ways, the pre-press part of CIM involves implementing a strong, standardized production workflow that works “by the numbers”, rather than by “look and feel.” This is what takes us from Craft to Manufacturing.

Reduce Make-Ready Time

The auto industry was turned on its head in the early 1970’s when Japanese manufacturing techniques reduced the overall cost and time of auto manufacturing causing a recession in the US auto industry. The root of these improvements involved a reduction in make-readies across all aspects of the manufacturing process using a process called Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) developed by Shigeo Shingo. The key tenet of SMED is to move the majority of make-ready tasks from between runs to during runs. The remaining tasks then need to be vigorously attacked to reduce or eliminate them. This idea has been embraced by many press manufacturers and can be seen on many presses as far back as 1992.

Today, press automation and communication between business systems, prepress and press consoles are taking make-ready and job switchover to new heights of efficiency. The information flow, back and forth, is “closing the loop” between manufacturing and job costing data, enhancing the ability to profit from jobs with real information.

Tactical Implementation of CIM

Overall process improvement is strategic. Implementation of CIM is tactical. If process waste includes waiting for information, invest in the systems that put the information where it is needed. If process waste includes the re-entry of data into multiple systems, invest in integrated systems which share data so it is only entered once. If process waste includes waiting, invest in software which helps manage throughput and synchronization.

It’s becoming clear to many in the industry that information technology (IT) is a core competency for competitive advantage. It isn’t enough anymore to have the best press, the most expensive workstations and the most experienced people. Incremental competitive gains by virtue of quality are only taken away by price competition. You have to have an overall view of your business, and control over it, so jobs are produced with maximum efficiency, with the expected excellent quality, while still delivering profitability to the printer. That’s the advantage that IT and CIM deliver.

Is JDF CIM?

Frankly, the answer is no. However, many CIM solutions are enabled by the CIP4’s JDF, Job Definition Format. It is JDF that allows equipment and software to share information for a more streamlined production process. JDF is important today, and will certainly be more important tomorrow—but without taking a hard look at your current process and taking advantage of process improvements going into a CIM implementation, you won’t be able to take advantage of the interoperability and automation that JDF will provide.

Summary

The discussion of the replacement of legacy equipment, and whether older equipment can support Computer Integrated Manufacturing has become a hot button in the industry. But this may be the wrong place to look for improvement. While it’s easy to look at the big capital expenditures first, we may be missing opportunities by not adequately analyzing other ways to improve efficiency, profitability and differentiation in our product mix.

All printing plants have legacy equipment, but more importantly, legacy processes that may well need to be replaced, or perhaps, “re-thought” to enable Computer Integrated Manufacturing. Once you start looking at the business and manufacturing problems from the point of view of streamlining both your own, and your customers activities, the solutions become apparent.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI): For Small Printers

By Jason Manosh and Chuck Gehman

Originally published in TAGA Proceedings 2002

Abstract

Supplier consolidation, budget cuts, and corporate e-procurement initiatives have emerged as a trend that even the smallest printer cannot afford to ignore. In order to remain competitive and continue to obtain business from both large and small corporations, printers must adopt new IT practices like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI.) EAI is a complex subject; there are dozens of books that address the need for EAI, and that discuss implementation strategies. This paper will focus on the small Print Shop (SPS) and its need for developing an EAI system to do business with corporate customers, despite the inherent challenges of a lack of IT resources at a typical SPS.

Definitions

We have defined the main terms used throughout this paper as follows:

EAI - "EAI is the unrestricted sharing of data and business processes throughout the networked applications or data sources in an organization." (eCRMguide.com, 2001)

SPS – Small Print Shop, an acronym we have created to use throughout this document, a sub $50m printing company.

BizTalk – A server-based software product from Microsoft Corporation that provides a low cost, accessible way for small business to implement EAI EDI - "Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) may be most easily understood as the replacement of paper-based purchase orders with electronic equivalents." (Clark, 1998)

XML – “The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web.” (w3.org, 2002)

UN/EDIFACT (EDI for Administration Commerce and Transport) - “The only EDI standard that is truly accepted world-wide. EDIFACT provides standard formats for business documents and incorporates features that meet international requirements.” (SAA Consultants, 2000)

ANSI X12 – “The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 develops standards for cross-industry electronic exchange of business information.” (ASC X12, 2002)

*Printable Technologies, Inc.

Introduction
More than ever before, the systems at the SPS need to communicate, and integrate with, the systems of their corporate customers. Corporations who want to conduct substantially all of their purchasing via their own e-procurement systems, using software and services from e-procurement vendors (i.e., Ariba, SAP, PeopleSoft) are becoming more and more commonplace. These corporations are demanding that all of their vendors receive orders from these e-procurement systems, in lieu of the former practice of using faxed purchase orders and acknowledgements. This makes it critical for the SPS to obtain the ability to exchange the equivalent of these documents electronically with the corporate customer, or potentially lose the business to a more technically astute or larger competitor. This makes EAI a necessity for the SPS.

In addition, forward-looking SPS are now considering ways to leverage IT to create value-added services, increase their own profit margins, streamline order handling and decrease turnaround times. By using EAI, the SPS can work with their own suppliers more closely through information exchange, to communicate order information downstream to their distribution partners and shipping companies, and to seamlessly offer additional products and services (a very basic example would be promotional merchandise like Hats and Key Chains.)

Another trend that has started to become prevalent in the very large global corporation is the corporate document repository (i.e., Documentum,) which may contain tens of thousands of corporate documents. The SPS needs to interface seamlessly with these types of systems so they can perform functions like Print-On-Demand. The concept of printing “on-the-desk”, “down-the-hall”, or “down-the-street” has taken hold in corporate America, and these corporate customers want the flexibility of being able to choose output options and service providers with ease.

Finally, the same tools for EAI that provide for inter-enterprise data exchange, the most commonly addressed form of EAI, also provide interoperability between machines and other software systems within the SPS itself. For example, it is possible to use an EAI system to share JDF compliant documents from an ordering system (e.g., Printable) with a print management (or MIS) system (e.g., PrintCafe.)

The state of inter-enterprise document exchange today

For the most part, EAI has been out of reach for the average SPS to date. That does not mean that entrepreneurial small business owners have not found ways to accommodate requests from corporate customers for this type of functionality.

Some of the ways that small print shops have been solving these problems up until now has been a combination of EDI, and islands of web-based-systems. Neither EDI nor the web based systems in and of themselves accomplish the goal of implementing a flexible EAI system.

EDI is a powerful tool, and the introduction of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) messaging system in 1973 was nothing short of revolutionary. SWIFT is responsible for “creating a shared worldwide data processing and communications link and a common language for international financial transactions.” (S.W.I.F.T., 2002) Since that historic initiative, most large corporations have required their major vendors to participate in their own or industry-sponsored EDI initiatives. However, EDI is a legacy technology, developed when many of the capabilities we have today were simply not possible.

Obviously, the interactive Web has also changed the way people do business. Nevertheless, these days, simply typing an order into a Web Site no longer fits the corporate customer’s idea of "integration". Closer integration and exchange of database information and documents is required. In addition, corporations require the ability to track, report and data mine the relevant data acquired with these exchanges.

The majority of SPS use off-the-shelf software to run their businesses. These applications perform tasks like simple estimating, accounting and shop floor management. Since most SPS do not have strong internal IT staff, developing custom systems to integrate with corporate EDI-based systems is out of reach for most SPS, both monetarily and because of skill sets.

XML and Interoperability

EDI overcame some major hurdles in the quest for inter-enterprise data exchange. However, EDI documents are based on a “punch card” like format, providing no flexibility for the new kinds of information that are being transmitted today, and the unknown but undoubtedly rich data formats of tomorrow. The computer and software industry is addressing these shortcomings by the development and widespread application of XML formats and technologies. Figure 1 is an example of an EDI document format, showing the limitations of the use of such formats.

Figure 1: This is an example of the X12-850 document format an EDI purchase order.

XML addresses many interoperability issues between disparate systems, but XML documents can also be very complicated. Both XML and EDI is machine generated. The big difference between EDI and XML is the explosion of support for XML standards, and specifications. There are also many tools widely available to create, read, and exchange XML compliant documents.

Figure 2: This is an example of an XML compliant document.

Integration Opportunities

It is surprising that today, with the level of general excitement in the computer and software industry about XML, the most prevalent format for inter-enterprise document exchange is still EDI, both in corporate America, and, in fact, worldwide. According to one source, “Ninety percent of U.S. Fortune 500 companies use UN/EDIFACT or X12 solutions, with similar adoption levels in Europe. Roughly only six percent of all other companies in the world are EDI enabled.” (Vasters, 2001) However, more modern e-procurement systems are making inroads. These are systems like Ariba, Commerce One, PeopleSoft, and SAP.

This underscores the opportunity for the SPS to develop a flexible EAI system. Not only are EAI systems an opportunity to increase revenue, but they will allow the SPS to remain competitive in the emerging technology-oriented corporate marketplace. More and more corporations will implement e-procurement systems to do their purchasing with both their large and small vendors. Without support for EAI, the SPS will be at huge disadvantage by not being able to “electronically” accept orders and exchange information with corporate customers.

Here are few examples of some relatively simple integration points:

§ Purchase Orders

§ Purchase Order Acknowledgement

§ Shipping Acknowledgement

These are the lowest common denominator of document types, which, corporate customers will seek to exchange electronically with vendors. This is the initial level of integration that the SPS should target. Being able to exchange this information electronically will allow the SPS to level the playing field with larger suppliers’ initiatives to serve corporate e-procurement needs.

Data Mapping

The information that needs to be exchanged is typically already stored in a database of some sort at the SPS (i.e., an inventory system, an accounting program, or a simple flat file database application like FileMakerPro,) and similarly, in an enterprise system at the corporate customer. The SPS could attempt to store their data in the same format as their large corporate customer, so they could provide their customer with, for example, updated shipping data using a technology like Open Database Connectivity (ODBC,) “A widely accepted application programming interface (API) for database access.” (Microsoft, 1999) This technique will not scale, however, because once the SPS obtains another large corporate customer who wants to do the same sort of inter-enterprise exchange, that customer will come with his or her own unique database structure and requirements. The SPS would then have to modify their existing database to meet the needs of their new customer, or worse yet, create a new database, and modify their online ordering system for the new corporate customer.

It is evident that this would be an unrealistic goal for the SPS, considering IT resources are most likely very limited. The SPS needs a way to translate data stored in their own ordering system to the multitude of e-procurement initiatives on the market today. This is called Data Mapping. Flexibility in Data Mapping is extremely important to consider when creating an EAI system.

Figure 3: Information from the SPS database needs to be entered into the corporate customer’s e-procurement system

By using Data Mapping in an EAI system, we are able to seamlessly and with minimal (or no) human intervention, transfer information from our database to our corporate customer’s database, and vice-versa.

Example

A corporate purchaser logs into an internal intranet purchasing system and places an order for business cards. The information (in the form of an electronic Purchase Order) is transmitted to the SPS’s online ordering system (along with the metadata for the business card), where the order goes into production.

Once the SPS accepts the order, an acknowledgement fires-off back to the corporate e-procurement system in an agreed-upon format (i.e., ANSI X12.)

Finally, after the order ships the SPS system sends a message (again, in an agreed-upon format) back to the corporate e-procurement system so that payment to the SPS can be processed.

Figure 4: Example of EAI in process: a corporate Intranet, showing Ariba catalog interface, and Printable catalog order in progress

This is made possible because the SPS in this case has implemented a flexible EAI system. Once the EAI system is in place, the SPS needs to work closely with their corporate customer’s IT department to arrive at a format that they can accept (in the previous example, cXML was used, because of the corporate user’s choice of the Ariba Network.) ANSI X12, a comma separated flat-file or XML may also be required; therefore, flexibility and support of multiple formats is key. Table 1 shows some of the common industry-standard document formats that SPS can use for communication with corporate customers using an EAI system.

Document Format	Description	Used By
PIPs - RosettaNet Partner Interface Processes™ (PIPs®)	Defines business processes between trading partners. (2002, RosettaNet)	RosettaNet
cXML - Commerce XML	cXML is a streamlined protocol intended for consistent communication of business documents between procurement applications, e-commerce hubs, and suppliers. (2002, Commerce XML)	Ariba, Clarus, VerticalNet, others…
CBL - Common Business Library (a.k.a., xCBL)	A set of XML data tag definitions and schema language framework designed to extend the usability of XML in e-commerce. (2002, Commerce One)	Commerce One, SAP
JDF – Job Definition Format	JDF is a comprehensive XML-based file format/proposed industry standard for end-to-end job ticket specifications combined with a message description standard and message interchange protocol. (2002, CIP4)	Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, others…
PrintTalk	PrintTalk defines the communication between print management systems and e-commerce applications. PrintTalk supports the JDF standard.	Printable Technologies, Heidelberg USA, others…
PML – PaperHub Markup Language	PML is a new protocol for Internet-based commerce between buyers and sellers of paper and printing products. (2001, XML.org/Zap Think)	Appleton Papers, others…
PDML – Product Data Markup Language	Product Data Markup Language (PDML) is an Extensible Markup Language (XML) vocabulary designed to support the interchange of product information among commercial systems (such as PDM systems) or government systems. (2001, XML.org/Zap Think)	Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Motors, others…
CSV – Comma Separated Values	A record layout that separates data fields with a comma and usually surrounds character data with quotes. (2002, Atomica)	Microsoft Outlook, Excel, many others…
EDI FACT - EDI for Administration Commerce and Transport	The only EDI standard that is truly accepted worldwide. EDIFACT provides standard formats for business documents and incorporates features that meet international requirements.” (SAA Consultants, 2000)	SmartWorks, United Nations, many others…

Table 1: Some common document formats for inter-enterprise exchange.

Messaging

Once the SPS configures the EAI system to map data to the corporate customer’s format, then the two companies need to agree on a messaging methodology. This requires technical specification of both how and when the SPS and corporate customer will exchange the data.

Using bidirectional messaging, either party could initiate a transaction. An example would be Ariba sending user validation information to the SPS online ordering system. The SPS EAI system would then send cXML to integrate with the Ariba shopping cart system.

It is possible that only one party will initiate transactions, and that information will travel in only one direction. For example, the SPS online ordering system sending their corporate customer a shipping acknowledgement in XML. It is important to note that with EDI, you typically have a precisely scheduled delivery time, or more specifically, an exact date and time. For example, a corporate customer may only allow exchange of X12 850 documents from SPS at 10:00 p.m. on the 28^th of each month.

With legacy EDI systems, the aforementioned scheduled (or synchronous) document exchange was commonplace. Today the trend is toward the real-time asynchronous exchange of documents, so systems on both sides of the transaction have the most up-to-date information possible. Therefore, an EAI system implemented by the SPS needs to guarantee the delivery of all data in real-time. In addition, with the goal of no human intervention, this process should be automated using software that provides an Asynchronous Message Queue (i.e., MSMQ: Microsoft Messaging Queue.) Table 2 shows the most common communication protocols that the SPS EAI system should support

Protocol	Description	Purpose	Suitability
FTP	File Transfer Protocol	Binary or ASCII file exchange	Good for Batch Transfers
HTTP	Hypertext Transfer Protocol	Internet Standard for non-secure transfer of Data	Basic exchange over the Web
HTTPS	Hypertext Transfer Protocol – Secure	Internet standard for secure transfer of data using encryption	Secure exchange over Web
SMTP	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol	Standard for sending email messages	Email Exchange

Table 2: Common communication Protocols for EAI

Most IT professionals are familiar with these protocols and use them on a daily basis. The most important thing for the SPS to consider in selecting a messaging protocol for EAI is, “What does my corporate customer want me to use?” Therefore, we once again stress the utmost importance of flexibility.

Implementations

It is apparent that EAI is a very technical topic, but it does involve business development as well. To make EAI happen at the SPS, there has to be buy-in from upper management. That is because there are numerous costs involved in implementing such a system.

We have seen that the corporate customer typically drives EAI. Let us take for example, participation in the Ariba supplier network. In order for a SPS to receive orders from a corporate customer, using the Ariba network, the SPS needs to be certified “Ariba® Ready™.” Ariba® Ready™ is an “Ariba initiative to provide a special designation for suppliers who have demonstrated the ability to effectively transact with and provide content to organizations using Ariba® Buyer™ over Ariba® Supplier Network™.” (Ariba Inc., 2002) This will require high level interfacing between SPS management and Ariba’s staff.

The SPS will also need access to technical expertise in the EAI platform they are planning to use. For the purpose of this paper, we will use Microsoft BizTalk as an example of an EAI platform. Microsoft BizTalk is a good example because it represents a solution, which is relatively low cost, and suitable for use by the SPS. However, it may still be difficult to find expertise with this type of implementation, because this is an emerging technology.

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000

The BizTalk platform costs a relatively small amount of money, and provides a lot of flexibility for the SPS to integrate with multiple e-procurement and other types of systems. In addition, it is possible to use BizTalk to support printing industry specific XML formats (i.e., CIP4, JDF, and PrintTalk.) Those specific implementations are beyond the scope of this paper.

BizTalk Server requires the aforementioned technical expertise to install, but is simpler than most other EAI products. For example, BizTalk provides the BizTalk Orchestration Designer “A design tool used to create drawings that describe long running, loosely coupled, executable business processes. The XLANG schedule drawing is compiled into an XLANG schedule that is used to execute the automated business process.” (Microsoft, 2002) The output of the BizTalk Orchestration Designer is XLANG, which according to Microsoft is “a language that describes the logical sequencing of business processes, as well as the implementation of the business process by using various application services.” (Microsoft, 2002)

Figure 5: An example of an XLANG Schedule Drawing created with BizTalk Orchestration Designer

There are also many third-party add-on software products for BizTalk available today, including special adapters, XML formats, and many other enhancements. There are numerous books available on the subject of BizTalk, which go far beyond the scope of this paper. To learn more about Microsoft BizTalk, visit www.biztalk.org. “The goal of BizTalk.org is to provide resources for learning about and using Extensible Markup Language (XML) for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and business-to-business (B2B) document exchange, both within the enterprise and over the Internet.” (Microsoft, 2002)

Case Study

ABC Print is a small privately owned SPS who recently established a relationship with a Fortune 500 company, XYZ Corporation. ABC Print agreed to provide stationary at a substantially lower price than the competitors did.

There was one big challenge in winning this account: although XYZ Corporation wanted to use ABC Print for their stationery, XYZ Corporation only purchased items using their own e-procurement system.

ABC Print decided to implement an EAI system that was powerful enough to handle this complex relationship, and flexible enough to open the door to new relationships with other Fortune 500 companies. After much thought, the IT department at ABC Print decided to implement the following workflow using an off-the-shelf EAI solution:

1. When XYZ Corporation updates the design of their business cards, they populate the changes to their own e-procurement system and forward the changes on to ABC Print. After reviewing the updates to the business cards, ABC Print posts the new information on their online ordering system.
2. When a purchasing agent from XYZ Corporation places an order for business cards, the e-procurement system externalizes the Purchase Order in X12-850 format, and places the EDI document in ABC Print’s FTP server.

Figure 6: Graphical Depiction of the Translation (mapping) of an XML document to an EDI document

3. When ABC Print receives the X12-850 document in their inbox (scheduled delivery, every 2 hours), the document is converted from X12-850 to XML with their EAI system, and sent to their ordering system.
4. ABC Print’s ordering system sends a response to the EAI system accepting the Purchase Order, which is then externalized in X12-855 format.
5. Once ABC Print delivers the order, a notice is sent to ABC Print’s EAI system, which externalizes a document in X12-856 format and sends it to XYZ Corporation’s FTP server where it is processed by their e-procurement system.

Conclusion

There will come a time when small printing companies that do not have EAI capabilities will be left out of the corporate print spend. That time is fast approaching: with supplier consolidation, cost cutting, and layoffs prevalent in both the current economic downturn and the continued conservative spending likely to follow during an extended recover period, EAI with suppliers is high on the priority list of many corporations – not just for print, but for all procurement. Therefore, to remain competitive, EAI is a necessity for small and large printers alike. Fortunately, the range of affordable options and the ease of implementing these types of systems have never been better.

References

eCRMGuide.com: 2001, “The Definitive Source for Customer Relationship Management Technology”, www.ecrmguide.com

Microsoft Corporation:

2002, “Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000 - EAI Made Easy”,

http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/overview/

2002, “Getting Started with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000”,

http://microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/biztalk/proddocs/btsdocs/

1999, “Microsoft Universal Data Access Web Site”,

http://www.microsoft.com/data/odbc/

Roger Clark: 1998, “Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): An Introduction”, www.anu.edu.au

SAA Consultants Ltd.: 2000, “EDI Resources”, www.reims.net

The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12: 2002, “Developing Cross-Industry Standards”, www.x12.org

S.W.I.F.T.: 2002, “SWIFT History”, www.swift.com

World Wide Web Consortium: 2002, “Extensible Markup Language (XML)”, www.w3.org

Ariba Inc.: 2002, “Ariba Ready”, www.ariba.com

RosettaNet: 2002, “PIP FAQ”, www.rosettanet.org

Commerce XML: 2002, “cXML FAQ”, www.cxml.org

CIP4: 2002, “Information about JDF”, www.cip4.org

XML.org/ZapThink: 2001, “XML Standard Reports”, www.zapthink.com

Atomica: 2002, “One source for integrated answers on demand”, www.guru.net